NEIGHBORS
I carefully peel my eyes open to discover that I am lying in a pool of liquid on a heap of moist towels. My body is throbbing and pleading for my attention. I barely see anything but black splotches dancing around my line of vision and wonder for a moment if my eyes are really open or if they are merely playing a cruel trick on me. My skin seems to be turned inside out, with the open air rubbing against my raw, exposed sensory receptors like sandpaper. I attempt to lift my head in vain, as it flops right back down on the tough surface I seem to be laying. Too weak. I take a deep breath and attempt to push the agonizing pain out of my mind. Where am I? I smell the air, and I sense the overwhelming stench of paint and what else…peanut butter.
I strain my eyes in the stark blackness and my blurred surroundings slowly begin to take form. I can see a figure in the distance. It moves towards me in a sly, precarious manner, and I can finally see that it is a cat. Gypsy. Goddammit, that has to be Gypsy I think definitively as I spot her missing front left leg and her short stubby, hairless tail. Then I take in the faint aroma of peanut butter once again and I know that it is Steve. That sick fuck. I just picture him spooning peanut butter out of a jar, as he always does, sitting on his porch, which is conveniently adjacent to a playground, as he most likely daydreams about coaxing one of the frolicking little children into licking the peanut butter off his balls.
Steve is my neighbor in a small yellow duplex. I moved in a little over 3 months ago, and he has been pestering me just about every single day since. He is always asking if I need help in the garden, or on carpender-esque tasks because in his mind, of course I need help—I am a female. He’s also always asking me “womanly” questions, one day he knocked on my door to ask me if I knew the best method for scraping gum off his shoes, and if I would help him, as these shoes were apparently a gift from his mother 2 days before she died and it would be a travesty to have them soiled with chewing gum. So, out of sympathy and my pathetic fear of confrontation, I agreed. It stretched out for 3 goddamn hours. The de-gumming turned into a barrage of questions attempting to “get to know me”. It seemed like he wanted to see just how long he could possibly keep me in his quarters by luring me in with smiles and “pleasant” conversation.
The thing about Steve is that he’s relatively good looking. He has blindingly white teeth that stretch out as more of a straight line than a smile, a square jaw, and is always clean-shaven with his dark, abundant hair neatly parted to the side and lightly slicked back. So yes, he’s conventionally handsome, except that he kind of reminds me of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, and therefore I have been incredibly wary of him from the beginning. You’d think someone like me—a lonely 32-year-old woman with sexual frustration permanently plastered on my tired face—would be overjoyed to have an attractive gentleman as a neighbor, who tries astoundingly hard to get my attention. But no matter how many trivial questions he asks to prolong our menial interactions, I refuse to surrender. Perhaps I am irrationally paranoid over most things, or perhaps I have exceptional intuition. His demeanor is what triggered some sense of alert in my mind. He’s incredibly relaxed. So calm that at times I find myself beginning to nod off in his presence in a sort of hypnotic state. He also has this way of saying everything with a slight smile, that makes you think that he is “charismatic” or “nice” but I can always see straight through it, and did everything I could to avoid him. Yet here I am.
I am immediately flooded with the reminder that I am lying in what is quite possibly a pool of my own blood and I have no memory of today’s events. I can finally distinguish the skeleton of my surroundings as a small sliver of light pushes through the tiny window over on the side wall and decide that I must be in Steve’s shed, lying on the stern concrete ground atop of a pile of towels. I count to three and pull myself up to a sitting position as I swallow the prickling pain echoing down my spine. I discover that I am covered in a dark liquid. Yet I can’t figure out where the puncture wounds are coming from. Although it feels as though every bone in my body has been snapped in half like a twig—I am intact. I am surrounded by neat heaps of junk peppered throughout the space, resembling molehills. Steve is a hoarder of trinkets. He says it is a habit he picked up from his mother since he inherited all of her belongings following her death. I flop down on all fours, and attempt to army crawl through the landmines of tiny wizards, seashells, key chains and glass animals. Suddenly I hear footsteps and the rickety doorknob twisting so I quickly slide back to my original position and close my eyes.
Quick footsteps enter the shed and head straight to the far end of the shed and bustle around seeming to search for something. Then all is quiet for a moment, and I attempt to slow my breathing, although I fear that I will choke on my tongue in the process. Slowly the footsteps approach my direction and stop when they have reached my head.
“My dear Aggie,” he says in his slow melodic tone. My name is Agatha, not Aggie you relentless bastard, I think to myself. He insists in calling me “Aggie” like we are close, like he has the right. He kneels down beside me and skirts my blood soaked hair from my forehead and tucks it behind my right ear.
“It’ll all be over soon, you won’t hurt for much longer…I just wish I’d gotten to you sooner,” He pauses thoughtfully, and sniffles in a way that suggests he has shed a few tears. At that moment, I open my fiery eyes wide, burning with hatred and I see that his head is down. I take the crystal unicorn, clutched in my left hand that I had shuffled passed in my meek attempt at an escape, and stab him straight in the side of this throat. He looks up at me with pleading eyes as I twist the horn of the unicorn well into his neck and across his throat.
“You sick fuck,” I manage to force out of my cracked throat. I crawl away to the edge of the garage in an attempt to stand up, as I leave him, squirming on the ground, crying out in hopeless pain. The faint sound of sirens enters my ears. Has someone come to rescue me? I perk my ears up in a dog-like manner in an attempt to listen further and I decide that what I hear is real. They are getting closer, I hold onto the wall as a crutch as I limp towards the door. I hear shuffling outside, and people yelling. I fumble with the doorknob and with all my strength, push it open, as the sunlight blinds my line of sight and knocks me to the ground.
“Ma’am!” A low voice strums towards me, as an army of footsteps shuffle in my direction, “Are you Aggie?” I nod, unable to open my eyes as blood continues to rush to my head. “Do you know what has happened?” When I don’t respond, he proceeds, “You’ve fallen three stories, ma’am, and you might have internal damage, so I’m going to need you to stay put and we’ll put you on a stretcher.” Three stories? What? I finally open my eyes and see that the liquid that I am covered in is navy blue. I look behind the man and see my side of the duplex, partially covered in a fresh coat of paint, with a toppled ladder at the foot.