There were way too many flies for an empty house

Schizophrenia is a bitch, and I don't usually curse when I'm writing; I like the classic style of Stephen Crane and the refined worlds of Oscar Wilde, and I know things have changed a lot since this kind of gentleman went extinct, but still... there is something about correct writing that turns everything into poetry... even these stories.

I continue now; schizophrenia is a bitch, medicated or unmedicated; dealing with not knowing what is real or not can still be challenging day by day. From the happy little bunnies hopping out of an unexistent hole to say hi graciously and brighten your day to the four-eyed woman whose face was falling rotten into pieces in front of my astonished eyes while she only wanted to offer my breakfast one autumn morning. Anything can be frightening.

I thought I was never going to have the courage to move far from the city, far from the hospitals, from the gentrification, and the everyday influx of strangers; it made me calm to know I could just pop out a card from my pocket that shows my mental condition, and people would help me in the most scary situations.

Reality pushed me outside of the city. I found the best house to which I could move. Affordable, two stories, old cracking wooden floors, unfinished basement, and a big yard with space to grow your vegetables, your very own lavender plants, with the freedom to sit outside and write while listening to nothing but the chickadees and robins singing, no neighbours, no annoying neighbours, because as much as I liked the activity of the city... living in a 24 floors building could be a tiny bit too noisy sometimes.

A 100-hundred-year-old house that needed some love; honestly, for the price I paid, I had all the love in the world to give.

I didn't overthink before buying it; I didn't want to get into details, so I put the signature on the paper and bought it "as it was." The first night was a nightmare. The mice activity was so high in the basements and between the walls that it looked like they were throwing me a welcoming party; my eyes were wide open, and I kept just thinking, I need a cat; I need a cat, I need to get a cat. I didn't challenge my judgment or how factual the existence of mice in a house this old would be. I could smell the mice, their nests, their filth, their spawns, and if there is something I rarely get in life, it's olfactory illumination, also called phantom smells.

I didn't dare tell any of my family members about the nightmare because I had been told many, many times that moving out of the city was not for everyone. I didn't want to worry my mom; she tried to persuade me to move in with her, inviting me to stay more than once, offering me homemade food and promising me peace and clean laundry.

I spent the night the best I could, turning from one side to the other, trying to get comfortable and used to every noise. I woke up the morning after with a horrible headache when I moved the curtains in the bedroom to let the sunlight in. I saw at least 30 flies gattered sunbathing, flapping their wings against one of the windows, and I jumped back to my bed in disgust. I had my phone fully charged and used one of my favourite methods to discover if my mind was playing games or not... I took a picture of the flies... you see, when you have schizophrenia, if you take a picture or make a video at the precise moment that you see the craziest things, you can actually check on your phone if what you are seeing is real. The mind evolved to be tricky and a vile traitor sometimes. Still, it didn't evolve as much as not to be tricked by a cellphone camera, so the hallucination you are having, if it's just a mere creation of the mind, will not appear either in the video or in a picture.

The flies were there, way too many for a house that had its windows closed for the past few weeks. There was a family there before. I don't think this was normal, even for a country house. It wasn't even summer, the weather didn't look inviting for flies, and my house was not a warm place for them to live happily in.

I opened the four curtains individually to reveal the flies blackening each window. I sprayed them and saw them fall one by one. I vacuumed the remains and moved to the bathroom for a relaxing bath.

Relaxing was something that I wouldn't do for a while. I opened the faucet, and the bubbling sound of dry pipes came first, letting a little string of water fall that looked horribly yellow. By the time my bathtub was full, all I had was pee-coloured water that smelled like sulphur, and it made me lose the last drop of hope I had that morning.

I walked downstairs to the basement. I had been in a basement twice in my life, and one of those times was when I had to check the new house with the realtor a few weeks before moving. I wouldn't say I liked basements, the swamp smell, the spiders, the spider webs that were abandoned, meaning the spiders are now somewhere else where we can't see them, the mice, their horrible smell, and the furnace, the root of significant nightmares that come from old stories and many, many horror movies that I wish I hadn't seen.

I took a gun with me; I know I shouldn't have had one, but my dad, who didn't know better, advised me to take his gun since being alone in a house can be challenging for a woman. My nearest neighbour was 2 miles away, but so was a police station, so I thought it was an okay idea. This time, I had to use it; it was loaded and ready to shoot some cans outside in case my days turned more boring.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I heard noises coming from the water well; something was struggling to get out; the well was a little bit deep, but still, anyone my size could have gotten out of there. I thought... well, great, now I will have to shut a wild animal because there is no way I will let an upset possum or rabid raccoon roam my basement.

I cautiously approached the water well. The noise grew louder and more frantic. My heart pounded in my chest as I gripped my gun tightly, ready to defend myself. With each step closer, the sounds became clearer, and I could hear muffled cries for help.

I peered into the darkness, straining my eyes to make sense of shapes. And then, as if emerging from my nightmares, there she was, tied, her clothes torn and covered in filth, her hair tangled, wounded on every inch of her body, her mouth shut, her hands firmly fastened. Her teary eyes called for help, but all I could do was just shoot. I pressed the trigger one time, two and even three times, with my eyes shut and my teeth grinding as hard as I could.

As she lay there, motionless and calm, I took my phone out of my pocket and did what I should have done before shooting. I took a picture and put myself in the frame, too. The dead body in the background, the dirty well, and me hoping none of it was real, hoping I wasn't real.

I took a picture, and there we were. The flash blinded my eyes, and I saw myself, a newborn killer, staring at the screen. She was still there, oh so still.

Oh, there were too many flies for an empty house, and without wanting it, I finished someone else's dirty job.