I got a job in San Diego not too long after the pandemic settled.
It was in exciting time, but I was also anxious about finding a place
to live. I didn't have that much saved up, so I had to
find somewhere a bit more lenient to newcomers. I signed up to all kinds
of lists and tenant groups, but most leads were dead in the water.
The only places within my price range had in a no pets policy, and
I couldn't bring myself to rehne my cat, Marmalade. Poor thing was just
a year old and a complete Marma's girl. After weeks of searching, I
stumbled upon a landlord with a vacant spot. He hadn't even got the time
to list it. All I'd seen was a post about a cheap apartment.
I messaged him spontaneously and asked about it. Turned out out the previous tenant
had passed away. It was on the fourth floor, not too far off
Main Street, and surprisingly cheap cap friendly too. He offered me a deal.
If I paid for the clean up crew, the place was mine.
I couldn't say no. Once the place was cleaned up, I met up
with my new landlord and got the keys handed to me. My new place
was on the top floor of this beautiful old building made somewhere back in the
fifties, cool stone, tarred floors, spacious ceiling, and plenty of sunlight
coming in from the body sized windows. There was a sort of French balcony
with a little space to smoke or a mini garden. There was a large
living room area, a tiny kitchenette, and a cramped little bedroom on the
sunny side. It wasn't much, but I could see myself growing attached to
it. You could tell it was old, though. There were all kinds
of little quirks, a lock that you had to jiggle, pipes that rumbled
a little whenever you took a shower, and you could immediately tell if one
of your neighbors was smoking because of the terrible ventilation. It was far from
perfect, but for that price at that location, I couldn't ask for a
better deal. The one thing that dated it more than anything else, however,
was the strange seventies wallpaper. This intricate floral pattern covered most of the
living room along with the western wall of the bedroom. A dark gray bass
collar with lines of white rose tulips, sunflowers, all in variations of silver
and blue. Beautiful in a sort of primitive Art Deco kind of way,
but you could tell it was old. I promised myself to get it replaced
if I were to live there long term. It didn't take long to move
in. I didn't have much in the way of furniture, and I didn't
really have the money to bring in something new. I figured i'd settle for
what little I had for the time being, instead of focusing on getting used
to my new job. I was working as a full time consultant for a
telecom company, mostly focusing on process management and evaluation. Might not sound that
interesting, but you get a lot of wiggle room to really switch things up
for the better. Postpandemic. We were on a routine of a single weekly
meeting and the rest could and would be done from our home office. It
felt kind of done to force people to come in once a week just because,
but if I wanted the job, that was the deal. Marmalade got
settled in that place long before I did. She found a sunny spot next
to one of the big windows. I set up a cozy basket for her
to snuggle into. I, on the other hand, was having trouble sleeping
those first few nights. I lay awake at night staring at the ceiling.
I'd lose myself in that view, sort of like when you're looking down into
dark waters. You can't really see where it ends. It is just this
perpetual nothing, and you can imagine it continuing forever. That first week went
by in a flash. I had my first meeting and got my first assignment
process assessment at one of the branch offices in Pittsburgh, long distance than in
person evaluation at the end of a two month cycle. Nothing I couldn't handle,
but said office had a sort of reputation for being unmanageable. It was
the kind of assignment you throw at someone to see if they got the chops
for it long term. That first day was mostly meet and greets, with
a tiny after work at one of the shek downtown bars. It was mostly
an excuse the crack a few cold ones, and on Monday, my colleagues
were a few decibels louder than I was used to, so I ended up
sitting mostly in the background, learning to appreciate a small label dark punkin Ale.
The next day, I was in full work mode. I set up
my laptop with a view of my awful wallpaper to make it look a bit
more office like. Marmalade wasn't moving from a new favorite spot by the window,
so there were no fuffy tales in the way of my webcam. I
had a long talk with the branch manager, along with a few technicians,
to just sort of dip my toe in the water. They were all courteous
enough, but I could tell they had been put through the ringer a couple
of times. This wasn't their first assignment, and it wouldn't be their last.
