“I’m so sorry Khedlar, it must have been awful. Your daughter and Sally dying before you had a chance to fix things,” he declared while glancing at the door.
“Yeah, true, but somehow I think that day they came back to the house she had no intention of talking to me. She was just getting her stuff. But one thing which lingers in my mind is why did that man kill them, and why not me as well?” I asked this more to myself than him, as I contemplated the abstract facts in my mind.
“Well now you have a chance to start afresh and have a new life,” Shawn said trying to be encouraging about my current, dismal situation. It was obvious that the conversation was making him feel highly uncomfortable but I selfishly just wanted to talk and to feel like someone understood me.
“Yeah. I’m looking forward to that. Thanks so much for sorting everything out for me. The shopping was good thinking, here’s a hundred for your trouble.” I gave him the money and he placed it in his wallet. At this point I knew trying to converse with Shawn was a lost cause and expressing any true emotion to him was futile.
“It’s getting late and I’m sure you want to relax and unwind so I’ll leave you to it. You have my number if you need anything, see you later,” he said as he tied his shoe laces and stood up. His speech seemed to speed up as he stepped closer to the door.
“Yeah, thanks again,” I said as he walked out into the wind and the rain.
In reality I had nothing to thank him for, all I had tried to get from Shawn was a conversation and yet his wife’s pie was more important to him than my shadowed circumstance. So much for friends, I knew there was no such thing as friends, what a waste of time people were in general. Although I was happy to see him leave it left me alone, completely alone.
Once he had left, the house fell deafeningly silent. I got up and I walked around like a lost soul, drifting from room to room, every step unbearable. What am I going to do I thought to myself?
I dumped the bag with my clothes in the bedroom; all I could smell was her perfume. She’s here, I thought. I was convinced that her soul was trapped within these walls. I began to get hot, I started to feel dizzy in myself so I lay down on the sofa and passed out.
At first I saw a face that I couldn’t quite make out. I didn’t recognize who it belonged to, the pupils were dilated and the uneven skin set dark solid shadows on his face. “Who are you?” I asked curiously. The face came closer and in an instant it was a person. He was an ugly midget holding a chainsaw. The reason the shadows had blacked out parts of his skin was obvious now. He was grotesquely deformed. I tried to run away from him to my old house that was two streets down from me, to the old farmhouse I had been raised in. It followed me. His small stumpy feet were kicking the gravel behind him as his bowed shaped legs moved rapidly towards me. He stomped, hobbled and ran all at the same time with surprising accuracy and speed. How he didn’t overbalance and fall flat on his sneering, ugly face was a mystery even to me. He kept on screaming “Your brother warned you not to come into the woods!” as he let out a sinister laugh. My fixation was suddenly on the chainsaw and no longer on his wind-up, toy legs as he pulled the cord to start it in motion. It’s serrated blade rotated round fast. I was unable to run, I had no choice, I had to kill him, and it had to be done. I looked to my left and saw an old shovel by the cabin door. I forced my legs to move as fast as they could. Outrunning this thing, this evil deranged midget. I reached the cabin door, pulled the shovel from the grounds clutches and struck him in the face. His facial skin started to bleed as the chainsaw fell from his hands. His body fell to the ground with his legs twitching in the air like an epileptic cockroach. A puddle of blood was the only thing that remained where his body should have been. The midget was gone, I had killed him!
I woke up to find myself standing outside the door of the cabin with the key in my hand. I must have been sleep walking. I stood there barefoot as the gravel imprinted painfully onto the souls of my dirty feet. I had no idea how I’d gotten there. I decided it was about time I started to get some answers, even if it was nearly two a.m.
The key shimmered in the illuminating moonlight as I placed it into the key hole. ‘I can do this, just take a deep breath and turn the key,’ I told myself, as the lock clicked and the old wooden door squeaked on its hinges as I pushed it opened.
