The Void in the Attic

It was the first flicker of what would prove to be far too many over the following days.

They were simple enough at first, innocuous even.

The light in the ceiling of his office had flickered.

But not like the usual flicker of a bulb going out.

It was as if that part of the ceiling where the light was supposed to be opened up, showing the dark, deep attic above.

He looked at that spot for a fraction of a second, shrugged, and continued with his work.

But the next day, he had, perhaps naturally, grown curious about the strange flickering.

To his luck, more lights had flickered.

Well, it wasn't even just lights that flickered at this point.

The acoustic tiles in the ceiling flickered in and out, showing the dark attic above the office building.

He had stood on his desk, lifted one of the soft foam tiles, and peered up into the above.

It was dark, and a low hum permeated the space.

Other than that, nothing there.

He had wondered to himself what the flickering meant.

Did he have an eye disease?

Were the lights just flickering, and his eyes reacted strangely to it?

Did he really have an eye disease?

Or was it cancer?

But the office flickering had proven to be just the tip of the iceberg.

Walking home from work, passing those giant skyscrapers in the financial district, a monumental window pane had fallen out of a building under construction and smashed down right beside him.

He had jumped away in shock, but as he turned his head and looked back, the shattered glass was gone.

And his lamp on the nightstand had flickered just before he turned it off to sleep.

Just a quick flicker.

Like the blink of an eye, something black, right where the light was.

Whispering darkness.

A low hum, but still a loud silence.

The flicker enthralled him and kept his gaze.

It was gone again.

He was obsessed with the flickers by then.

He looked for them.

Stared at the ceiling.

The walls.

The lamps.

This wasn't an eye disease.

Something wanted to talk to him.

Something was working its way through to his reality.

He had slept terribly and awoke to notice a blinding headache, followed by shivers, fever, and extreme fatigue in his body.

Great.

He was sick.

After getting over that always nerving call to the boss to let him know that you wouldn't make it in, he was sort of elated.

He could focus on the flickers now.

He had dreamt about them, of course.

He had seen the whole ground open up before him in a big rip.

A split down the six-lane highway.

And he had seen not just the calling void of darkness but streaks across the blackness.

And they were tugging at him, drawing him in.

But there had been conflict.

He had felt it.

He had felt himself losing control, losing himself.

He was being stretched, pulled between the flicker and reality.

He didn't know which part he had wanted to fight.

Where he had wanted to go.

But, sitting out here on his balcony, surveying the plaza below, he felt at peace about his decision to stay.

And, luckily, there were no flickers outside.

Oh, and the void was not actually real, just a subconscious fear materializing itself.

He should call Jack tomorrow.

Let him know about it.

And then maybe go to therapy.

He spent the day tending to his sickness with medication and nothingness.

He watched movies, watched a tv show, and ordered takeout.

And then, while waiting for the dumplings to be placed at his door, he saw another flicker.

The television.

It had transformed, suddenly, into the black, streaky void.

The nothingness he had first mistaken for the attic at the office.

He took out his phone, and snapped a quick photo of the TV. But by the time he got to look at the photo, all he saw was the channel guide staring back at him.

He tried to remember how it had happened. Was he looking at the TV when it started, or did he catch it from the corner of his eye?

His nightstand lamp had flickered again, and he had thrown it in the closet in a futile attempt to shut out the flickers.

He later noticed the microwave flicker as he was reheating dumplings late at night.

As he sat back down in front of the TV, ready to binge his next show, he knew the beyond was breaking through to his reality.

He was sitting on the couch, browsing for a show, when the television had flickered darkly again.

But this time for a long time.

It had lasted maybe ten seconds.

Then it flickered in and out a couple of times.

And then it remained dark.

He could see through it a black canvas filled with long, pulsating white streaks.

Moving rhythmically with small, fast vibrations.

He rose from the couch and walked toward the TV.

The void remained visible.

He got all the way up close to the screen.

The beyond swallowed him.

His whole apartment had flickered now.

He was floating in darkness, listening to murmurs, thoughts racing around him.

Surrounded by the white thread, the long, dangling hair-like threads vibrated, beating their small pulses in the distance.

He caught a word suddenly, whispered across the vastness in a tiny, faint voice.

Erase, erase, erase

Repeated.

Over and over again, in the far distance.

Inescapable.

He couldn't move.

He was listening to that word being repeated over and over for eternity until it slowly faded away, leaving only the buzzing hum of the vibrating threads behind.

And then he had been back in his apartment, and it had been over.

Reality was what it had always been once more.

He called Jack right then, even if it was almost midnight.

But he got his voicemail and left one, asking him to meet at the coffee shop on the corner at 10 in the morning.

* * *

In the early morning, he woke to the slight buzz from his phone.

Jack had responded, and they were set to meet at 10.

He hadn't dreamed at all that night.

He got up, drank coffee, took a shower, brushed his teeth, and dressed.

He had wondered quickly what the nightstand lamp was doing in the closet.

He was excited to talk to Jack about it all.

What had been happening, what was going on.

Really get into it, like the old days.

And so, meeting up at that old corner coffee shop, Jack and Michael spent the better part of the day discussing Jack's new life as a father and reminiscing about their college days.

They debated Michael's dating life, and he vented about his boss being angry at him for calling in sick on a Friday.

And, as he had always done, Jack complained extensively about his wife's friends.

And honestly, they weren't good people, so Michael went happily along with the critique.

Just the way things had always been.