By the end of the day, I was talking with one of the
salesmen, a woman named Deirdre. At that point, i'd been in constant
zoom calls for over four hours and my voice was giving out. Deirdre could
tell I was exhausted, and we just ended up talking about other things instead,
my apartment, my job, my cat. I had to bother Marmalade
a bit just to show off. Deirdre showed off her feline companion, a
three year old rag doll named Popeye. Ironically, that call ended up being
my longest, but it went by the fastest Deirdre was a gem. I
spent most of my time setting up questionnaires and mapping out the overall structure,
bouncing emails all the way down the supply chain, trying to get a clear
picture of the main issues. It was the same old story that I'd heard
a hundred times before, management blaming the salesman, the salesman blaming the warehouse,
and the warehouse blaming the technicians. There were little hitches all the way
down the road, ranging from dated inventory systems to useless red tape. After
the first few days, I started getting into a routine pingponging between meetings and
Excel spreadsheets. Marmalade and I made their apartment into a proper home. Chinese
tacot boxes started lining the kitchenette, and I had a few extra talks with
Deirdre just to pass the slow hours. I started getting used to that place,
even the awful wallpaper. I stopped hearing the rumbling pipes after a while,
and the cigarette smoke from the neighbor slowly blended into the background smells.
I stopped waking from cars passing on the street below, and my first paycheck
went into making the living room walk like something that could actually be lived in.
I remember one night when I was working overtime, I got a late
email about submitting a progress report, so I had to stay up making a
presentation. I found myself by the opinion that this was looking more and more
like a management issue. Who the hell sends this kind of email at four
fifty pm on a Thursday, expecting it to be done before lunch the next
day? Unbelievable. I was done by about ten pm. When I shambled
away from my laptop. I picked up a can of cat food for Marmalade
and walked over to a favorite window. Only she wasn't there. Her bed
was still there, but Marmalade had moved to another window, still sleeping soundly,
but she found a new favorite spot. It felt strange in a way,
like the entire apartment had shifted a little. Looking up at the wallpaper,
I could have sworn the patterns had moved. It looked identical, just
a bit off. I could have sworn it was different despite looking exactly the
same. It was a strange feeling. Everything felt familiar with that one little
twist made it feel like a new room. Or starting to doubt myself when
looking at Marmalade out of a basket. However, it was clear that something
was different in some way. The next few days I started to notice this
shift in new ways. The walls would look different at night. Where at
one point I'd see a sunflower, I'd see a rose the next day.
Then again, I wasn't ever really sure, and I chalked it up to
me just not paying attention. Marmalade would move from spot to spot, never
really sure what her favorite ever was. One night, she couldn't settle in
at all, instead moving from one window to the next, yawing at me
anxiously. That night, as I lay awake, I had my eyes firmly
fixed on the wall. I could imagine the patterns moving on their own,
the many flowers gently swaying to an invisible wind. It was just that kind
of unreal surrealist thought you catch just before you fall asleep. But in that
moment I could have sworn it was real living. Even as I closed my
eyes, I imagined the dark gray background color to be as deep as an
ocean, a darkness stretching into a distant nothing. The next day, as
I was making my morning coffee, I noticed something peculiar I stepped on a
dry blue petal. I couldn't explain where it came from. I had no
flowers in my apartment, and the ventilation was so bad that it could barely
rotate. Air flower petals were out of the question. Marmalade played with it
for a while, and I convinced myself that it was just something I dragged
in. Still, it reminded me of a flower pedal from the Blue Rose
and the wallpaper. He made me anxious, but I couldn't figure out why.
What was I even worried about. I couldn't let that thought go for
the rest of the day, that I was missing something obvious, or maybe
that there really was something to my strange paranoia. So at the end of
the day, when I talked to Deirdre, I brought it up. I
explained that there was just something inherently creepy about living there, like an uncomfortable
thought tickling your neck when you're not looking. Deirdre tried to reassure me her
chuckle coming through my headphones. It takes time, love, she said,
you just got here. Besides, everything looks strange in the dark. Yeah,
I just can't shake the feeling, you know, I explained, like
there's something more to it, like what. I didn't know what to answer.
As I stepped into the living room, I noticed Marmalade rolling on the
living room carpet, casually playing with another blue petal. Turning on the lights,
I could see more of them, over a dozen dry blue petals lining
the edge of the wall. Finally, I could tell I wasn't going crazy.