It was pitch black inside, I slowly crept in cautiously to search for the light switch. I knew it must have been somewhere near the door. I placed my hands on the wall and they fumbled around in the dark. I felt nothing but crumbling, damp plaster. Then I discovered something wet under my fingertips. It exuded a sickly sweet smell, a smell of death. I jumped back to only feel another wet area on the wall and finally found the light switch. I flicked the light switch on and what I saw next, was sick, mentally sick.
My eyes took a while to adjust to the sudden input of the cabins bright light. Through levels of smoked out vision, the view gradually became clearer, it made my heart stop as my mouth dropped in dumbfounded astonishment.
The walls were covered, no, as a matter of fact they were plastered with photos. There was an array of photographs of me, my wife and my daughter. Photographs of me as a child playing at school, at home with my parents at Christmas, my graduation, my wife and me at the restaurant where I proposed to her … There were pictures of my daughter Sue being christened and playing in the park.
As I looked at all of them I began to get dizzy, the only thing which rotated in my mind was who could have done this and why would they do it? This is sick!!
I had to sit down and cradle my head in my hands for a while just to take in all that I had seen. I felt like someone had been watching us all these years and I had never realised it. Who or what was this person after? A feeling of anger once again consumed me. I had disillusioned myself in thinking that I had ever been in control or that my life could ever have been anything remotely normal. Now just to top it all off, I was the side-show freak that some creep was taking pictures of. I wanted to burn it all along with any feelings I had felt for my wife Sally.
As I began to raise my head up to view the walls once more, to try to make sense of it, my eyes caught sight of something I recognised, the metal box. To be precise it was my brother’s box. I remembered seeing my bother bury the box in the woods not far from this cabin.
This intrigued me. Why is that stupid box here? I asked myself. I didn’t leave any time to think, I found myself moving closer to the box, fuelled by curiosity. The box looked untouched by time; only a thin layer of dust lay upon it. I paused for a moment and looked at the photos around the room; they were also filmed with dust but as I looked behind me I could not believe my eyes. There were photos of me in the asylum that did not hold the dust of time and so whoever had taken these must have done so recently. I shook my head in bewilderment and I diverted my concentration back to the box.
I picked it up and wiped the dust off, staining my hands with dirt. It was locked. I looked at my watch and realised it was nearly three a.m., so I decided to take the box home and try to open it there. I walked back through the woods. The air was so fresh it made my skin tighten and a chill ran down my spine. I held the box tightly against my chest, wondering what was inside. I walked about ten minutes before my house came into view and all I could think was, what does this box contain? Perhaps it hid a clue, or some sort of secret.
I opened the door to the house and walked straight into the sitting room. I placed the box down on the coffee table and stared at if for a while as the image of all those photos played out in my mind. My brain was numb from exhaustion as I tried to work out how to open it. The visual overload had burnt out my mind.
I got a good fire going as the room was chilling me to the bone. As soon as it was blazing I felt a lot warmer in my skin. I started to examine the box. It appeared to have a very strange lock, one I realised that couldn’t be opened by normal methods. As I sat down on the couch I felt something digging into my leg. I ran my hand into my back pocket and pulled out the ke
y to the cabin. I examined it over and over, thinking, what am I missing?
Slowly I began to see something odd about the shape of the handle. It had tiny indentations on it, the back of the key was the perfect shape and size to fit inside the lock of the box. This was the key that would open the box, it has to be! I pushed the back of the key into the lock and with a loud click it was open. The lid squeaked as I opened it slowly. It was an eerie, forced sound as the box revealed its possession; a folded piece of paper. It was a birth certificate.
As I read it I realised it was my birth certificate, except it had one major discrepancy. Under birth parents’ names was written Georgia and Bernard Clemont. Is this supposed to be a joke, I thought? But something told me this was one of the most real things I had seen in a very long time. Then, it really hit me. I must have been adopted!
