The Quiet House

Content Warning: This story contains themes of intrusive thoughts, obsessive-compulsive behaviour and psychological distress. It also includes references to guilt, self-doubt and graphic imagery. Reader discretion is advised.

The Quiet House

The house is still. Not quiet, but still, like breath held for too long. Like something waiting to be found. It creaks, but only when I stop listening to it. A soft groan in the ceiling beams, and a subtle tick in the pipes that still need to be fixed.

I always make sure to check the locks before I go to bed. Not once. Not twice. I walk the perimeter. Front door, side latch, window latch, stove knob. The same route every night—clockwise. My feet follow it, like a dance I have performed too many times, like instinct, like prayer. I can do it half-asleep, and sometimes I do. But if I mess up the order, I start again. I have to. From the beginning, even if it’s two in the morning. The last thing I do is check the knife drawer. Sometimes I even find myself leaving a sticky note that reads: “Still here. Still clean.” It helps me remember I didn’t take one. It helps me know I didn’t use it. I used to take photos too—timestamped, even. But then I couldn’t stop taking them. A knife photographed from every angle. Drawers were pulled open just enough to show what was inside. Sometimes I would even zoom in to try and find fingerprints that weren’t mine. Just in case. Now I just use the sticky notes. But I still don’t sleep. Not easily, anyway. Not in this house.

I moved back here two years ago after what happened with the school. Not a scandal, or a crime, really—just a quiet, clean break. I packed up my classroom over the weekend. No goodbye. No farewell gifts from the students or faculty. Just me, a box, and a janitor asking pointlessly if he can help. Of course, he couldn’t. They said I was “too tired,” and I was. You can only keep teaching eleven-year-olds long division when your head is full of other equations for so long. The impossible kind, that is. The kind where X equals someone you might have hurt. Where Y is how long you’ve known and how long you’ve hidden it. And where Z is how much of it you made up.

I feel like I was good at it—teaching, I mean. The kids liked me. I had systems, rules, and methods. I brought in board games on Fridays and wrote everyone’s name in block letters on the whiteboard, even the ones no one else could pronounce. But then I started second-guessing myself. Every touch—a brush on the shoulder, a pat on the back—replayed in my head like I was monitoring myself from within my own brain. My own security system, which I could never quite understand. I’d lie awake wondering if I’d leaned in too close to help with their maths workbook. If I’d made someone uncomfortable without realising. If a kid went home and told their parents something that wasn’t true, or worse, something that was. It really doesn’t take much to convince yourself that you’re dangerous. Especially when the voice in your head already agrees.

This house was cheap to buy back. Not cursed-cheap, just out-of-the-way cheap. One storey, two bedrooms, brick exterior, garden full of weeds. A small sunroom off the back of the house that never actually gets any sunlight. Nothing remarkable. Which is why I liked it. It’s better to live somewhere that feels empty. That way, if something bad happens, you know it was you.

I started writing again last winter. Just small things. Nothing formal. A diary, sort of. Though diary sounds too soft for what it really was. No “dear diary.” Just facts. Cold, exact, necessary. I wrote down everything I did, step by step, hour by hour. Where I walked. What I touched. When I washed my hands. What I said aloud—even when I was alone. Sometimes I wrote in the margins: “You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay. You didn’t do it. You’re okay”. But even that felt too reassuring, too lenient, so I started crossing those parts out. I couldn’t let myself forget. But I had to. Memory is slippery. And I needed proof.

There’s a red notebook that has a slight crack on the top left of the cover that I keep hidden beneath the floorboards in the spare room. Second plank from the window, just behind the curtain. You have to press hard to lift it. I lined the inside with a layer of baking paper, so the ink wouldn’t bleed if there was any moisture. I wrapped the whole thing in a plastic grocery bag and tied it twice. The first entry is just one sentence: “I did not touch the man in the yellow jacket.” I don’t remember writing it. But the handwriting was mine.