This wasn't a one time deal. That was real. Marmalade didn't seem
to mind, though. I'm going to have to get back to you,
I told Deirdre. Something came up. As the call ended, I started
scooping up the petals by hand. The moment my knees hit the floor,
there was a power surge. It was all so quick. A flash of
black Marmalade hissed, looking straight past me. I could hear a rustling noise,
like a large animal moving through a brush. As quick as it had
come, it went, leaving only a startled cat and my elevated pulse behind.
The lights were slapped back on with a click, blinding me. Marmalade
retreated to behind the couch while I picked up the rest of the petals.
For a moment I just stood there, staring at the many patterns, petals
in hand. I could imagine the gray sinking deeper and deeper, showing me
something past the obvious, like one of those images you have to look at
cross eyed to see the truth. I had the same sensation, like I
was missing something obvious. I can imagine hearing things deep in an imagined forest.
I could hear branches snapping, I could imagine the blue flowers swaying in
the wind, and somewhere in that depthless dark, something roamed, something looking
for an exit. At some point I snapped to attention. There was a
loud electronic noise and alarm. It was already morning. For some alien reason,
I'd been stuck there for hours, just staring at the hypnotizing patterns,
an entire night's rest gone. It wasn't until I stepped away that I realized
just how exhausted I really was. My legs had locked in place, killing
me over straight to the stone tiled living room floor. Marmalade rushed over,
worried about this sudden development. I spent a few minutes just sitting there,
calming myself down. The ringing from my cell phone was going strong, trying
to give me enough time to shower before my first morning meetings. And yet
I just sat there, slowly petting my cat, my eyes bobbing in and
out of sleep. My body deprived. Where had I been all night?
What had I seen? I barely made it through that day, having a
forty five minute nap over lunch. By the time I finished my last interview,
I was a shell of my old self, barely conscious. I filled
Marmalade's food and water bowl and crawled into bed with all my clothes still on
the moment my eyes closed, i'd hear something in the distance. In the
half world between sleeping and waking, I heard breaking branches, owls taking flight,
and something large approaching. And despite knowing I was well and truly alone,
my body screamed at me to wake, to have one more lock,
just in case I did. I forced my eyes open. Something sharp scratched
against the stone tarred floor, something retreating in haste, A trail of dry
petals leading right up to the side of my bed. After a night of
dream asleep, I woke up to choking on something. It took me almost
a full minute to cough up a blue petal several of which had been sprinkled
throughout my bed. I could have sworn the wallpaper looked a bit lighter,
as if several flowers were looking sparse. The whole wall looked a bit darker.
That morning, I'd had enough. I called in sick and brought up
my tool box. I started scraping off the wallpaper, piece by piece,
across the entire apartment. I made a day of it, listening to music
as Marmalade looked at me curiously. Every illustrated petal and stem dropped to the
floor, cut by cut, like trimming a paper garden. By the end
of the day, my wall was laid bare, revealing nothing but black lead
painted concrete underneath. That night, after a long shower, I went to
sleep with wallpaper remains still lining the edge of the room. Finally I could,
I could look past the hypnotizing patterns. It was done, gone over,
Except it wasn't. As I went to sleep, my eyes drifted to
the barren walls, a black, eternal night, now unhindered by what little
paper thin barrier had been erected. Just looking at it gave me that feeling
in my stomach like I was falling forward, even closing my eyes felt brighter
than staring into it, like it was more than a color a place.
At some point in the night, I heard this loud yell. Looking up,
I could see Marmalade sitting at the edge of my bed, staring straight
at the wall, hissing and raising a hackles. Looking straight ahead, I
saw something there, deep in the dark of the bare wall. Something moved.
I swooped up Marmalade, who clung to my shoulder like a parrot.
I threw in my pants shirt and got my bag. I'd had enough.
