Falling Shut - A Short Story

Hey folks!

As my second blog post, I thought I’d go ahead and share with you one of my own short stories that I’ll be posting from time to time, as well as chapter segments of the new novel I’m writing: Blood And Leather

This piece is my twisted take on alter-egos and the little voices in our heads that compel, inspire and, sometimes, ultimately damn us. Please enjoy!

Falling Shut
April 6. © S.D. Houston, All rights reserved

A car alarm blared from outside, followed by a low grumble. “Dammit”, Jeffrey muttered to himself. He set his dark gray oil pastel down on the big artist pad laid out on his drafting table and rose to his feet. Straightening his back quickly in a tight stretch, he ambled into the living room and over to the coffee table, leaning forward to swipe up his car keys. He strode hurriedly toward the front door, murmuring something under his breath about punk kids and lack of respect for other people’s shit.

A gust of cool air swirled in through the front door as he opened it, carrying the now louder screeching of the alarm in it’s wake. A moment later, the head-splitting sound was halted immediately by a less deafening, “Chirp, chirp!” He always hated First Friday. All the high school posers and college punks seemed to make it a point to block driveways and make as much racket as they could while running rampant through his neighborhood on the first Friday of each month. Around the block and all down the nearby strip were festivities and bands; stands selling jewelry, artwork, t-shirts and food. It was a monthly party. He just wished they would keep the party at the party.

“Thank God! Took you long enough,” came a huffy, sarcastic voice from the den where he’d been drawing. Oh, shut the hell up, he thought, keeping the remark to himself.

“Hey,” Jeffrey said loudly as he almost slammed the front door behind him and crossed back through the living room. “If it was such a pain in your butt, then why didn’t you go and shut the alarm off yourself?

The voice sounded more agitated than amused at his comment as it spoke back up.

“Oh, haha! Funny! You know, if I had legs and my other arm right now, I’d strangle you, ya jerk-off.”

The voice went silent for a moment as Jeffrey stood at the entry to the den, leaning against the doorframe with his hands jammed in his pockets looking almost like a James Dean replica except for the dark auburn hair. “Oh yeah?"

“Okay,” the voice retorted. “You got me there. I wouldn’t, you know. But there’s no need to kick me when I’m down, brute."

Jeffrey strode back over to the heavy oak drafting table. Lowering himself onto the stool, he leaned over and retrieved the pastel he was so rudely forced to abandon. “You know, that color’s a little moody and depressing, don’t you think? How about a nice fiery, energetic red or something, huh? Whaddaya say?”

The artist’s eyes scrunched in annoyance at the statement posed as a question and mumbled under his breath, just loud enough for the drawing to hear him. “My high school art teacher always said that art should speak to you, but this is ridiculous.”

“What….?”

Jeffrey spoke up, cutting the voice off. “Look, do you want me to finish your jacket and your right arm or not? I can make it red if you want. I’ll give you a nice Michael Jackson leather look and let people think you’re a damn freak. That work for you?”

“Ugh! Alright, alright! You’re the artist. Just get me done, dude. I’m gettin’ stiff here.”

The voice chuckled at his unnoticed “stiff” joke, but Jeffrey just huffed quietly as he pressed the pastel against the heavy paper, coloring in, smudging and smoothing as he went along, giving the effect of an oil painting. He loved the idea of the painting effect without all the mess. No paint on his clothes, no grueling brush cleaning, no funny French berets.

He still hadn’t quite figured out how in the world he’d found himself in this situation, except that he’d had the strangest dream the night before. In the dream, he’d found himself in front of a changing room in a clothing store. Then, out of nowhere, a man had shown up saying, “Looking for change? I may have the answer for you.” Something like that anyway, but he couldn’t remember for sure. The words he did remember clearly were, “Express yourself. Let the voice of another speak to you, and listen. It will help you seek what you are finding."

Not sure why, but this struck him as odd after waking up. But dreams were usually odd, weren’t they? Something about this one, though, seemed to really stand out. It was at that point that he had realized who the man was. It was him, except it wasn't him. It was a more confident, assured part of him that he had lost somewhere between his divorce and losing his advertising executive position when he lost a big account to a small-time fast talking free-lancer. His life had taken a hard left turn, and he wanted things to change so badly.

He then decided to draw the man from the dream. Once he had finished the vague rough sketch, he grabbed his oil pastels and prepared himself for the grunt work. The second he had laid the white pastel down on the tanned paper to start working, he got the spook of his lifetime.

“Ouch! Easy on the cranium there, heavy-handed Harry!”

