u up?
Jordan
Someone is crawling across my wall. Look at them go. I wouldn’t have seen them if the ambulance outside my apartment hadn’t
passed by right when it did, the spiral of its red-and-white flashing lights reaching into my window and sprawling across
the Sheetrock.
That can’t be human, I think. Their limbs stretch at such a severe angle. Arms and legs aren’t meant to bend like this. They haven’t moved, frozen
on all fours, about to pounce. A man-sized spider. I can’t make out their face, their features lost in the dark. Wherever
their eyes are, I can’t see them. Maybe they don’t have any. Maybe there’s more. I’m left imagining it has a million eyes,
obsidian black and unblinking, staring back at me from the shadows.
What even is that thing? It can’t be real . . .
Can it?
It’s well after midnight. The lights are off in the apartment. The streetlamp directly outside my window casts this strange
shadow across the ceiling. That halogen bulb leaves everything in my bedroom in a greasy orange sheen. Nothing moves, so still
inside.
Until now, I thought I was alone. Now I’m not so sure. Just me and my spider, I guess.
I haven’t slept. Not since I started seeing demons wherever I go.
The cinder blocks behind my lids weigh my head down, but for the life of me, I can’t close them.
How long am I going to stare down this fucking enormous daddy longlegs crawling across the wall?
It’s prone, waiting for me to make my first move.
Try and run. The second I break for the door, taking that first breath as I attempt to outpace it, it will leap off and . . .
And . . . wait a minute. Hold up.
My bike.
That’s my fucking bike frame, all dented and bent out of shape, still hanging from the wall. Christ—I’ve been staring at my
goddamn broken bike for the last thirty seconds and I didn’t even see it. My mind is playing tricks on me. I’m hallucinating.
Ever since I spotted—
Lilith
—that woman at the farmers market, I haven’t left my apartment. I’ve practically barricaded myself inside my bachelor pad.
I don’t want to go outside. Not again. Not after . . .
It’s not possible. What I saw happen at the farmers market just isn’t . . . isn’t real.
What the hell was it?
I’m losing my mind. Obviously. The Occam’s razor of it all is that I am having some sort of relapsed brain damage from the
accident. Or someone is seriously fucking with me.
Lilith must be messing with my head. But . . . why? Why is she toying with me like this?
Who the fuck knows.
Or . . . ? Or there’s a third option. I can’t believe I’m actually considering this, but . . .
Do I actually believe in demons?
What do I know, actually know for a goddamn fact, about possession? All I’ve ever seen comes from movies. I tried to do some
research, but the closest I can get is the horror section at Video Fan.
What are the basic tenets of possession? A person’s body is taken over. They have strength beyond their own. They possess knowledge they didn’t have before. They speak in tongues. Blasphemous rage. Do I believe any of this? It just seems so . . .
So fucking absurd.
The dizzy spells. The blackouts. The loss of time. The voices in your head. The paranoia. Losing your grip on your own sanity,
thinking you’re losing your mind.
The euphoria. The bliss.
What about my inner demons? The negative thoughts that seep into my head? All the slithering whispers that gain momentum in
my mind, until they become a downright din. How are they any different? Maybe I’m possessed by depression. I’ve succumbed
to my own self-loathing. Used to be that I could outride it on my bike, exorcise all my inner demons on the streets. Now I’m
landlocked, trapped in my head. My own personal hell.
A demon. Lilith is a demon.
Once I start tugging on that loose thread, it all starts to unravel in my head. The whole ratty sweater comes unspooling,
this knot of thought disintegrating into endless questions. If she’s a demon, then demons are real which means angels are
real which means heaven is real which means hell is real and if hell is real then that means . . .
I’m so fucked. Am I damned for having a one-night stand with the devil? I’ve been to hell already and I’m definitely not in
any fucking rush to go back.
But do you know what the craziest part about all this is?
I miss her.
Lilith.
Chasing that current of her, watching it seemingly drift from one person to the next at the farmers market, I couldn’t help
but feel the electricity of it all. The thrill.
What if it’s real? What if she’s real?
I haven’t answered my phone for the last ten hours. I’ve missed a dozen calls, all my friends checking in to see if I’m okay.
If I’m still alive. They don’t know what’s out there.
Lys must’ve told the others I ditched her at the farmers market. Not my best move, but I haven’t been thinking straight for a while now. She’s been texting to see if I’ve been kidnapped or something, lord knows what. What kind of friend would leave her like that?
Me, that’s who. This asshole. Is this who I am now? Maybe I’ve always been.
