Ashes to Ashes

When the past comes back to haunt you.

I’m dead, as best I can tell. My soul is trapped in this house. I’m stuck within its walls, inhabiting the constructed materials, with knowledge of all its cracks and crevices. I used to call it a home, along with my wife, Cynthia, and our only child, Bradley. To my knowledge, I can never leave. Instead, I wait to greet the new owners.

The first occupants are an elderly married couple, retired, attempting to settle into a permanent residence in their sunset years.

“Don’t you just love the use of space?” she asks.

“If it suits you,” he says.

“It suits me fine, but I’m not a fan of Shaker style. What it needs is a postmodern flare. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“If that’s your preference.”

When they move in, this is their way. The agreeable husband echoes his wife’s every opinion as the measurement of her existence. The more he says, the more animated she becomes, and so he strikes a careful balance of saying enough, but not too much, trying not to stretch the conversation to excruciating lengths.

I hate them.

This is not a relationship, so much as breathing under the same roof. It’s nothing like me and Cynthia. Together, with Bradley, we were an unstoppable energy — a successful nuclear family, playing, laughing, loving and fighting. They were a rare occurrence, the arguments. Cynthia respected me. Only once did I need to raise a hand. Maybe twice, but certainly never more than that.

The old man and woman have to go.

I plague her with nightmares depicting the husband’s death. At first I try a gruesome barrage of car crashes, mishaps and murder, to which she wakes up in fits, sweating. She proceeds to wake him and explains the horrors in grave detail. He replies that it’s just a dream. They fall back asleep.

The approach is too heavy handed. I replace the gore with a psychological attack, crippling her husband with dementia, a coma or brain damage. He lays in a vegetative state, an unresponsive limbo incapable of mirroring her emotions. The awareness of this paralysis becomes too much for her to bear, even if it’s an unlikely future.

Her mental breakdown follows. They move out to be closer to her sister. 

The second occupants are a family of three — a mother, father and a son about Bradley’s age, which at first brings joy into my heart. If I have a heart behind these walls.

The boy is lost in a delicate world, carefully built as a protective bubble. He is conditioned to believe in his many ailments, such as peanut allergies, seasonal allergies, asthma, sleep apnea and medical impairments that are impossible to pronounce. This makes him pale and fragile.

“Why can’t I play soccer?” the boy asks.

“You’ll exhaust yourself,” the mother says.

“Why can’t I attend the party?” the boy asks.

“You’ll eat food you shouldn’t,” the mother says.

“Why can’t I have a friend over?” the boy asks.

To this she has no reasonable reply. It doesn’t matter.

Bradley would have traveled down this road, had I not stepped in to sharpen the iron and smooth out the rough edges. Those bruises I gave my son never lasted long. In due time they were a reminder of his hidden potential. He excelled in sports and academics as a result, no thanks to Cynthia, who coddled him at every turn.

It is too late for this boy. To his parents, he is a petri dish, full of germs and nasty parasites. His health depends on him being in their care forever. I know another cure.

I manifest in forms that are not altogether real, but real enough to cause anxiety. As with the old couple, I learn subtlety is best, ignoring obvious terrors in favor of creating shadows in shapes the boy detests. From his journals I understand that clowns and dolls are the worst of his fears.

His shrink instructs him to name his fears and bring them into the light, so that the unknown can no longer hold power — an oversight by an overqualified quack. There are monsters in the light, just as there are in the dark.

I know the shrink’s suggestion won’t work because Cynthia tried the same psychobabble. You drink too much, she said. It’s a coping mechanism for an abusive father and an addicted mother, she said. Go see a therapist, she said. She wouldn’t stop talking. I had to make her. Bradley got mixed up in it all as a casualty of war.

This boy cracks.

“There’s a specialist. He comes highly recommended,” the mother says.

“We can’t afford that. Not unless I go back to my old job,” the father says.

She cries. He caves. They move.

The final occupant is gorgeous. Her name is Olivia.

