to the laptop, its side-light telling me it wasn’t asleep yet, no. That it was waiting for me.
What I’d seen, what was there, it was—but it couldn’t be.
A boy, about twelve. Washed-out and black and white. Skinny, shirtless, his pants just hanging off him.
RJ in sixth grade?
I wanted it be him, yes, because our summer romance wasn’t over. Then he could be the fourth time around the boulder, right? The app only hits hyperdrive or whatever after satisfying 1, 2, 3, and a strange fourth, which, like Cedric had been for him, could be somebody close to you, dead. A blood sacrifice, to lubricate those doors that shouldn’t open.
But it wasn’t RJ.
RJ would never pull a lampshade over his head and stand there like that, just waiting for me to see him.
It was my dad when he was a kid. I knew. All his anger, his rules, his haircuts and talks, it was all there in the empty spaces between his ribs. The muscles that hadn’t grown in. The bruises, the white lines of old cuts, burns above the sleeve lines.
I shook my head no, please, not him, not this.
Anybody but him.
But it couldn’t be, either.
I was still being stupid, like with the mirror. Had to be.
I breathed down to a rate that didn’t scream panic, watched my hand cross that bedspread space between me and the laptop, and opened it.
The image was gone, the hall empty again.
Was that worse or better, though?
“Mom?” I called out, then called again, louder, and then my phone shook in my hand again, stiffening that whole side of my body.
“No, no,” I said to the phone, and only opened it because I was afraid it was going to ring if I didn’t, which would definitely set me screaming, kickstart the kind of feedback loop I could never claw my way back from.
There was no image on my screen, no lamp-headed boy.
Just the app, waiting, primed. Insisting.
I turned the phone around, to see the lens—maybe RJ had figured out how to sonar the flash to control the lateral?—and just when it got vertical enough, it snapped a takeback pic of me.
I dropped it again, but it was still plugged into my laptop.
The image resolved on my screen.
It was me, like it should have been, but behind me, instead of the glare of my wall, my posters, my bulletin board, there was all this open space. Years and years of emptiness to fall through.
And then the light on my ceiling fan sucked back into itself.
I opened my mouth to scream but before I could the bulb flashed back, dying, bathing the room in its fast blue light.
Standing at the end of my bed was the lampshade boy.
I straightened my legs, pushed back, away from him, and my phone rang. It was the single loudest thing ever.
I fumbled it up before its ringer could split the world in two, slammed it to the side of my head and, in her sleep voice, my mom asked if I’d been calling her, if I needed anything, where was I?
I tried to say something, to tell her, to tell her all of it, but, in the glow of my laptop screen, in the light from my phone, the room was empty again.
For now.
The Coming of Night
At first you might consider them your competition, but as the week unfolds, they will more than likely become your last resort.
And you’re not even certain they’re real, is the thing.
But isn’t that always the case?
Example: at the second bar, you noticed her because the bartender was ignoring her with the exact same level of contempt he was ignoring you. Because you were each nursing your drinks, trying to make them last. Using them in the same way a duck hunter might use a blind: to hide behind; to blend in. To go unnoticed.
Did she notice you as well, though?
You have to allow that. Underestimating your opposition, that’s a thing you only ever get to do once.
So, though it made you physically ill, made you lurch to the bathroom, risk losing the thread of the night altogether, you ordered another drink, and another after
What I’d seen, what was there, it was—but it couldn’t be.
A boy, about twelve. Washed-out and black and white. Skinny, shirtless, his pants just hanging off him.
RJ in sixth grade?
I wanted it be him, yes, because our summer romance wasn’t over. Then he could be the fourth time around the boulder, right? The app only hits hyperdrive or whatever after satisfying 1, 2, 3, and a strange fourth, which, like Cedric had been for him, could be somebody close to you, dead. A blood sacrifice, to lubricate those doors that shouldn’t open.
But it wasn’t RJ.
RJ would never pull a lampshade over his head and stand there like that, just waiting for me to see him.
It was my dad when he was a kid. I knew. All his anger, his rules, his haircuts and talks, it was all there in the empty spaces between his ribs. The muscles that hadn’t grown in. The bruises, the white lines of old cuts, burns above the sleeve lines.
I shook my head no, please, not him, not this.
Anybody but him.
But it couldn’t be, either.
I was still being stupid, like with the mirror. Had to be.
I breathed down to a rate that didn’t scream panic, watched my hand cross that bedspread space between me and the laptop, and opened it.
The image was gone, the hall empty again.
Was that worse or better, though?
“Mom?” I called out, then called again, louder, and then my phone shook in my hand again, stiffening that whole side of my body.
“No, no,” I said to the phone, and only opened it because I was afraid it was going to ring if I didn’t, which would definitely set me screaming, kickstart the kind of feedback loop I could never claw my way back from.
There was no image on my screen, no lamp-headed boy.
Just the app, waiting, primed. Insisting.
I turned the phone around, to see the lens—maybe RJ had figured out how to sonar the flash to control the lateral?—and just when it got vertical enough, it snapped a takeback pic of me.
I dropped it again, but it was still plugged into my laptop.
The image resolved on my screen.
It was me, like it should have been, but behind me, instead of the glare of my wall, my posters, my bulletin board, there was all this open space. Years and years of emptiness to fall through.
And then the light on my ceiling fan sucked back into itself.
I opened my mouth to scream but before I could the bulb flashed back, dying, bathing the room in its fast blue light.
Standing at the end of my bed was the lampshade boy.
I straightened my legs, pushed back, away from him, and my phone rang. It was the single loudest thing ever.
I fumbled it up before its ringer could split the world in two, slammed it to the side of my head and, in her sleep voice, my mom asked if I’d been calling her, if I needed anything, where was I?
I tried to say something, to tell her, to tell her all of it, but, in the glow of my laptop screen, in the light from my phone, the room was empty again.
For now.
The Coming of Night
At first you might consider them your competition, but as the week unfolds, they will more than likely become your last resort.
And you’re not even certain they’re real, is the thing.
But isn’t that always the case?
Example: at the second bar, you noticed her because the bartender was ignoring her with the exact same level of contempt he was ignoring you. Because you were each nursing your drinks, trying to make them last. Using them in the same way a duck hunter might use a blind: to hide behind; to blend in. To go unnoticed.
Did she notice you as well, though?
You have to allow that. Underestimating your opposition, that’s a thing you only ever get to do once.
So, though it made you physically ill, made you lurch to the bathroom, risk losing the thread of the night altogether, you ordered another drink, and another after
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