Trichotillomania

[No one should read this, ever]

“I just want a single day of peace!” His voice echoed off the massive walls of the small room. Every pore in his body squeezed cold sweat drops from his body. His hair greasy and unkempt dripped with blood in places where he scratched, and scratched, and scratched, and scratched. But we are your sanctuary, thou looked for a safe haven, and it is thine eden here in these embracing walls. The stucco, the egg-shell paint, the smell of fresh dry-wall caressing your nostrils “You say haven, I’m telling you it’s fucking purgatory! You say eden and I see only wasteland.” He smiled as tears tore down his cheeks. His arms formed an embrace around him. No thought. No speech. He hugged his own body and pulled on the extra skin of his inner elbows. “This is real… this is real…this is real…” His words sounded fake, like plastic washing ashore a beach made of crystalline mockery. We are real the screen said to him. The beautiful pixels caressed his eyes, he felt his optic nerves being massaged, no, not being, the small pixelated hands extended out from the T.V. screen and gripped his nerves, but not too hard, just enough to feel a warm cushion of that sweet mental release. “Hah, haha, ah!” His disjointed laughs bounced like rubber marbles against the blank walls. How long did he stand in that one spot? A week? A month? A year? Eons? It’ll be ok my dearest son, you are safe, we love you, we’re here for you The tears felt like acid, he knelt before a massive jar with a lead lid fastened shut. It screamed Epimetheus! And rending the lid off he cried in silent glory for the ultimate sin. Something horrid and terrible gnashed from the bottom of this great jar, this fire stolen from the gods in the ancient lost mountains. “This is real!” He called to his roof. The roof smiled back, white slits for eyes and a row of impossibly sharp teeth smiled above him. Shoe rack. Chairs. Table. Particle board. Electronics. Sweet, wholesome, copper wire taste in his mouth, the tendrils of the electric fingers ironed his tongue. “This is real, I am loved, I am safe.” Over and over he massaged his arms. Scratched his hair. Clawed his cheeks. He lived here, now, nowhere else. The crawling thing slithered against the jar, the lead lid now spinning on the hardwood floor. A cacophony of howls and screeching filled his mind. “You can’t make me more mad! I’m mad as fuck, and I just don’t care!” He laughed at his own voice, he didn’t say it, it wasn’t him, but he heard it. Child, calm thyself, all shall be made clear in the revelation of death and pestilent. Millions have died. You are nothing and only one. It is here in thy room of safety that thou shall find balm for the soul. Surrender thyself as those of the southern lands did, drink deep of the sunsets end. “Be quiet, you’re a fucking microwave! A toaster! A nothing and silvery lies! You don’t give me peace, you melt my eyes and tear my mind with a serrated knife left in the garden filled with patchy blood!” He must keep kneading himself. His hands, slick with old skin and sweat, tore at his cheeks, tore at his hair. Clumps of blood and bits of grey skin fell on the hardwood floor. The roof laughed at him, the T.V. ended its massage and screamed the void towards his eyes. That crawling thing now, prehensile tendrils squirmed from the edge. Good god, gods, divine

Trichotillomania Written by RyeWizard

beings, preserve him he had let loose the jar and all the world would suffer. His shit apartment, filled with disappointment and pain, his empty coffers and coffins and coffee lurched in jubilant glee, a wicked, vicious, uncouth glee. Shh, soon now my child, soon now. You are safe in my arms. The walls are your castle. The furniture your holdings. The paintings are your subjects. See how the paint bows before you and the light shimmers in your glory? You are safe child. Safe. Safe as a harlot in a flagellants dungeon! That damn toaster. Or maybe this time the oven spoke to him? It looked like a mouth ever grimacing…no this motherly tone quilted safety in his ears. His liquor? The one safe haven of havens? Perhaps. “Speak again, please saint Ethena. Ol’ the soul upon my young body begs your speech again…”

Silence there, and nothing more.

The crawling horror slopped from the lid of the jar. He fell upon his knees. Raising his hands up in supplication he screamed to the ceiling, those horrid eyes now cried through the stucco wall great rivers of blood. But the rows of teeth still shone in a massive grin. The thing from the great jar coiled and shuffled towards him. He opened his body, his soul, his mind, he accepted this constricting mass of chaos. His life, his everything meant nothing. The plague took everything, why not take this?

He awoke, all a dream? Something lurched…