The voice had seemed come out of nowhere, and Jeffrey literally fell off his stool, landing hard on his backside and shrieking like a little girl. Stunned, he looked around, trying to figure out who had snuck into his house and pulled the prank on him. The voice came back.

“For Christ sake, Jeffrey…that is your name isn’t it? Ah who cares. For Christ sake, stop sitting on the floor screaming like a bitch and get up here. We’ve got work to do.”

He had no idea what to do or say. Shaking and speechless, he got back on the stool and tried to regain his composure. What an ass, he had thought, not that it made any difference. It wasn’t normal for a voice to pop out of nowhere, whether it was cocky or not. And how the hell did the thing know my name?

Several long minutes had passed of trying to convince himself that it was okay and this was a spirit thing. Several more long minutes of being harangued by a disembodied vocal encyclopedia of insults and criticisms passed next. After a trip to the kitchen, and an oversized mug of coffee with too much cream and sugar, he’d reluctantly sat back down at his drafting table.

“You goin’ for a caffeine overdose, or trying to break the world’s record for the jitters?”

“Screw you,” he retorted as he took a huge gulp, burning his mouth, hoping maybe it would wake him up from this freaked-out nonsense. But it hadn’t helped. Not a bit.

“I’m going crazy,” he told himself. “I’ll be in a nuthouse tomorrow, hanging out with people who think they’re Joan of Arc, and muttering about their dead relatives coming to pick them up next week. Absolutely freaking wonderful.” He briefly wondered if all artists were insane, and most just haven’t figured it out yet. He’d never know though, being hopped up on whatever drugs they’d have him on.

“Dude, seriously!” the voice had loudly interrupted as if reading his mind. “You’re not freakin’ out and going crazy. Now get over yourself. Look at you! You’re a mess. I’d shake my head if you’d hurry up and give me one. Ugh, you make me sick, ya know that?”

That last part caught him off guard, confusing him. The “…if you’d hurry up and give me one”, not the part about making it sick. “What do you mean, if I’d hurry and give you a head?” he’d asked, but the voice just mocked him in a snide tone, parroting his question.

“Whaddaya think I mean, Jeffrey?” It put a lot of stress on Jeffrey’s name. “Wow, you’re dense. No wonder you’re looking for a change. Your whole damn life is spiraling down the crapper, and your pea-brain can’t process enough information to see why. That ex-wife of yours was a real peach, eh? Too bad you blew that one.”

Jeffrey’s eyes widened as he slammed down the pastel with a loud thwack against the paper, partly from shock at the comment, partly from anger at it’s presumptuous attitude. “So, how do you know so much about me anyway?” he asked snidely, not sure that he wanted to know the answer.

“Well duh, idiot. You created me. I am you, or at least the part you wish you were. It’s amazing what the mind can conjure when it’s at it’s bleakest.”

You mean to tell me I’m creating voices now? Man, this just keeps getting better.

“Yo, fantasy boy! Stop daydreaming and get back to work! I can’t help you if you don’t finish my damn body!”

Jeffrey snapped back to reality and put the pastel against the paper once more. It took him another hour and a half, and an aspirin, to finish the piece, listening to the voice prattle on and on the entire time. His head was throbbing. Does this thing ever shut the fuck up? He guessed not, but it finally had a finished body. Thank God! Now maybe he’ll go find someone else to bug.

“Okay! Now hold me up to the mirror,” it chimed excitedly. “I wanna see what the ladies are gonna see!” it said, obviously enjoying this. Jeffrey just shook his head. Rising to his feet, large artist pad in hand, he walked over to a large full-length mirror across the room. He folded the previous pages against the back, holding them so they wouldn’t fall shut as he faced his new work to the mirror.

“Exquisite!” came the remark at the almost lifelike form of a guy in a long dark gray coat with blond, neatly tousled hair, sporting a black button-down shirt , boots, and blue jeans. “Jeff my man, you are a genius! How do-o-o you do it?” Its voice was ecstatic, beginning every second or third word in a high pitch. “Love the hair, man. I always did picture myself as a blond. Let’s do this! Ready?”

“Thanks, I’m glad you approve. Yeah, I’m ready.” Ready for a quiet night and a stiff drink.

“Sweet!” The tone in the voice became more serious, anxious to get this done.

“Okay, now keep the picture up, facing the mirror.” Jeffrey obliged, his arms tightening to hold the picture where it was. “Now close your eyes and breathe deep. That’s it. Relax.” His eyes closed as his breath expanded, drawing in a long slow stream of air, filling his lungs. The voice began mumbling something in a strange language. Latin maybe? It didn’t really sound like it, though. It wasn’t anything that he could place. As the voice’s uttering became more intense, he felt his skin tingling. The weight of the large pad began to dissipate and the feeling of weightlessness suddenly started to overtake him.