I’d really had enough for one, long sleepless night! This was insane and I decided to put an end to it until my body had had the sleep it was aching for. I warmed myself by the fire for hours as I lay on the couch watching the flames consume the wood. My mind became light as my eyes became heavy and I drifted off into a deep sleep.
Chapter 17
Who Am I?
While I slept the day brought me a dream in which I was I baby. I heard loud noises around me, shouting, crying and a strange feeling of vulnerability. The dream seemed to go on for hours and yet I never got much information out of it. Who were the people crying and shouting? Could this have been a latent memory that was showing itself through my dream? Why was I a baby? I tried desperately to stay inside the dream but visually everything was black.
I woke up to the sound of a knock at the door. I got up feeling strange in the surroundings of my house. I found my bearings although the disorientation of the dream made me feel clouded as it smothered the clarity of my mind. I made my way to the front door. It opened to reveal a lanky, salt and pepper haired old man with a bushy, bristling beard. He stood in front of me with a red side bag over one shoulder.
“Hello Mr Slater, good morning to you. I was told you were back home but I just wanted to check before I put the post in your mail box.” He had a suspicious look twinkling in his tired blue eyes. At first I thought what a nosey parker he was, but then the need for human interaction persuaded me to actually converse with this over-expired, sad excuse of a mail man.
“Yes, I am back in the old house again. Tell me, what’s your name? Is it Gary?” I asked in a patronising way.
A big smile monopolised his lined face. “Yes, that’s right sir, Gary at your service.”
I must say he had a cockiness in him that suddenly gave me an idea. “Tell me Gary, would you mind waiting two minutes while I write a quick note for my aunt? I’ll pay you for your trouble if you don’t mind doing me this favour? Come inside, it won’t take long,” I said inviting him to wait in the house.
“No sir, that’s fine, no problem and I wouldn’t dream of taking money for a favour. Just give me the address and I’ll deliver it personally.” He walked into the sitting room behind me and waited as I wrote a few lines asking my Aunt Morgan if I was adopted and why. Just as I passed the note to Gary the thought did occur to me that she might be dead by now, but I was on a mission. I needed to know and at this point I could not leave any dead ends.
I shook Gary’s hand and gave him the letter to deliver. He went on his way and I thought that this could take a while as I watched him slowly ambling down the road.
Alone again; what could I do now? I know, I will go back to the cabin and see if there are any other clues that I might have missed.
I made myself a rushed cup of coffee. The full-fat milk that Shawn had bought for me floated on the surface of the dark liquid. I could taste the globs of creamy milk as it coated my dry tongue. I needed to wake up, today would be the first step in getting some answers. Next I walked up the stairs to my room, our room, the place that used to feel filled with happy memories but now only showed shadowed vibrations of the arguments we’d had. I opened the wardrobe and looked at my collection of clothes, all matching, perfectly ironed. It brought happiness to me as it was one thing that had stood the test of time. I got dressed and made my way down to the front door. The echoed words of Sue saying ‘I love you daddy,’ made me pause within myself. I turned the handle and left quickly, I knew it wasn’t real.
The weather was fairly mild, people passed by me, my focus was getting to the cabin and it was so fixated that nothing else mattered. My senses were numbed and at this point I knew I couldn’t live in any level of reality until I knew what my reality was. My mind took snapshots of things around me and yet I connected no relevance to them, it was all a streaky blur.
It took a while for me to get to the cabin. I had wondered on my way there if what I’d seen last night was even real. I walked down the gravelled path, the sound reminded me of the evil midget from my dream and how I’d killed him. The cabin came into view, standing out from the trees. It was firmly placed with weeds growing around its edges. The cabin did not possess the eeriness it had in the early hours of last night but it did have an air of mystery about it.
I opened the door and walked in, bracing myself for the impact of seeing those photos again. I stared in astonishment as I found that all the invasive images had been removed! Not one, tattered old picture remained on the walls! So someone must have come back here, but who? Who is trying to mess with my mind? What kind of deranged individual would get satisfaction in doing this to me? Could it be him, could it be our deformed triplet? Is he alive? Was Demetrius right and were his stories real?
