Crayon Smudges

Gerry struggles against the leather straps holding him in the bed, the metal buckles singing softly as they bounce off one another.

They didn’t used to strap him, he remembers. Back when he believed the lies and was harmless They didn’t even lock the door. They medicate him daily, but he thinks They always have – the numbness feels like it's been there his entire life. At least they are honest now. The straps on the bed, locked door and barred windows. At least this place looks like a prison.

When he’s listening, he can hear the sounds of others. Sobbing and screaming, spoiling his silence. He despises them and their weakness. Yet he is thankful for them. Every sound is a reminder that he is not alone. There are people here. He hates them but they are people. Not like him though. Not strong like he is. Not strong enough to know the truth. If they did, they would know how pointless their screaming was.

November -1914- Cairo, Egypt

Gerry Edith slid the smooth wooden rifle butt along his stubble until it hit the sinew of his jaw, making sure it had found purchase between his chin and neck before taking his hands away. His sweat made it slide a little, and he had to flare his jaw to prevent the gun falling to the ground. He could hear the others marching still, their uniform step shaking the ground, and he could picture the foreign sands rising in response to swallow them.

Gerry knew he should be with them and the shame he was hiding from began to seep into his thoughts. But he didn’t enlist in this, he was drafted. Death terrified him. He was no soldier, no hero - he was a librarian. He could see the face of the young boy he’d seen beaten like a dog in the street, and it made him think of his own young boy, and pregnant wife.

The thought steadied his nerves, and he imagined his infant son's face to calm his fears. The librarian braced himself against the cool stone, hoping medical aid would be close at hand, and pulled the trigger.

February -1921- Hobart, Australia

He was working at the library. When Tony was gone he was the boss and he gave himself the easiest job - entering back the books that folks had returned on the weekend. He didn’t put them back on the shelves himself as pushing the cart made his leg flare up. That was a job for one of the kids anyway. Gerry was puzzled to find an incorrectly returned book. Instead of his libraries yellow stamping card in an envelope on the inside cover there was a blank white square. He flicked back to the cover, and found it blank as well. The pretty young trainee with the braces had only giggled when asked about it. Gerry didn’t get the joke, but kept the book anyway. It just wasn’t in the librarian to throw out a book.

He gave it to his children to draw in, who filled it with colourful monsters, princesses and knights. Gerry would come home from work and they would shove the latest one into his face. He’d see but never really look at the crudely drawn images and he’d always have to ask them what it was. They’d exasperatedly state what it was supposed to be and he’d apologise for being such a blind Daddy, of course that’s what it was. They got older and drew better in time, but they had their own books by then of course. The blank book was forgotten - a nameless book among the accumulating hundreds on his shelves, accruing age but nothing else. His children left home, and in a fit of loneliness one day he remembered it. He put it next to his bed then, but rarely looked at it still – there were too many other books to read. They lay, ignoring each other like an unhappy marriage, until Gerry no longer had the health or the inclination to work at the library anymore.

He treasured it more then, having fewer books to distract him. He loved to open it to a random page, stare at a picture and try to remember. Which child had drawn it, when and what it was supposed to be? When his health deteriorated further and his children, panicking, checked him into an assisted living centre Gerry had taken the blank book; a reminder of happier times.

When his daughter brought his newest granddaughter Lily to meet him, he’d insisted she draw in the book. She was four, too old to meet her grandfather for the first time and he scared her with his droopy face. Her mother was in an intense discussion with the nurses and there was no escape for Lily from this scary man who she’d been pretending to listen to. Delighted to have a distraction, she attached herself to the book until her mother grabbed her to say their goodbyes.

Only then did Gerry notice that Lily must have run out of paper, as the front of the book was crayoned in the thick, obvious lines of a child’s art. He’d have to teach her some respect for books, he thought to himself chuckling, but at least she’d enjoyed herself. Picking it up and putting on his glasses, he realised he’d judged her prematurely – the lines were thick and crayon, sure, but it was miles ahead of his children’s art at her age. Instead of the crudely drawn princess he was expecting, he found himself looking at a proper sketch.

A hundred light scratches smudged into one another to give an impression of something else. It wasn’t a princess as far as he could tell, the impression he got was that it wasn’t even human. Gerry brought it to bed, and held it under his bedside lamp for an hour trying to decide what it was. Every time he thought he had decided what it was, he changed his mind. It was as if there was a picture behind the picture, and you couldn’t see both at once. The chimes sang to signify midnight and Gerry laughed, realising he was analysing the art of a five year old. He sat his glasses next to the bed, and turned off the lamp.

That night he’d dreamed of marching towards a pyramid in a windy, endless desert. As he got closer to the pyramid, the wind got stronger. His eyes were watering, but he knew if he closed them he’d never get to the pyramid, never escape the desert. He forced them open with his fingers, fighting against their attempts to flinch closed as he inched closer to the pyramid.

