The Y-Files
Confession following a trip down 840
I don't know why I turned myself in, okay. I just
know I had to.
Yes, I told you, I believe in spirits. Now. After spending a night out there.
And no, I'm not crazy. They're everywhere out there - go see for yourself
- it just isn't natural.
They're hiding in the sprawling rolling fields, in the splintered sun-dried
wood and in the blood red rusted iron. They whisper in your ear with each
step you take. In the crunching dirt beneath your feet, in the rustling
sigh of grasses in the wind. They're everywhere you look, taunting me. And
there's nowhere to hide. Because the sky is everywhere. Watching, enfolding,
framing, blurring, melting into the ground. At once weighing me down, and
sucking me up into it, so that it is a struggle to keep my feet on the ground.
I was born and bred in the city. An urban rat - at home in the sewers of
the world; the dark alleys and dirty streets. Walled in where the sky is
only an occasional patch of dirty gray between the buildings. And the sky
is always and only up. Not around, not on every side but down. I'm at home
in the close clustered confusion of the city - I know its ways. Natural
Selection has made me strong there. Shrewd. An urban rat. I've lived there
loudly all my life. And yesterday was the first time I ever had to actually
kill someone. The first time. Even then I made sure there were no witnesses.
But then what am I supposed to do? I want to make this lump of deadweight
disappear for good. Then, somehow, I think of the countryside. People are
always getting lost and going missing out there - it must be a good place
for hiding. Besides, isn't that where all the serious killers dump their
bodies? Good enough for me.
Biggest mistake I ever made. No, not the killing; leaving the city. Going
out there.
It seemed perfect at first; speeding down the road, the thing in my trunk
making soft thuds with every bump. No one around. Not a single living soul
anywhere. Miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. There must be
so many places to hide something. Forever. Bury it so deep it'll never see
the light of day.
But every time I'd stop to try ... it just wouldn't let me. The place, I
mean.
The first time I stepped out of my car - Bam! Vertigo. I literally fell
down to my knees, clutching at the fender for support The sky was all around
me! Everywhere. All I had was a thin crust of dust under my feet. And nothing
to hold me down. When I managed to open my eyes again, everything was melting.
Where did the sky begin and the earth end? Was that an old farmhouse, or
was it just another bump on the land? But hell, even if I could have figured
out how to separate ground from anything else it would have been of no help.
The ground itself was rocking and heaving like an ocean. Shadows and light
began to play dirty tricks on my eyes - I couldn't tell what was solid and
what was space anymore. I swear I saw waves rolling towards me.
I emptied my stomach against the back tire, and heaved myself back into
the car, gasping like a drowning man.
After a time I tried again, planning to make for what I think may have been
an old abandoned barn, not far from the road. At least there, I thought,
was something man made, something solid, with walls. Some sense of scale.
So I swung out the door, keeping my eyes carefully pointed at the ground
at my feet. I popped the trunk and yanked my shovel out from under him.
Nothing was going to stop me this time. I walked slowly, carefully, like
I was crossing a rope bridge. Watching my feet bend the grass, crack the
soil. A rickety old half-hearted barbed wire fence fell across my path and
I paused. Even the walls here aren't solid. Nowhere to hide. I glanced up
to the crumbling shack beyond, only to see it buck and dance like a ghost
ship at sea Receding then rushing at me. I started to panic and snagged
my jeans on the wire.
That's when the spirits spoke up. Mocking me with their whispered wailing.
It took me an eternity to get back the few yards to the road.
I tried stopping in a small town, but it was no better. The whispering wild
spirits were joined in their mockery of me by loud cackling ghosts. And
I couldn't tell if the shapes and shades I saw shuffling down the road towards
me were people or phantasms. All I left was a cloud of dust. I raced home,
but it was no use. They had woken the thing in my trunk, and even back in
the city there was no longer any peace for me.
That's why I came here and talked, I guess. I want to make the spirits stop.
And I want, desperately, some solid walls around me.
[ Top of Page | Table of Contents | Intervention | Previous Article | Next Article ]