Muffled Watch

I was always seeing things as a boy. No one ever believed me - no, they refused to believe me.

The ghost man had appeared in my room every night as a child, with his sickly, pale face, and filmy, blue eyes. My journals and school books were filled with crude drawings of him. He followed me everywhere, like an omen; church, school, even the rare trips to the park. Yet no one could see him when he did, not even me. But I felt him. He would hover over me; ice cold breath on the back of my neck was a constant reminder of his unearthly presence.

By the time I was ten, there were at least eight doctors who had given up on me. No one believed me. No one could get me to not see him. There was one doctor, the ninth or tenth, who managed to hang around a bit longer than the others. Mind, he did not last forever. I remember the last time I saw him. He shook his head in disapproval and convinced my parents to send me to the permanent special hospital. I could tell he was angered by this; a suffocating cloud formed across my vision if I even glanced at the doctor from then on. The next day, my parents told me that I would be unable to see the same doctor, for he had resigned.

The people in the hospital were not mean, but rather unemotional and stoic. Their faces held no reaction as they jabbed me in the arm with sharp tools filled with strangely colored liquids, fed me liquid food out of boxes, made me drink red and blue and black liquids that stuck in my throat and on my tongue and left me exhausted. Every thing was liquid, especially the upheavel of my stomach contents, due to the side effects. 

The ghost man visited me in my dreams.

Before, he would just come to me at night in my room, right before I fell asleep. But he didn't want to be caught. He started coming to me in frightening night terrors, telling me things I didn't want to be told, trying to get me to do things I didn't want to do. These dreams are the catalysts for the incessant ticking that rang through my ears, day in and day out. It was muffled, like a watch wrapped in cotton. It got louder and louder, always rising above my shouts and screams for mercy, which would soon be followed by nurses and doctors rushing in, rushing in and covering my mouth and a sharp pain in my neck and - darkness.

That is how I spent my teenage years.

Eventually the ghost man stopped visiting in my dreams. It was gradual, but I noticed it, and I'm pretty sure the doctors noticed it, too. Those filmy, blue eyes soon dissolved from my memory for a long, long time. The ticking ceased. 

On my eighteenth birthday, I was released from the hospital. I could not say I miss it, even though the white walls and white jackets and liquid everythings were all I had known for eight consecutive years. My parents had me move back in with them after I was released. They kept a close eye on me. They did not want me to meet any new women; I couldn't be running off and getting married just yet.

Two years later, a few months after my twentieth birthday, they met a man; a landlord of sorts. He was wealthy and owned quite a big lot. The house had a lot of rooms, I was told. My parents were excited. The man is a retired doctor and he agreed to look after me. My stuff was hastily packed into suitcases and boxes and shipped off to the house. This is where I stand now, after all the time of being confined within pale walls. I will be living here for quite a while; or so my parents hope.

Walking up the cobblestone path, my head tilted back in awe at the grandiosity of the house, I can't help but feel a little queasy. I feel this strange tugging in my brain, as if it is trying to tell me to turn and walk away. But my parents' carriage already disappeared down the dusty road, and there is no way I am going to be able to drag all of my suitcases and boxes back to their house. Shrugging it off, I continue my venture towards my new home.

The big, wooden door, placed perfectly in the middle of the façade, creeks open and an old face pops out.

I gasp. "No.."

My feet surrender motion as I notice the filmy, blue eyes of an old, pale man staring out at me.

"Welcome to your new home." Says the ghost man.

Tick... tock... goes the sound of a muffled watch.