He feels the sand wearing his eyes away, eroding every inch, until he can’t see at all. He only knows he has reached the temple when he feels the warm stone on his outstretched hand and the wind stops. In agony he digs the sand from his eyes until he can just see again, but his eyes are ruined and he sees only rough shapes. Gerry looks up, expecting the pyramid but it isn’t there. Instead, an immense sandstone obelisk stretches up as high as Gerry can see, nearly blotting out the sun.

He can’t see what happens next, but he hears it and feels the shadow cast on his face as something big enough to block out the sun crawls over the obelisk.

Gerry almost screams when he wakes up, but catches himself just in time. “Just a dream”, he said aloud.

The urge to scream stays with him all day though, and only after they bring him his lunch does he figure out why. He picks up the blank book and stares at it as he digests; turning its cover this way and that to try and figure out what Lily drew. Then he sees it.

An obelisk clearly rises through the centre of the image, and only by focusing on that the image can be seen. The confusion came from what was wrapped around the obelisk, a creature that doesn’t conform to any logic Gerry knows. The creature he didn’t see in his dreams. Just from this image of it, as effective as a black and white Monet, he feels unbidden words forcing their way into his mind. He feels its presence, as distant as the stars but enveloping him, closing in. Gerry knows the truth for the first time, and his eyes are opened. He turns the page, knowing he’ll see another blasphemy instead of the art he loves. Children’s artless creations have become something more, as for the first time he looks and truly sees. A picture behind every picture, an abomination on every page, a face behind every face – this is the truth.

The nurse that comes to take his leftovers doesn’t know that he can see her for the first time. She is harder than the pictures, but if he concentrates he can see the truth in her just like in the pictures. Her face bulges where it shouldn’t, then folds and runs together and he can see the monster underneath. She is saying something but how can he listen and what is the point? Now he’s seen the truth he knows it’s all lies. He wets himself when she smiles, and wishes he hadn’t, because now she touches him. He feels her hairy exoskeleton against his skin and can't help but scream.

His children are long dead, and he hates the foul things that wear their rotting faces. They speak to him as one would a child, condescending and sickly sweet in a way that makes him wonder what they want from him really. He tries not to look at them when they visit. He managed to not let them know that he knows, but they look at him differently now. Treat him differently. They used to pretend to be his children and behave like they were. When he first asked where his real children were, they even pretended to be upset. “Dad, we’re here”, drooled the multi-jawed creature that had Walt’s face, as it jerked the strings that made his son’s face cry. Gerry wasn’t fooled. They gave up eventually, one after the other. Only the one that wears his daughters face still visits, bringing Lily with it. He hates her the most.

A sick joke, it wears a child-suit tacked onto its spongy frame. It is a juvenile, weaker than the others - not having yet grown its own exoskeleton to protect it. Parasites run over it feeding on the filth constantly thickly running from its mouths, and it ineffectually tries to push them out. That’s not why he hates it more though. It’s because, unlike the others, it hasn’t given up on the lie. It still tries to hug him, pushed reluctantly towards him by its mother even though he pushes it away with a shriek every time. It asks him about the book, and if it can have crayons. If it gets crayons it always draws the crawling obelisk creature. Gerry thinks it’s that thing’s filthy sprog, that They all came from it's immense womb. But it still pretends to be innocent. It tells him the pictures are princesses. Its childlike voice mocks Gerry, taunts him with memories of his dead children and grandchildren. It whispers it loves Gerry, and calls him Poppy. He cries for Lily after it leaves.

His daughter-fake barely says hello this time before scuttling away to talk with one of the nurse-fakes. Their human faces seem unhappy, but if he strains he can see their real faces inside and all of their mouths are smiling. The Lily-Thing calls him Poppy, oozing forward with Lily's stiched on limbs outstretched. It is asking for it's book. Gerry jumps out of bed with the speed of his youth. Feeling his bad leg giving way beneath him he has to grip the table not to fall. The Lily-thing shrieks in a decent impression of surprised young girl, and behind her skin it has retracted all of its tentacles in fear.

Gerry slams the door shut before They can react, but he knows that won’t hold Them long. After all, this is a prison behind a prison, and They have all the keys. He pulls a chair close, wedging it under the door handle and hopes it will hold long enough.

The Lily-thing stares at him with her innocent eyes and it's monstrous ones, clutching the book in tiny hands like it’s a shield. The picture behind the picture is shrivelling, making itself as small as possible, trying to squeeze through a gap in the window. Its child-suit is too bulky though, Lily’s face hooking on the latch. Although it's guttaral squeals for its fake-mother outside are being answered, Gerry realises they haven’t been able to get the door open.

For the first time in a long time, since Egypt, he feels like a man, a warrior. He digs into her soft flesh and tears a piece off, marvelling at its translucence and texture. Somewhere in here is proof, Gerry knows it, and he has to find it before they unlock that door.