SHORT STORY 1

Stockholm syndrome and split personality

By Adam Blair

I don’t quite remember a before time. I lay me down for dreamless sleep beneath a sky of splintered wood, with stars of rust. My life is simple, a privilege I don’t deserve. I’m here to please my savior, my lover, my king. Nothing will take me away from him, nothing ever. I love every splendid second I spend even the parts I don’t remember. Sometimes though he gets mad, and when he gets mad he says he has to take things away so that I learn. I can go without food for a bit, but what I hate losing the most is opening the window. Feeling the breeze through the bars looking out to the night, dreaming of me and him dancing in the moonlight. I hear him play music sometimes and I dance with my pillow and pretend it’s him. He says one day I can come out and we can be amongst heart traitors.

Every syllable that passed through her thin red lips, was tinged with lies. She knew that I had figured her out. But I kept silent, I kept still rationalizing how she could do this and still love me. I take pills to fall asleep, if I don’t I stay awake and detox in a cold sweat of failure, shame, and anger. I can’t take it, I can’t. I won’t do this anymore, and I’ll make sure she doesn’t do this again. I wait until she smiles in her sleep, I take the knife and thrust into soft alabaster skin. Once for every lie, and for every notch in her bedpost after mine. Her beauty on the outside matches the inside now. Her fragrance lingers through the over whelming smell of iron, sweat, and tears. What I think is my loves carcass returns to life for a brief moment. And cold hand clutch my, in a cacophony of bubbles, and gargle sounds she utters something. I can’t make it out the first time. I lean in closer, she opens her mouth and sprays warm blood on my face. I can’t help but smile, first time she’s made me smile in long time. Then she says what I always knew to be true….

   An emaciated ray of sunlight sneaks through a small chip of paint. It bathes my face and wakes me up. If angels could wake people up, it would be soft and gentle like this. I don’t know what I dream, so I just pretend its happy things that I and he do as a family starting out. I hear him come down the stairs so I get into prayer position.  We make love hey says, and tells me I like it, and I do. I just wish he would let me see his face when we do but I never do. He fills the bucket with water and has me clean up. He unlocks my safety chain that protects me from the evil outside. We eat breakfast like a family. It’s nice to have these memories they keep me warm.

I buried her underneath my basement she ought to be close to home. Rest in peace my love, a shameful death I granted you, a shame you brought upon yourself. I lost track of time but within the year that followed I learned what I had to do. What I needed to do for love. I needed to be the master, I should always be in control. As I drove around pondering my future I saw her. I thought it was a ghost, had I gone mad? I turned around and let out a sigh of relief. It wasn’t her, but the resemblance was undeniable. It could be a second chance for us. I had to take her, she’s the one. I’ll take her out of the light, where it’s safer. I can make her happy.

I feel the chain drop, and there’s a pause from him to see if I’ll react. He knows how it works, when I come into he knows he can’t take chances. He says it’s a joke when I fight. I’m getting better every day I sneak out at night when she falls asleep and I dream of a life beyond for her. So innocent still and so jaded she has no idea who I am or what he really is. A monster, he really is the boogey man. But there are chinks in his armor he doesn’t think I see them I do. He knows that it’s me and not his precious servant. He asks me if I want to eat or get jabbed with a cattle prod until she comes back. She’s just a kid, I keep it that way she made me for this to save her. And I will, but not today I’m hungry and need my strength. I enjoy our chats together, he thinks he’s so smart. But he doesn’t know anything. He would be the mouse in the maze that goes for the electrified cheese every time. My time will come soon. Be it clean and swift, or slow and messy I will get satisfaction, I will gaze upon his still corpse as it turns white like a January sky.

Until I put her down there, it was an empty house with nothing but the silence that lay bellow the floor. Now it lights up with screams and it makes my heart dance. What a wonderful feeling to be alive. Ill protect her from a world of pain and she will show me what it’s like to love again. Time passes and we grow close. She understands why she is here and embraces everything. But to my chagrin I met her twin. But only in appearance she was a much different girl, independent, feisty, she does not understand what I’m trying to achieve and she fights me every step of the way. I don’t know what else to do besides buckle down and punish both of them. Poor sweet love of mine doesn’t know about her sister. I don’t want the evil in one half of her to spoil the good in the rest of her. I tolerate her and sometimes she’s docile and just asks questions. I don’t know what she thinks she can achieve but I will break her, I will make sure that she’s buried so deep within my angel she suffocates.

