Do not enter my house, I am a psycho

The launch of the book was a complete success, who would have thought that a book based on sleeping problems and entitled "Sleep no more", written, edited and published by an unknown author could even sell more than a hundred copies, and yet, the sales during the first week placed me in the first spot of sales in the country on all digital platforms. Therefore, and thanks to the positive impact, a publisher was interested in getting physical copies printed of my work and even translating it into other languages, and although this meant an extraordinary and quite surprising achievement, I was not happy at all.

The scientific field was simply not my passion and although I am a researcher by nature, science is not my happiness. I seemed to be trapped in a marriage where even though you strive to be a good husband and father, you quietly hide your unhappiness to not destroy all the work and dedication achieved during years of relationship. Hundreds of beautiful and horrifying characters, colorful and gloomy, flat and complex’ones, had been trapped in drafts that no one but me had ever seen flourish because they stayed on pages hidden in computer files as if it were a crime, a dark and disturbing secret.

Sometimes I felt like a homosexual guy living in a homophobic family. With both of my parents dedicated to neurosurgery I had felt the pressure to dedicate myself to the same field, simply to please them or perhaps just to please my own and absurd need to feel that I was pleasing them. Who was I really pleasing to? I was not happy, Did I say that before? 

"Sleep no more" was my seventh book but the first one that promised and got some commercial success and good reviews. Did success matter to me? At that point, it only satisfied my frustrated ego.

My parents organized a celebratory toast with some family members and friends, the seventh celebration in the last ten years of work, but the first in which none of the attendees, this time more crowded, was smiling forcibly in an attempt to sympathize with my failure. 

This time, everyone uttered positive phrases or compliments like "I knew this moment would come", or "all the work was worth it" obviously, they omitted that my previous books were rubbish and they only meant wasted years. Some even dared to express to me "I am proud of you" as if feigning happiness was an invaluable merit.

I think I drank more liquor than my body could bear and yet I remained firm in my false convictions, I even dedicated a short speech to everyone present in the party room of my parents' house, thanking them for their company and unconditional support throughout my journey. How much hypocrisy came from my lips! Evidently, everyone smiled and applauded with satisfaction once I had finished my speech with a phrase by Sigmund Freud: "We are the Masters of our silence, we are slaves of our words.”

After midnight I decided to leave that circus of freaks where the main attraction was me. My drunken state did not allow me to drive, so one of those present took me to my house, outside the city, away from civilization and surrounded by gigantic trees that silenced the noise with the whispers of the wind.

- You know I do not invite anyone to enter - I clarified - But thank you very much for bringing me home.

My cousin, like the rest of my family and everyone who knew me fairly, was aware of my acute neurosis regarding the presence of third parties in my home, said nothing but emulated a false smile whose meaning I already knew " Poor sick man, something must be hidden in there, that's why his girlfriend mysteriously disappeared ”. 

In any case, my ex-girlfriend just left.

They say that people who study the mind and its behavior tend to have more problems than other people do, and maybe it is true. I suffer from a strange obsession about my house, that prevents me from letting someone to get into unless they intend to live with me, “home is just for those who live there” I think. I receive visitors in the courtyard, I even arranged the installation of a bathroom outside so no one enters my house. My behavior was even part of my third published book, obviously no one read it except for about 15 weirdos who bought a copy and my parents who criticized me fervently for the way I presented the book "Do not enter my house, I am a psycho in your absence."

I juggled the keys but in the end I was able to embed the right one in the lock and using all my strength to hold myself onto the threshold I was able to cross the entrance and slam the door. Stumbling from side to side, I crossed the living room, but in the midst of the sonorous agitation of my breathing I heard strange and insistent noises coming from the basement. I walked slowly to the stairs that lead to it and waiting in silence I recognized the meow of my cat that appeared running in the shadows. The dizziness reminded me that I needed my bed or I could roll down the stairs if I kept trying to discover the deadly silence underground. 

The alcohol took effect on me and I fell asleep on the bed for a while, only until the insistent screams of a woman and the sharp knocks of a chair against the wall woke me up. I had to get up. It was almost 4 in the morning

I ran to the basement, it was obvious that all the fuss was coming from there. I turned on the dim lights in the hallway, discovered the padlocked metal door, and before I got close I sighed deeply the dry, deadly air. I heard them beg.

- You can't leave us here! - Shouted a woman.

- Free us! - Another continued.

I tried to ignore them, but their screams and wails grew louder as if they came from inside my brain.

- If you are not able to kill us all, let us out then. - One implored.

- There is a corpse rotting here. - Another complained as the angry buzzing of the flies echoed in my ears while they escaped under the crack of the door.

I tried to go back and ignore them, in the end, I had done it for over ten years.

They cried, screamed, pleaded.

- Do something! You won't be able to sleep until you do something. Please Dad! - One of them, furious, hit the door with a chair.

I knew that they could not escape from the room, but I also knew that I could spend the rest of the night listening to their wails. I thought about leaving the house for a few hours, but I was not in the mood to do that either.

- You won't be able to keep us a secret forever. - Another shouted, almost destroying the door.

I walked into the room, they calmed down as they listened to me insert the key and doubtfully turned the lock.

I opened slowly.

There was no one inside, just a table, a notebook, and a pen.

The message was clear. My neurosis sought to free itself. I sat down, picked up my pen and finished the story that would mean my book number eight, my first sensible, honest and sincere book: a story, a novel, without scientific facts, without exhaustive research, simply creativity, passion, art.

They all got free as I freed myself.