Olivia reminds me of Cynthia before Bradley arrived, full of youthful drive instead of motherly exhaustion. She rises at 5am, drinks black coffee, eats a healthy breakfast and then rotates between various workout routines. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are Pilates. Tuesday and Thursday are cardio. Saturday is a light jog. I hate weekends. She has no reason for a jog that keeps us apart. 

To help Olivia appreciate her stay, I alter my mood, offering up the best of what I have in the present circumstances. I keep the temperature level throughout every floor, aligning perfectly with the thermostat. I heat the water instantly from the shower. When she returns from her jog the same water is cool and refreshing, never requiring ice. I silence creaks in the hardwood floors and hush the settling roof.

“This is the perfect house. I love it. Tom is going to love it, too,” she says to her mother on the phone. After a brief pause, she says, “Yes, I do think he’ll propose.”

Blowing the circuit breaker is an unintended side effect of overhearing the conversation. The electrician comes out, who assures Olivia it’s a surge from down the line. I need to control my rage if I want her to stay, to grow closer to me, to see the real me — all the while keeping out Tom.

While she sleeps, I test the limits of my abilities. Just like with the boy, I mold the shadows into a visible shape. Not a clown or doll, of course. Instead, I am a shadow of my former self. When Olivia rolls to her side, I slip into the bed, right beside her.

For hours, I watch her back, gently stroking her hair, thinking of how she will agree that our situation is an unfortunate, but acceptable outcome of my previously poor choices. Olivia turns, surprising me, but does not wake. After tonight, I will fill her dreams with the knowledge of a man she has never met. We will live a shared experience on two different heavenly plains. I lean forward to seal that promise with a kiss, and she opens her eyes.

A scream shatters the beauty of the moment. A phone call to Tom follows.

“Please, Tom, come over. I don’t want to be here alone,” she says to him. “It was horrific. I don’t want to describe it.”

She waits, and the man I despise occupies the bed meant for me. Olivia has extended an invitation that will cost him.

One idea is carbon monoxide poisoning. Knowing that Olivia will succumb to the same fate makes it unbearable. Besides, she will leave if he dies in her bed. Moving heavy physical objects is impossible, no matter how hard I try, as is using a part of the house as a weapon. Anything nailed or screwed down is a permanent fixture of my being that causes excruciating pain when removed.

I return to the same deceptions, trying to invade his nightmares, but his mind is stronger than the others, preventing me from destroying his thoughts. These limitations are purgatory, reminding me that Cynthia and Bradley are in a place I can’t reach, and that even the fires of hell are out of my grasp.

I can’t endure this prison.

The idea arrives in a flash, just as it had with Cynthia, when she threatened to leave with Bradley. It’s the only option to release me and guarantee that Tom can’t have Olivia. I deactivate the fire alarms and light the gas fireplace in the living room, turning the knob until it snaps. I feel a sting as I open up a wound in the pipe, allowing more gas to pour into the firebox.

The fire rages outside the facing and mantel. I hesitate as the flames lick the walls. An excruciating pain sweeps through every carpet fiber, but it’s too late for regrets. The living room and kitchen are a raging inferno, and the blaze will claim Tom and Olivia.

To my disappointment, the pain weakens my hold and the fire alarm upstairs starts beeping. They heed the warning that I hope will be too late, as the fire blocks the stairs, pouring smoke up in their direction.

Tom pulls several blankets out from the upstairs closet, ties them together and around the bedpost, and drapes them out the window. Olivia climbs out and down first. When Tom turns to climb out, I gather up the shadows cast from the moonlight pouring through the window. He notices me, startles, and then his eyes confess that my mere presence is not a shock. It’s my appearance that is ghastly. Repulsed, he descends.

A silver hand held mirror lays on the nightstand. When I bend over to look at my image, the truth of the reflection stares back. Cynthia had pulled the trigger on the shotgun when I lunged at her with the knife. I could not witness the aftermath, but it stares me in the face now…  what is left of it.

I can no longer hold my shape. The fire melts the siding, burns away the timbers and punishes me relentlessly. I deserve these flames for an eternity.

My Cynthia. My Bradley. You deserve better. I hope you find it.