The Thing in The Corner

I am tired.

I am so tired.

I run my hands through my hair and move to open the blinds all the way, letting the last of the sunset into my apartment. I switch on all the lights, even the small one in the oven and the one inside my closet. 

I feed my fish, watch the bubbles rise from their pale lips. The little red one snakes quickly around the tank while the lazy gold one hides in the artificial plants. I dip a finger in the water to make sure it isn’t getting too warm in the stuffy apartment. It’s not, thank god. I wash my hands thoroughly in the bathroom. I realize then that I’ve already fed them twice today.

I water the plants and pluck their dead leaves. I unhook the hanging kokedamas, the Japanese moss balls that I made myself, in the kitchen and soak them in a large ceramic bowl. It takes me a minute before I notice that I’ve forgotten to place the kokedamas in the water and that I’m just staring at the tap running into the bowl and the water spilling over the sides. After soaking for some amount of time because I forget to keep track, I let them drain on the empty dish rack until no more water drips then hang them once more.

I go to the bedroom and stare at the thing in the corner and ask it for the hundredth time if it will please leave me alone. It, like every time I’ve asked before, ignores my words, simply staring me down.

I sweep my whole apartment, besides that corner then vacuum all the rugs, even the little, threadbare one in the front entryway. I have trouble remembering which I’ve already done because my brain is so full of fog, but I think I’ve got them all. Standing on a chair, I dust the door frames and clean the seal of the windows. The place has never been cleaner than it has these past few days because I am creating distractions.

I take all my medications out of their different bottles and swallow them one after another like lemmings jumping off a cliff. I dry swallow them because if I had a glass of water it would be too easy to swallow more. Without water, I’ll know when to stop, and then I will stop. I line the bottles up carefully on the shelf behind the mirror.

The thing has been there for four days and I have not slept since it appeared. Fear, dark and cold and deep, oozes from its body and worms into my skull. Its presence makes me almost manic with fear but it won’t go away and I have nowhere to go. I live life, pretending that it is normal, so I don’t go absolutely eyes rolled back, tearing off my skin crazy.

I tried to leave the house. I have no friends, no family. I rented a hotel room but when I climbed in bed, it was there in the corner staring at me with its small, shiny eyes. With fumbling hands, I had called room service and when the man showed up with my food, I asked him if anything seemed off about the room. He had stared dead into the corner and for a second I was elated because someone else would confirm my misery, but then he shrugged and said, “Not really. It’s just a little cold in here.” But even if that man couldn’t see it, I know the thing is real. I am convinced that nothing my own mind could conjure up could possibly make me feel this type of animal fear. 

Four days, or more accurately four nights and five days, is a long time to go without sleep. It is so long that I can barely focus on my silly little chores and find myself nodding off for a few seconds before I pull abruptly awake. The record for staying awake is eleven days but it only takes three or four to hallucinate. And I am hallucinating now. Nothing big but I see little faces and colors and shapes popping up where they shouldn’t and it reaffirms even more that that thing is real because it is nothing like these little hallucinations. The hallucinations pop out of sight when I try to focus on them but this thing seems to get more solid when I stare into its eyes that are as shiny and hard as marbles or chunks of metal. So I don’t look at it and don’t go into the bedroom where it waits for me to finally cave and fall asleep. I can’t keep this up much longer.

My head keeps dropping as I try to watch tv and my vision is going bleary. I drag my bones to the bathroom and turn the water as cold as it can go then step into it. It takes me a minute to realize I’m fully clothed. Almost frustrated at my undoing but too exhausted to really care, I sigh and pull them off. The cold is cutting but it’s not enough. Eventually, I know my body will just shut down. 

Even so, I can’t keep living like this. I called out sick on Friday. Even with the thing in my apartment, I was too exhausted to leave, but it’s Saturday night and there is no way I will be able to go to work if I don’t sleep before Monday. I need this job.

Stepping out of the shower, I stare dead into the mirror and am terrified by the hollowness in my cheeks and the weight of the dark circles hanging beneath my eyes. My eyelids are swollen from fatigue. I touch my hollow cheeks and try to remember when I last ate. Yesterday morning. I realize that my aching eyes had canceled out the aching in my stomach. 

I don’t feel comfortable changing clothes in front of the thing, and haven’t been changing them at all, but now that they are soaked, I venture into my room in a towel to collect dry ones.

The thing’s shiny, hard eyes stare at me. I can feel the fear pulling at me like a current, beginning to drag me under.

“Please let me sleep,” I say and my voice is hoarse. “Please go away.”

It stands in the corner as silent as a golem and I stay pressed to the opposite wall, creeping like an insect to my dresser then sprinting out of the room. I slam the bedroom door and press my back against the wood, breathing shallow, quick breaths that escalate to a panic attack, the maniacal fear pounding against my temples like someone frantically knocking on a door. I slide down the wood, still wrapped in the towel and press my palms against my puffy eyelids, trying to find composure. It takes a long time but it comes eventually. Unfortunately, as soon as the panic subsides, the aching exhaustion comes back. 

I am so tired. I’m so tired of being awake. Of being afraid. I am so ashamed to be huddled in a towel with my back pressed against my bedroom door. 

Over the past few days, I have wondered how I could possibly kill this thing. I don’t believe in God so there was no point in prayers or holy water and burning sage didn’t affect it in the slightest when I lit some in the bedroom on the second night. I am not even sure if the thing is corporal, if I could stab it or strangle it, but physically fighting it is the only chance I have so I resolutely dress and go to the kitchen where the sharp knives are kept. I pull the largest one from the block and almost drop it because my hands are shaking and my palms are slick with sweat. The fear is so intense that it is almost a physical weight but I have no other choice. I have to get it before it gets me. 

Back in my room, the fear intensifies. Blood screams in my ears and my heart pounds in my throat. The room is freezing but I drip with sweat. It takes two hands to lift the knife and even so it's unsteady but I point it in the direction of the thing in the corner and scream, “What are you waiting for? Come and get me!”

It doesn’t move.

“Come on!” I climb onto my bed and, like every time it thinks I’m about to sleep, it unfurls from the corner and begins to creep towards me. “Come on!” 

The fear and exhaustion is pushing me towards insanity and stars pop before my eyes but I swing the knife in a wide, wild arc. I miss the thing but, to my surprise, itshrinks back, scuttling back into the corner and seemingly cowering.

The fear melts but the manic remains back and I rise from the bed, stabbing wildly at the air. 

“Leave me alone!” I scream at it. “I’ll kill you! Let me sleep!” It shrinks smaller and smaller in the corner, compressing itself. It looks up at me with those shiny, shiny eyes which are even shinier because… 

I raise the knife high above my head.

… because it’s crying. 

“Oh…” I stop with the knife still raised, quivering. Then I realize something. I’m not afraid of it. It’s strange and unknown but it’s not threatening. Its fear was just infecting me. “You’re more afraid than I am.”

I set down the knife on the floor and reach out to it. A small hand unfurls from somewhere on its dark body and it gently grasps onto one of my fingers. 

“I’m tired,” it says and its voice is soft and hoarse like mine. 

“So am I.”

Together we walk to my bed. How could I have been so afraid of it when it was so afraid of me? I climb into bed and pull the covers around my fragile body. The thing curls up beside me like a cat. I can hear it breathing softly as it shuts its shiny eyes. I can finally shut mine.

I have a feeling it will be gone when I wake up.