I wasn't about to stick around to find out the depths of what was either
my own sanity or something unnatural entirely I didn't want to know. As I
entered the living room, I stopped dead in my tracks. Every single wall
had turned a midnight black. The windows had fogged up from the inside,
blocking the moonlight from peeking in. I ran my hand along the wall,
looking for the door. Something cold bumped against the palm of my hand a
finger. I recoiled, almost dropping Marmalade in surprise. I couldn't see my
door. As I looked around trying to find my bearings, I slowly came
to the realization that nothing was quite as it should. The kitchenette was further
away, the windows were further apart. The proportions of the room were off
and seemingly shifting every time I blinked. It was as if everything in that
darkness was untrue, malleable, subtly shifting as soon as I looked away,
and so was I. Looking down at my hands, they seemed different with
every blink of my eye. They could be older, younger, scarred,
masculine. It was impossible to tell. It was just diffuse enough for an
anxious mind to fill in the blanks. But it felt like more than that.
It wasn't just the fear of the dark. It was the dark changing
me. Finally, I fumbled my way to the front door. I pulled
it open, and there was nothing, just the solid black nothing. The
apartment was getting darker, even the windows were turning black. The kitchen sink
was running, pushing forth dark, nondescript globes, all of which had this
peculiar chemical smell like ammonia. Marmalade was freaking out. She clung to me,
digging her claws into my shirt, hissing at something in the dark whenever
I turned around, the room would look different, swallowed further and further by
the night. I could see vague silhouette hands reaching forward, some small,
some impossibly large. I can imagine creatures the size of skyscrapers, tiring forward,
impish, little nipping at my heels. I curled into a ball on
the floor, clutching marmalade close to my chest. Together we stared down anything
and everything, creeping closer. But I was losing My light was dying.
It was all going dark. Then I felt a rumble. I'd forgotten my
phone was still in my pants, bringing it out. I had a new
message from Deirdre, the little screen lighting up, a little bubble around me.
I wasn't even on the floor anymore. I was sitting on a pile
of dry grass and blue petals, and I could see the edge of a
dead field stretching out around me in all directions. A wind cut through me
like cold glass. And there really were things moving out there, some big,
some small, all vague and horrifying, waiting for me to look away
long enough to take shape. Hey, Ann, I heard you were feeling
under the weather, so I just wanted to check in, get plenty of
rest. We'll talk soon, it played again and again. I filled my
head with a voice and my eyes with that little light the phone struggled to
provide. I could feel Marmalade's pulls beating against my neck. Something would brush
against me, a light kick against my foot, footsteps rushing past. I
saw nothing, but they were there, hidden in the dark. We'll talk
soon, deatrous message repeated for the tenth time. I don't know how long
I sat there, just waiting for the dark to pass, but nothing came
of it. The battery was dying. As it reached the final few percentages
of power. There was little left for me to do. The light was
shrinking. I couldn't hear Dedre's message anymore. Marmalade was yelling like crazy,
hissing and striking at something unseen. As the screen died, I felt the
chill of the world descend on me. In the silence, I could feel
something approaching, something careful and calculated. I couldn't see it, but I
could feel it smiling at me, leering eager. I was panicking. My
skin fell like ice, and I couldn't feel my fingers. I held Marmalade
close to me, and in a last ditch effort, I flung my phone
into the dark. Glass shattered. I'd thrown it through the window next to
the little French balcony. A beam of morning light broke through. I turned
around to an empty apartment, the layout exactly as I'd remembered it, the
kitchenette still running, torn down, wallpaper lining the edges of the room,
Marmalade's favorite bed still by the window, and the many Chinese takeout boxes still
left unattended, just as it should be, except every inch of the room
was covered in dry blue flower petals. Needless to say, I didn't stick
around for long. I moved out to the branch office where Deirdre worked and
ended up staying there. We're still best friends to this day. I haven't
been able to talk to a lot of people about what happened that night.
I get the sense that whatever lived in that dark space was just waiting for
someone to tear down that barrier, that hedge of flowers and patterns, something
waiting to pull me into a dark place, never to return. Poor Marmalade
hasn't been the same since. Her fur has turned a matted orange, and
she's a lot clingier than before. She's okay though, she's a happy cat,
but it'd be a lie to say she hasn't changed. The same can
be said about me. It isn't a single obvious thing, but I feel
like there are things about me that aren't the same. My eyes look darker,
my fingers longer, my teeth sharper and whiter. She just enough for
me to notice and remember. In my new place, my sleep with the
lights on, I try, nodded, look too closely at the wallpaper,
just in case.