The problem with thoughts—my thoughts—is that they don’t ask permission. They barge in like drunks and speak in your voice, leaving bloodied fingerprints on your mind. Sometimes I’ll be washing a dish, and a scene will flash in my head—sudden, vivid and violent. A dead body in a bathtub. My hands, covered in something thick and black. I’ll smell bleach even though I haven’t used any or had any in my home for years. Oftentimes, it’s a lot more subtle. A flicker or a moment. A what-if so fast and sharp I almost miss it. What if you said something awful to someone you love? What if you forgot to lock the front door, and someone is inside right now? What if your hands are covered in poison and you’ve been spreading it all day? The brain—my brain—doesn’t whisper these things. It shouts them. And for a moment, I’ll forget it’s not real. The next five hours or so feel like damage control. Retrace my steps. Check the taps in my kitchen. Check my front doors. Check my bins for any bloody rags. I spend who knows how long scrolling through sent messages, texting old friends, just in case I said something strange or incriminating, and forgot. I apologise for things I’m not sure I actually did. For things I know I didn’t do—just in case knowing isn’t enough. I once called every hospital in the city because I was convinced that I had hit someone with my car and wiped it from my memory. There was no dent. No blood. No missing time. But I still remembered the feeling of hitting someone. And the silence after. And the shape of a jacket in the rearview mirror that might have been a pile of leaves. Or might not have.

The writing helps. Sometimes. Other times, it makes things worse. More real. Cemented. That’s what happened with the memoir. It wasn’t supposed to be a memoir, just some kind of private exercise that my therapist had encouraged me to write. A way of bottling the noise. I called it “The Quiet House” because that’s what this place is when I haven’t had a thought in hours. When the rituals are held. When I can almost breathe weightlessly. It started with descriptions. No narrative. No story. No point. I wrote what it felt like to exist in my skin. What it meant to second-guess every single moment.

“In the grocery store, I refused to pick up the baby carrot packet because it had a tiny red smear on the edge. It was probably ketchup. But I imagined it was blood. I imagined I had put it there. I imagined I had cut my own hand, or someone else’s. I imagined a news headline. I imagined prison. I left without buying anything.”

That was one of the first entries. I remember it. But I don’t remember writing it. There were more.

“I sat in my car outside the school for thirty-five minutes after closing time. No thoughts. No movement. No, not until it reached thirty-five minutes after closing time. I then would try and remember if I had said anything weird to a student that day. I imagined a parent meeting. I imagined the police. I imagined myself saying, ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ and nobody believing me.”

At first, it felt like a way to regain control. A way of reclaiming what space was left inside my head. But then it started to get worse. The more I wrote, the harder it became to distinguish between what I thought and what I did. Sometimes, I’d write something down and then forget whether I was writing fiction or non-fiction. The worst part was, I started editing the entries. Smoothing them out. Making them sound better. Polishing them. As if I were preparing them for someone else to read. I even sent the draft to a publisher once. A small press. Indie stuff. The kind that lives in basements and only accepts anonymous entries. I don’t know why I did it. I also don’t really even remember doing it. Maybe I wanted to get it out of me, get it away from me. Maybe I thought that if someone else saw it—someone who didn’t know me—they’d be able to tell me if it was real or not, or at least carry it on their shoulders for a while, instead of mine. I didn’t expect a response. But they did reply. The email was brief and unprofessional. No greeting. No name. No “kind regards.”

“Is this real?” It read. That was all. Just those three words. I didn’t answer. I closed my laptop. Unplugged it. Left it on the floor in the corner of the spare bedroom under a pile of linen sheets. The next day, I burned the printed manuscript, the red notebook, and anything that reminded me of the writing I had—or someone had—produced. I watched the paper curl and blacken and kept waiting for something to be revealed in the smoke. A sign of some sort. When the last page crumbled, I opened every drawer in the house to be sure there were no knives missing. Counting each one by blade, then by handle. I even checked the walls by placing my ear to the cold, brittle surface to listen for the sound of sharpening knives. I know how that sounds.