I’m aching for a drink, but the thought of letting go—cutting loose—doesn’t appeal. Something about unwinding. Letting the
stress relent, I don’t know. Fuck numbness. I need to feel. Hold onto my nerves. Stress is a testament. Proof of a pulse.
The anxiety is keeping me alive and that feels like a good thing. I don’t care if I’m hallucinating human-sized spiders, I
need to be a bundle of nerves right now. My fight-or-flight response is all I’ve got.
I wonder . . . How long before I burn out?
Burn in hell?
I slip across my mattress toward the window and peer outside. I’m on the fifth floor of a ten-floor apartment building. Grace
Street is lined with apartment complexes. Cheap housing for college students. I’ve got a fire escape, total bonus. My own
patio in the sky.
There’s a potted plant I’ve forgotten about out there, the shriveled husk of some abandoned plant browning in its dried soil.
Cigarette butts sprout out from the planter, over a dozen tiny buds reaching up from the dirt. They’re thriving better than
the actual plant.
A bouquet of cancer sticks. Seems fitting.
It’s late enough that all the college kids have stumbled back to their dorms. The streets are quiet below. Barely any cars
pass by. The city is ready to slip off to sleep.
Richmond, the slumbering beast. I’ve got an elevated view of the skyline. A webbing of streets, beaded by lights. I can’t help but think of the people living in these apartments, the sheer number of bodies, all of them going about their own business, living their lives.
Lilith is out there, too, somewhere.
I push away from the window, slipping deeper into my room, across the bed, until my spine meets the far wall. I press my head
against plaster until I feel like I’m balanced.
Just me and my personal demons.
I light up a cigarette. Take the smoke into my lungs. Let it burn between my fingers.
Look at you, my mom said from her hospital bed. Her last few words to me.
Mom passed away when I was ten. Cervical cancer wiped her off the face of this fucking planet. My father never knew how to
handle me after she died. Expressing his emotions wasn’t something he ever did, even before my mother passed. He only got
more distant once it was just the two of us, trying to figure out how to survive, leaving me with a whole mountain of angst
I could never scale. It just overwhelmed me. All of it. Everything.
I remember being with her in the hospital room. Dad left me alone with her to grab a coffee from the commissary. He told me
she’d be asleep, that I should just sit with her.
I hadn’t known she’d opened her eyes. That she was awake.
You burn so bright, she’d said. Her voice dry. Lips chapped and cracking. There was a cup of ice next to her bed. I offered her a sliver. She
shook her head. I just want to see you.
A beacon, she called me. You’re my lighthouse. To help light her way.
Guide her.
She passed away not two days later. I’m not sure if the bulb burned out of me the day she died or not, but I tried so hard
to stay lit for her. Burn bright. For years, I believed I’d bring her back. That I had what it took—the will—to light her
way home. To guide her back.
She never returned. What kind of beacon am I?
I held onto my hurt. The chip on my shoulder only widened, becoming a chasm between me and the rest of the world, between me and my dad. Between me and me.
Between . . . everything. Anything. I’ve been carrying the Grand Canyon on my back.
Then I got my first bike.
A freestyle BMX cycle, 20-inch hi-ten steel frame. It came complete with a 360-degree rotor, permitting a full spin for the
handlebars. Single speed drivetrain, no need for gears. Direct power transmission. Me. My body. My momentum.
I found a place to release all that rage. That pent-up aggression. The tension. I could ride it out. I outraced the rage,
and it never caught up. I was free as long as I kept riding.
Now that’s gone and the rage is gaining on me. I feel it, seeping back in. It’ll swallow me up if I don’t do something about
it. Ride it out of my system. Escape from its shadow.
The bike frame is just next to my head now, so close. I take it in, all its contortions, its warped frame. Nothing but mangled
metal. I can smell the ozone of burnt rubber.
A spider, my ass . . . I really must be losing it. Bringing my hand with the cigarette up, I take a drag before weaving my fingers through the dented
spokes and spinning the wheel.
The tire won’t rotate far, the angle on the frame so severe it snags on the rubber.
A song drifts through my head. I can’t pick out the melody, but it’s suddenly there, a listless tune that won’t let go. What
is it? I’ve heard it before, I can’t figure out where . . .
I hum a couple bars, hoping to make out the melody.
Where did this song come from?
Who knows. I’m exhausted. I take a last drag, let the smoke settle in my lungs and resonate through my bloodstream, then exhale.
I’ve got to stub out the cigarette before I—
tap tap . . .