I paced back and forth thinking about who could have had access to this cabin. I wondered if that box had been placed there for me to find or if it was supposed to have been a secret someone wished to hide from me. Even though I’d inherited the old farm after mother and father died, I had never felt the want or desire to step foot on the grounds of my childhood abuse. Just owning it made me feel sick. The person who was doing this couldn’t have been Demetrius, I doubt even he would have wanted to return here himself. It must be someone else and so I was faced with an intruder. A person who had not only violated my family’s privacy but now wished to invade my mind.
I locked the cabin door behind me and walked back to my house, completely submerged in thought. I hated the white hell I’d been locked up in, but ironically I now missed it. Everything looked clean there but now there was dirt all around me, I felt like my drug-free mind couldn’t rest. It was all so incredibly painful. I felt like my skin was crawling with the germs that monopolised every inch of space that surrounded me. My chest was tight as the air squeezed reluctantly into my lungs. The lack of oxygen made my head feel so compressed that my vision blurred. The endless possibilities of why I had seen what I had seen were cutting out logic so deeply from my racing mind.
I walked into the house to hear the sound of the telephone ringing; I was exited thinking about who it could be. The excitement wasn’t in regards to a useless person but rather of what else was left for me to discover. I picked up the receiver to hear the familiar voice of Aunt Morgan. She sounded quite upset.
“Hello Khedlar? Is that you?” she asked in a panicky, broken voice.
“Yes Aunt Morgan, it’s me. How are … ,” but before I could ask how she was, she interrupted me.
“When can you come to my house? I think it’s about time we talked. I have something to tell you. Certain things your mother never wished to discuss.” Her voice was now firm, she sounded like her old self, clear and to the point.
My heart was now racing. I looked at my watch; it was one o’clock on the dot. “I can be there at one-thirty if that’s okay Aunt Morgan?” I asked trying not to sound too desperate for the information I craved.
“Fine, that’s fine, I’ll get some lunch ready for us. We can eat and then we can talk about these things. I’ll see you then.”
That was it, she hung up and the line went dead. Half an hour is all I have I thought as I ran up to the bedroo
m. I opened my wardrobe to find all my clothes. It felt so overwhelming to have so much to choose from, so I selected an outfit that would make me look smart when I saw Aunt Morgan. It had been years and I was adamant to make a good impression on her, I needed someone on my side. I got dressed as fast as I could and called a taxi.
It arrived in ten minutes and this time the driver was an extremely butch-looking lady. She had short black hair and a very broad face. I had to look at her a couple of times just to convince myself that the woman’s voice was coming from this very convincing male body.
“Where to my love?” she asked in a common tone. Her lack of vocal boundaries made my lip twitch as I tried not to vomit in her manly face.
“To Sands Fare Court, in town. You know, St Bernard’s Road?” I reeled this off in a brisk fashion.
“Okay, okay, I know the place, relax and I’ll get you there in a heartbeat,” she said as she put the car into gear and accelerated away from my house.
I really tried to relax but I found myself getting more and more unhinged by the thought of being late. We entered the town and every traffic light was on red. Red was what I was beginning to see. I had to get there now! It was already twenty-five past one. Just as my frenzied thoughts turned to kicking the taxi driver out the car and taking over myself, I saw my aunt’s house just down the street.
I got out of the car and walked up to the stoop in front of her house. It was an old Victorian style building, structurally sound and exactly the same as how I remembered it. The anticipation of what was to come was driving me utterly insane. Was Aunt Morgan aware that I was adopted? I thought as I swiped my hand over the birth certificate that was in my left pocket. I touched its creased lines under my fingertips. The feeling of its betrayal tainted and singed me deeply in the darkest chambers of my heart.
Psycho-Analysis: The Beginning Page 14