The Shut-in (part 1 of 2)

Quick note:

I wrote this in December I think as a way of dealing with some mental health stuff. About halfway through I realised I could use the prompt for the challenge about not opening the door - ha! As it was always about a shut-in so seemed fitting. After writing over 1000 words I realised the prompt was for a micro fiction. Alas, I retained the use of the prompt throughout!

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There was only one rule: don’t open the door.

Held prisoner by one’s self? Can I even get to the front door? Too risky. What if I turn the door knob, trip on the step and tumble out on my face with everyone laughing at me. News cameras arrive: “Guy hasn’t left house for three months - first time outside falls flat on his face on his own doorstep! Should have just stayed inside, seriously.”

Besides, it’s really good in here - there’s no one to bug me (just my Demons) and currently we’re not friends. Lately, they’re all actually being real pricks, telling me I’m headed for another mental breakdown, that I’ll be locked up elsewhere soon enough! - and that you can’t look after yourself, but frankly who else would ever want to! You’re an unlovable dirtbag with bloating issues, like the stomach bloat has gotten to be so big it’s probably cancerous! Plus it hurts to pee, so you must have testicular cancer. Always, cancer, Cancer, CANCER! When will they stop? When will it end?

I guess those alleged ‘healthy frozen meals’ haven’t been doing anything for me? Then there’s the voices - not mine (I don’t think..) and no, not my Demons either - unless they are possessing others but.., you see, it’s the neighbours too. I can hear them talking about me through their walls, even the ones across the street. I know I’ve been told in the past I’ve SUPER hearing, but even I think this is a tad ridiculous, yet if I’m aware it’s ridiculous that I can hear to that extent, then I can’t be full-blown crazy now can I? And yet, they are always there, taunting me, making fun of me and conspiring against me. If you were to hear these taunts too then maybe you wouldn’t want to go outside much either. If I open the door and leave, maybe I’d just hear it louder and louder and I just know I couldn’t face that right now. I don’t know how to properly prepare myself to face my enemies as I’m a nice, kind person. I want to rip their faces off, but other than that I’m actually really pleasant. Maybe my Demons could learn to help me - instead of hindering me all the time! If I could just get them all in a row to have my back for just once!… Where are Louis, Simon and Elizabeth when you need them?

I felt safe one day last week. I crouched down on all fours behind the front door, as if preparing myself to make a run. Maybe I was a werewolf in a past life, but somehow getting down low makes me feel just a little safer. Anyway, I unlocked the door and slowly began to turn the doorknob, but the voices just got the better of me. “Don’t you dare leave!” they said. “It’ll only lead to more anguish.”

Remember, I thought, “There is only one major rule: don’t open the door.”

Fucking Louis! He was the worse. Really. Always getting into my head. So I locked the door, bolted it and sat down on a beanbag facing the window to the front garden with the shades slightly opened. Trembling, for no discernible reason, at least to the outside eye.

Yet, what if I were to try again? New day, new week, new me - why not?!

I decisively crouch down again, unlock the door, turn the knob and and it opens, but there is another door, a fly-wire door which was locked. I do not have the key as the latch was a little broken. Where is that key? I sit down on the floor behind the door, this time in a meditative pose with legs crossed over each other. Warm day, a sunny day - I could feel it underneath the lower crack in the door. If I didn’t have a run-in with the neighbours, I’d probably get burnt. Fair skin and all that (it is Australia) but didn’t you once love the sun and the beach before, he thought. 20 years ago, tanned and healthy, you’d even surf back in the day. Remember those times? What the hell happened to you? The mind was drowning in memories, a common and unhealthy affliction. Seems I became pale again locked up inside. It would be memorable to venture out to feel the Australian sun on my skin without being ravaged by monstrous burns.

Is today the day? The Demons are so scarcely quiet; I don’t know where they are presently.. Maybe they’re giving me the day off while they poke and prod each other, or perhaps, senselessly victimising another poor, old soul instead. What I don’t know can’t hurt me, can it? Whilst there is some trepidation it really is a pleasant day outside. You’ve got to let go of these fears. This must be the way. I can even begin to feel a slight breeze through the fly-wire door. As I sit, it lightly brushes my hair and my face. What’s that hackneyed phrase? - “Feel the fear and do it anyway.” Perhaps the neighbours won’t bother me today, maybe my skin won’t breakout in welts from the sun, maybe I’ll actually have a really great walk and observe some animals or a bird that I hadn’t seen before? Surely that would be worth letting go, finding the key and being free?

…..

End of part 1.

You may read the last part here: