I don’t know where they came from. I certainly didn’t put them there, the paintings or the little statues or the empty stone plates. They appeared gradually, sitting in odd corners of my home and staring needily at me. My house was my sanctuary from the world and other people, where I went to be comfortably alone after work or unpleasant social events. They chased the solitude out, filling the empty spaces until there was no room left. One thing I do know is that they always want something. It’s an unnerving feeling, walking past one, like trying to ignore a crying child or a rock in your shoe. To assuage the sense of wrongness, I began to leave them things. Flowers beneath the paintings, a necklace or a bracelet for the statues, pieces of fruit to fill the plates.
Doing this helped to lessen the sensation of watching eyes. I had been anxious lately, between the stress of a big presentation at work, a growing sense that I was wasting my life, and this new insistent takeover of every surface in my house. Without them watching, I felt happier, more relaxed. It took a long time for me to realize that this wasn’t just the absence of a feeling, it was another that had taken its place. An overwhelming layer of calm and contentment filled my house like fog whenever I gave them gifts. Anger, sadness, fear, all disappeared. Eventually the other emotions blunted as well, until I was left with only the dull sensation of sinking into a dream. This frightened me enough to break through the unnatural serenity, and I resolved not to give them anything else.
I had developed a habit of it, bringing the gifts into my routine for over a year. Every morning after breakfast, a piece of food for the empty plates. Every evening when I came home, flowers for the paintings with their accusatory eyes. Once a week, a new trinket for the statues’ grasping hands. When I first broke my morning routine, the sense of peace began to fray at the edges. When I stopped bringing flowers, the contentment grew thin in the middle. When, at the end of the week, I failed to give an offering to the statues, the quiet snapped like a bone.
The next month was crumpled and filthy, days and details smudging together like wet newsprint. Though it had been perfectly fine up to that point, my car suddenly lost its will to live, stranding me in the rain so I arrived soaked and late to work. I was struck down by an illness, inexplicable in both nature and cause, which left me helpless for a week. Clothes tore, food burnt, my house developed an alarming set of leaks, and one frigid evening my dog escaped her leash and ran into the road. The driver swerved just in time, but he was rear-ended by my neighbor, leaving both in poor condition.
There had been no fatalities yet, but my little statues haunted me, and I could feel their eyes even when they were nowhere near. I began to see them in other places: the window of an apartment, a shelf in the back of the corner store, the living room of a suburban house in a television show. They were always shrouded in flowers, trinkets, and incense. Wherever they were, people seemed to find them. In public places, the gifts piled up as a child offered a drawing in bright crayon, or a hurried businessperson tossed money while walking past, almost as an afterthought. Each time I passed them by, I could feel the tension grow, building toward cataclysm.
Today, I’m going to buy flowers.
Doing this helped to lessen the sensation of watching eyes. I had been anxious lately, between the stress of a big presentation at work, a growing sense that I was wasting my life, and this new insistent takeover of every surface in my house. Without them watching, I felt happier, more relaxed. It took a long time for me to realize that this wasn’t just the absence of a feeling, it was another that had taken its place. An overwhelming layer of calm and contentment filled my house like fog whenever I gave them gifts. Anger, sadness, fear, all disappeared. Eventually the other emotions blunted as well, until I was left with only the dull sensation of sinking into a dream. This frightened me enough to break through the unnatural serenity, and I resolved not to give them anything else.
I had developed a habit of it, bringing the gifts into my routine for over a year. Every morning after breakfast, a piece of food for the empty plates. Every evening when I came home, flowers for the paintings with their accusatory eyes. Once a week, a new trinket for the statues’ grasping hands. When I first broke my morning routine, the sense of peace began to fray at the edges. When I stopped bringing flowers, the contentment grew thin in the middle. When, at the end of the week, I failed to give an offering to the statues, the quiet snapped like a bone.
The next month was crumpled and filthy, days and details smudging together like wet newsprint. Though it had been perfectly fine up to that point, my car suddenly lost its will to live, stranding me in the rain so I arrived soaked and late to work. I was struck down by an illness, inexplicable in both nature and cause, which left me helpless for a week. Clothes tore, food burnt, my house developed an alarming set of leaks, and one frigid evening my dog escaped her leash and ran into the road. The driver swerved just in time, but he was rear-ended by my neighbor, leaving both in poor condition.
There had been no fatalities yet, but my little statues haunted me, and I could feel their eyes even when they were nowhere near. I began to see them in other places: the window of an apartment, a shelf in the back of the corner store, the living room of a suburban house in a television show. They were always shrouded in flowers, trinkets, and incense. Wherever they were, people seemed to find them. In public places, the gifts piled up as a child offered a drawing in bright crayon, or a hurried businessperson tossed money while walking past, almost as an afterthought. Each time I passed them by, I could feel the tension grow, building toward cataclysm.
Today, I’m going to buy flowers.