I scrape the plate for crumbs and make sure there isn’t a morsel left I need what I can get. Foolish girl when she gets punished always wants to keep the window and does away with the food. If I could share my memories from before with her she wouldn’t be this way. He has poisoned her but I’ll get her back and we can escape back into the city and cross the river beneath the bridge. I’ll keep here safe with me, she’s empty and so beautiful, as I watch her burn in this putrid, humid, hell called home. I let my guard down for too long and I feel her waking up. As I slip away I whisper a silent prayer on the inside that I come back soon….

I feel full, I don’t remember eating but I know I did. I’m not in trouble and he smiles at me when I wake up. He tells me has a present for me. He goes upstairs for a bit and turns the music on. He comes down and tells me he’s going to teach me to dance. I close my eyes and pretend were a big royal ball and everyone is watching us. I pretend that I cast a spell where everyone plays dead forever and it’s just me and him. Someday we will find a way. I step out of line and he gets angry. I ask if he wants me to pray and he says he’s too disgusted. It’s my fault I should know better. I punish myself so that way I learn. Sometimes though I can’t hold back the tears and when they come I just sleep.

It so hard molding the perfect love. It’s simply a matter of training. Trial and error to determine strengths and weaknesses. She needs to be proper so when I take her away she’s perfect. It’s the other one that worries me. Unpredictable and clever, sometimes she can pretend to be my sweet heart so well that when I get close she claws at my face. If I can’t have what I want then she will never get her freedom and although it pains me to say I will destroy and rebuild with a new one. This is what the edge of your seat was made for, isn’t it? Push the limits of life and love, dance with death in the moonlight.

It doesn’t seem like much time has passed she must have gotten sad and gone to sleep. No matter here I am, good thing somethings going on up there. I’ve never heard this much movement up there around this time. That fuckers planning something I know it. Maybe he’s finally gotten tired of me and decided this whole thing was a wash. Come at us mother fucker. You think I’m weak? I’ll rip out your fucking eyes, and when you’re screaming in agony, spitting the blood out of your mouth as it cascades from your eyes. I’ll sit and smile and watch you thrash about your own hell like a shoe in a dryer.

I keep pacing around, my mind flooded with possibility. So many different paths to choose from. I can leave her down there, I could wait until she’s asleep, or maybe if I bring up the good one she will be so overcome with love she’ll finally let that violent one go and finally be submissive. I think I’ll try that route no use making a mess out of things. Why shed blood when I can just have what I want. Should she ever get out of line I still retain the option of course. Well no need to change anything really up here. I could show her a wooden barn and she would lose it. Well then, time to change and shower and see if we can’t get this derailed cluster fuck of a relationship fixed.

He stopped moving, I don’t know how much time I have I’ll have to pretend to be her. He asks if I want to come up stairs for a bit and talk. Something is for sure fucked off. What are you planning sick fuck? We sit down in the kitchen. You never think you’re going to miss things like a stove or a spatula, just normal things. But you do, maybe not them specifically as it more just what it means. An actual life, focus stay strong I remind myself no time to for things like this. You have a part to play and if you pull it off you can have all thing things you want out of this world. I’m not going to let this prick fuck my life up.  As I nod and mile and see from the corner of my eye my opening.

She seems to be docile she smiling and saying all the right things it’s hard to tell which one it is. I want to believe it’s my beloved but it could also be that trashy harlot with the foul mouth. Talk like that is reserved for men in duress, or with other gentlemen not for a lady to speak like that. She asks me for a glass of milk, I figure why not maybe this will seal the deal so to speak. As I’m getting her the milk I’m reminding her of the life we will have away from the heart traitors, and sinister people of this world set out to hurt us. Then I feel it, it’s so quick I barely skip a beat. Then in one sudden and dramatic jerk I feel it. The pain in my body and heart are over whelming. I stagger a bit and slip to the floor and look above me into the eyes of a monster.

I stared down at his tiny little eyes he look like he’s seeing his end, he is. What kind of dumb ass leave kitchen knives out like that. Just free and clear for kidnapped girls to grab and stab their attackers with. I mean c’mon it’s like something out of some cheesy movie or story.  I walk around the kitchen, he’s down for the count I have time to peruse. I really want a melon baller, to do the eye scoop thing. I really think that would be the perfect end to this. And I can listen to him crash around his own house while he is bleeding out. I can’t find the melon baller but there is a small peeler, the old ones with the all metal handle. I get to work and you think it will be easy. But it’s more than easy. His eyes turned to puree due to the peeler, I don’t blink once during it. I dialed 911 and when the operator came on I put the phone on speaker and set it down. I spat on him and through his screams I told him what I’ve always wanted to tell him.