Emptiness crawled through my head. Spiders scurried down my spine. Ice crystallized my veins. I slid down the wall, holding my breath. It was too much, there was nowhere to turn, nowhere to hide.

Everywhere I looked was… just space, vast, empty, and completely controlling. Voices slid from the shadows, and crept inside me, stealing my soul. An overwhelming sense of abandonment pricked at me. A mirror open and expanding, hung to my right. The urge to peer through it slithered under my skin, but I wouldn’t… couldn’t, fearing I’d see what was really beside me.

“Glorie, are you down there?” Gretchen called from the stairs. Her brown hair was most likely swept up, revealing her long neck. Her shoulders were probably tense as she always was when it was her turn to “visit the schizophrenic.” That’s what they called me.

“Can I come down?” she asked as gently as she could.

I held firm, lips closed, back tight to the wall, closed off, hidden away in the cellar. Safe… here I was safe. She switched the light on and darkness skittered away. I huddled as close to the wall as I could. With each clack of her high heels dread radiated through me. There were thirteen steps till she reached me. My eyes were scrunched shut, I would not open them. I never wanted to see what lingered behind me again. Light brought them forward. Light made them real. Darkness blotted them out. Darkness brought my comfort. With my back to the wall nothing could hurt me. There wasn’t any room for them to taunt me.

“Glorie,” Gretchen’s voice was soft and shaky. I knew she was scared. Everyone was frightened of me.

I wouldn’t look at her.

“Glorie, it’s okay. It’s just you and me now. Nothing can hurt you.”

She really had no clue... I could already picture her… standing there, back completely exposed. I knew what was there following her, spreading like a corroding disease. Standing there open…exposed, she was allowing them to swarm behind her. Clueless, she was completely clueless,

I thought.

“You can trust me, Glorie. I won’t let anything harm you,” she whispered.

She has no idea.

“Glorie…” her voice trailed off. Her footsteps grew further and further away. The light switch clicked. I smiled to myself which quickly fell to a disappointed frown once her heels tapped down the wooden stairs.

“Glorie, is that better?”

I held my eyes closed as tight as I could.

“Open your eyes,” she demanded with her sweet voice.

“The lights…” she stopped midsentence, she sucked in a breath and gasped loudly. “Oh, dear,” she whispered. “It was just my reflection.”

“Glorie, please open your eyes. Talk to me.”

Hesitantly, I obeyed. Darkness prowled around us. Though there wasn’t any light, I still held tight, pressing my back flush with the wall.

“Have you left the basement today?” Gretchen asked.
“Uh-uh,” I shook my head.

“That was your assignment. Baby steps, remember?”
“I remember,” I snapped.

“Then?” she demanded.

“I tried. I… I couldn’t,” I stuttered.

“Tell me what happened. Start from the beginning.”

I cleared my throat longer than necessary. “Well, I…”

“Go on, Glorie, it’s just you and me.”

“Gretchen, you don’t understand.”

“How did you try, Glorie?” she asked, annoyance thick on her voice.

“I stood and stepped away from the wall. I walked halfway through the room, but I had to turn around.”

“Why?”

“I felt a breeze skim over my skin. I could feel it pull at my shirt. I had to go back. I just had to.” I felt a tear slide down my cheek. It was so painful to admit the truth.

“You’ve made progress. I’m proud of you.”
Gretchen leaned in and hugged me. She was unaware that she’d pulled me from my safety. I screamed loudly and scampered back.

Shivers quaked through me, painfully slamming my shoulder blades against the concrete wall. Terror devoured me from the inside out. I was a pathetic sack clinging to a wall.

“Oh, Glorie, I’m so sorry,” Gretchen whispered. Her hand softly caressed my arm. She knew she’d lost me. There’d be no more session today. She sighed sadly, and walked away. Agony passed through me in extending waves toward her as she climbed the stairs. “I’ll see you Monday, okay. I am truly sorry. I just want you to know that.”
The door opened and closed behind her. I was once again submerged in loneliness, a void abyss.

Moonlight crept through the window and decorated the floor. Cascading down the glass, raindrops slipped from the stars. Leaning against a wall held up by secrets, I fell asleep. I slept this way every night, never leaving my sanctuary. I had no friends. My family thought I was crazy. Maybe I am. I don’t know.

Why couldn’t I just walk away, leave the wall, you ask. It all started when I was five. I was looking in the mirror admiring my new dress while my mother combed my hair. That was the first time I saw them. They were swaying behind me, taunting me. Their harsh voices crept through my skin as they whispered things… bad things in my ear. I shook myself back and forth, trying to get them away, but they clung to my back. They remained behind me. Screams echoed off the mirror. My mom backed away from me. She was scared. I heard her hysterically calling for help. And she left me there. How could she do that? I was just a child, frail and small. I couldn’t defend myself against the demons that were invading me.

The doctors came and I was carted away. They bound me in a white vest that hid my arms. My tiny arms. No one visited me. No one cared for me. I was on my own. Sure, there were nurses, but they only came to shove pills down my throat. They told me, “Take this. The monsters will go away.” They never did.

After a few months, I realized that the wall could save me. So here I am… twenty years later still being saved by a wall.

I haven’t looked in a mirror since I was five. The psychiatrist hung one down here, but I never look in it. At night I hear them whisper through the glass. I know they’re trying to escape, but I won’t let them.

When I step away from the wall, I can feel the fiends creep through the air and attach themselves behind me. They are there. They are real… but no one acknowledges them. But they should

.

That first night at the hospital, the spirits cackled all night and whispered, “You are evil.” It’s true, I was… I am evil. I brought the teeming imps to life. I was the reason they were here. The morning the doctor came in to see me, my hair was a tangled mess. I had clawed and clawed trying to get their voices out of my head. But the more I fought the louder they grew. Clumps of my hair lay at my feet.

I was immediately taken for electroshock therapy, and when that didn’t work, the priest was brought in. I remember the darkness that afternoon, and his gruff voice as he held my head in his vice grip commanding the demons to be gone. Of course, they didn’t leave. They only laughed, and spit wickedly all over my body.

How could I ever leave the wall? As long as the vile monsters live behind me, trying to take over my life… I’ll remain down here in the basement hiding from the world… held tight to the wall.

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 25.06.2011

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