A Scent of Gray

I'm in a small room. It is old, and it’s dingy, and there is an odor to it, something subtle, a scent of... gray. I look around, trying to get my bearings. It’s like I’ve been here before, but not quite here. It’s disorienting. The first thing that comes into focus is a bedspread, dull and drab brown, like that dreadful coffee you get from a convenience store.  Then I see the wallpaper, which is a dark, depressing version of red, muted and faded, like dried blood. There are off-white stripes running down it from ceiling to floor, like thin, inlaid strips of bone. I can't even tell what color the carpet is, other than that it once had a pattern to it, a long time ago. But it's really the dust, gray and clinging to everything, that gives the room a surreal feel, like the room isn't really here. 

There’s more here as I look around; a minuscule table with a ratty chair in the corner by the door; faded curtains on the window. I hear one of those noisy air conditioners mounted high on the wall, punching a hole through the cinder blocks and making that god-awful racket indicative of its species. There is a bright red glow outside the old-fashioned eight-pane window, casting a garish, almost hellish light across the room. Strangely, the gray of the dust seems untouched, like it’s sucking up the color, wicking it away, like unwanted sweat. A cheap hotel is almost a cliche, seedy and squalid, in a bad part of town. There is a part of my brain that smiles and thinks, “Perfect!” This thought surprises me.

The scene seems to shift, like time just skipped and I notice something lying in the middle of the table. A pair of ballerina shoes, child-sized have appeared. I suddenly know they were set there with purpose, not tossed there randomly. They look new, unused. They are important… to someone. With a start, I realize that they are important to me. The shoes remind me of innocence and purity. They're bright pink and they are free of the omnipresent dust that covers the room. They stand out against the drabness of the room in the same way that a neon sign stands out in the darkened window of a bar. It's jarring. It's disruptive. “It's beautiful!”, comes the thought, unbidden. I find this disconcerting.

The room looks musty, if something like that is possible. Can something look like a smell? I suppose it can. Aunt Bobbie is constantly saying that she loves the smell of green. So, it stands to reason that if something can smell like a color, then something can look like a smell. There is something new and odd to the way this room smells, like children. No, that's not quite right... It smells like something a child would play with, like cheap candles. It smells like crayons. Odd that I would think of that. It seems like forever since I played with crayons, drawing my mother pictures of dogs and airplanes and superheroes fighting evil. I always wanted to be a superhero. I wanted to swoop in and save someone, to fight the villains. I wanted to fight evil. The memory of it makes me deeply sad.

I know this room, this hotel from somewhere, but I can't remember. It's like something from a dream, or a nightmare that I can't remember having. None of this makes sense. My thoughts are foggy and they run into one another, smashing together like two clouds, each losing its shape as they create a fresh form and float away. That's what thinking feels like here. Like trying to hold on to water. My thoughts are like wet bars of soap. The second they appear, I grab hold, squeezing as tight as I can, only to have them squirt away, lost. 

I feel both connected to this place and, yet, disconnected at the same time. It confuses me. I feel, more than I know, that something important happened here. I'm not sure what, but it was big, life changing, life altering. The pink shoes catch my attention again, but this time there is a flash of something, an image. She's small and blond, and she looks like an angel in her tutu and tights. She's holding the shoes, and she's smiling. The image quickly fades and I almost cry out. Not fair! Come back! And then it's gone. 

The smell of crayons returns and this time I can see the same little girl sprawled out on the floor, the coloring book in front of her. She’s coloring a picture of a mouse in tights and a cape. Silly picture, that. Her feet kick back and forth through the air, and it's easy to see that she is happy. She looks up, and the vision breaks up like so much mist in a breeze. I want to cry. 

These memories don't feel like mine, but they are vivid against the drabness of the room. They feel wrong, too. These things did not happen, I am sure of it. Just as sure as I am that they did happen. I'm not sure how, but this makes perfect sense.

A vision forms a third time. The little girl is lying on the floor, so still. Her stillness does little to hide the sheer terror in her eyes. She is afraid; more afraid than any child should ever be. I feel the pit of my stomach go ice cold. There is something very wrong here and the gray of the room shifts toward black, dark and sinister. Finally, the image fades and the black recedes. I am afraid.

The terror grows as the next scene appears. I see the ballerina shoes fly across the room, landing under the table near the window. They are no longer perfect, speckled with bright red spots. The box of crayons spilled carelessly under the bed. I can't bring myself to look up, but some irresistible force draws my eyes to the bed. The little girl is there, bound head to toe, and she is screaming. Her little voice shrill, almost beyond hearing. It echoes in my ears and I want to claw at them; I want to stop hearing. As my hands come up to my face, and I see the knife. It glints and shines and it is alive, an extension of myself. There is a Beast in me and it thirsts. No, I thirst. I can feel the undeniable longing welling up from somewhere inside, somewhere deep and evil, and it sickens me. I want to vomit. I want to expel these thoughts, these desires out of me, but nothing happens.

I am moving toward the bed, the knife cradled lovingly in my hand. I want to scream out to the Beast, knowing that he... that I will never hear me. The Beast is relishing the fear; he craves it, like an addict craves his drug. I am repelled. I try to take control, try to turn myself away from this atrocity, but nothing I do has any effect. 

Time stretches out and I am forced to watch in slow motion as the Beast's hand, my hand, propels the knife downward, slashing the girl's neck wide open. I scream silently as I watch the life drain from her eyes, as the blood now spreads slowly across the bed. I feel hollow and empty, and I want to scream, but, again, nothing happens. Oh, God! Don't let this be who I am! I feel the sorrow surge forward and it burns, it consumes me. I am sick. I am twisted. I am the evil that I wanted to rid the world of. This final thought stays with me and I am disgusted. More than anything, I want to die.  

Slowly, the scene fades, leaving me with the memory of the horror I just witnessed, the horror of what I am, burned into my thoughts like a brand. This wound, like the one in that little girl’s neck, is open, ragged, and I know that it will never heal. Things fade to nothing, and for one blessed moment I cease to be. Then the world shifts and changes again...

I'm in a small room. The room is old, dilapidated, and there is a smell to it, a scent of... gray.