That night, I dreamt there was a man locked in my laundry cupboard. I could hear him knocking—soft at first, then desperate. Fists on wood. Muffled pleading. I stood on the other side and couldn’t bring myself to open the door. My legs wouldn’t move. When I woke up, I checked inside and found only towels and a yellow jacket. The top towel was damp. The jacket was cold. Still, I left the door open for a week. Just in case. Sometimes at night, I still think I can hear him knocking. Sometimes I knock back.

A few months after I received the email, I found a letter that had been pushed under my front door. No knock. No footsteps. Just a plain envelope. No return address. Printer paper, cheap and slightly smudged. Inside, a single line, centred on the page: “He was real.” There was no signature. No date. No explanation. I stood in the hallway holding the letter for what felt like an hour. I turned it over. Held it to the light, as if there might be something written in invisible ink. Nothing. I vomited in the sink and spent three and a half hours washing the plughole with boiling water and vinegar. I scrubbed until the chrome of the sink started to dull and my fingers began blistering. I called the local police station but hung up after two rings. What would I have even said?

The next morning, I started digging in the garden. There’s a spot near the back fence where the earth sinks slightly—not enough to trip on, just a small dip—like something heavy once rested there. I’d noticed it months ago, while mowing, and stepped around it without thinking. But now I couldn’t stop thinking. The thought pressed behind my eyes like a growing migraine: “What if that’s where you put it?” I don’t know what ‘it’ is. Not exactly. Not really. Not yet. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep properly until I checked. So, I dug it up. I dug until my back screamed and my palms started to split open. There was nothing but dirt, roots and shattered brick. But I kept going. My hands shook so desperately to stop. I dropped the shovel three times. Picked it back up every time. The hole widened, deepened. I stopped when the edges started to collapse, a small part of the earth sliding back in on itself. It’s still open now. Like a wound, sort of. Sometimes I sit beside it for hours. Sometimes I dream it speaks. And sometimes, when I wake, the dirt under my nails is fresh.

I think it would be better if this weren’t read. Not because it’s untrue, but because it’s too easy to believe. Because if someone sees themselves in this—the rituals, the doubt, the repeating—they might misunderstand. They might think I’m dangerous. Or worse, that they are. That’s the trick of it. It’s not a story. It’s a symptom. It’s what happens when the mind turns against itself and dresses its doubts as a memory. Whoever is reading this may wonder whether I did it. I wrote this and wondered the same thing. I can never be sure. I can never be clean.

The house is still tonight. Unnatural, breath still being held. I’ve done the walk. Checked the locks. Stove is off. Knives are counted. Sticky note in place. I turn to leave—and stop. There’s a second note in the drawer now. The paper’s a slightly different shade. The corner is torn. But the handwriting looks the same: “Still clean. Still here. Still watching.” I didn’t write it. I don’t think I wrote it. But the shape of the “S” is familiar. The curl of the “h.” The way the ink blots slightly on the second “i,” like the pen was paused for too long. I stare at it for a while without moving an inch. Then take a photo. Then take another. Maybe it always looked like that. Maybe it was always there. Maybe it’s been waiting for me to notice. Who really knows?

This was never meant to be read because I can’t tell the difference between what’s true and what’s not anymore. I wrote it to keep track of what’s real. To hold something constant. To prove, maybe, that I wasn’t dangerous, or that I was. At least one of those options. But now it’s out of me. And in your hands. And that feels wrong. Because someone like me might read this. Someone with the same kinds of thoughts—the same ticking, the same knowing or not knowing, the same need to check and check and check again. And they might see themselves in me. They might think, “Yep, that’s me too.” But this story doesn’t help. It doesn’t explain. It doesn’t make anything better. It just repeats. Like everything else. It holds the doubt a little longer. It wraps it in words and sends it back out into the world like a warning that looks too much like a mirror. That’s why it shouldn’t have been published or read. Not because it’s evil or cursed, but because it offers no comfort. No relief. No solution. Just a kind of quiet that hums in the back of your skull long after the last line.

And I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.