The voice became silent, reminding him of what was going on. He had become completely relaxed and had completely forgotten what was happening. It was as if he’d just woken up from a quickly-forgotten dream except that his eyes were still closed. He had no urge to open them, not having been this relaxed in a long time.

“It’s done!” the voice shouted suddenly and excitedly, sounding different, louder and sharper somehow, almost as if it was hovering above him. “See ya later, chump!”

His eyes flew open in shock at the sudden trill of the voice-and being called a chump-just in time to see the ceiling falling away from him. Suddenly he realized it was himself that was falling. Hitting the floor with a soft thud, he watched in panic at an auburn-haired James Dean-looking figure walking away, laughing, a mock evil “Bwah-ha-ha!”

“Hey!” he shouted, angry and frightened. “What the hell’s going on?, Get back here!” The front door opened for a moment, letting in the sound of loud obnoxious teens and twenty-somethings outside, probably well drunk by now. He began screaming for help, hoping someone would hear him. Seeing a shadow falling over him, his eyes shot up.

He screamed again, his cries and curses drowned out as the heavy pages of the large artist pad flapped downward, falling shut.

END


I hope this satisfied your craving for some dark, twisted sense of what could be almost be reality! Please feel free to comment and give me your opinions, and share this blog with your friends!

Til next time:
If you hear something going bump in the night, don’t look under the bed or in your closet… it’s already under your blanket.

Welcome To My Mind

This first posting is just to give you a little more insight into me, and the purpose of this blog.

To start with, I'm a writer...I should use the proper descriptive, aspiring, as I've had nothing officially published yet. But I've been learning a great deal in the recent past and would like to start sharing my work and words of wisdom with you to the fullest extent that I can. I'm also always open to any wisdom others can share with me.

I've been writing short stories and some poetry since I was in fourth grade, when I wrote my first piece of poetry. It was some little ditty about a bee. I still laugh when I think back to it.

I looked in the mirror and what did I see?
A big yellow and black bumblebee coming after me

That's all I can remember off the top of my head, but I do remember my classmates at the time taking interest in it and copying it down. Lol if I had only known about copyright infringements at that point!

The next step from there was building up my poetry, getting fairly proficient by the time I hit junior high and puberty. Okay, I admit! I was trying to impress the English teacher. It wasn't my fault she was hot! Those poems eventually evolved into short stories...this time trying to impress my friends and certain sexy young dames. It worked pretty well, I have to say! Well, the interest in the stories anyway. It didn't garner me the 'personal' interest I was hoping for though. Oh well, life sucks sometimes, what can I say? I'm much better with the female species now than I ever was throughout high school.

After a time, I had given up on the writing as my guitar-playing and singing skills evolved, and my penmanship turned to song-writing. I've been a vocalist and rythem guitarist in a few small un-named bands. The songs were great, but the music sucked, if you follow me there. I still have an interest in re-recording a few of my songs and seeing what happens eventually, but right now my sole concentration is on my literary endevours.

As a "loser" in junior high and the first half of high school, naturally my subject matter took on a lot of self-pity, depression, and hostility. Natural par for the course in matters of dark fiction. I could lay a lot of the blame on my dad as well, and I used to. Sooner or later, though, I realized that his holier than thou and you're going to hell when you die if you don't straighten up attitude wasn't meant to be mean and make me out like I was some kind of monster or problem child. It was just his way of attempting to make the man out of me he thought was best for me. Yeah, so he wasn't perfect. Who is?

And in some small way I think he accomplished this, even if it did take me most of my 32 years to figure it out. It's amazing how many things your parents do when you're growing up and you swear to yourself, "I'm never going to be like them!" Next thing you know, every now and then you have an epiphany and realize that hey! They were right after all!

Oh wow, I rambled off there! Okay, back to the subject at hand...

All these aspects that build up when you're grossly unpopular in school, I strongly believe that these are probably some of the biggest factors in what drive a lot of people to become writers of horror and dark fiction. It was certainly what got me into writing it. Sure most everyone likes a good scare story now and then. For most people, that is...even if unconciously...what reminds them that they are alive. Fear of death is the trigger to survival instinct. But what drives a person to WRITE these stories?

I'm sure there are as many answers as there are types of horror stories. But I've notice from experience that for many, if not most, it was the inner fear of not being accepted, and the darkness of being "alone" that being an outcast from the popular world created. What happens, then, is that those of us that lived this began trying to create our own little worlds where we made things happen for us; worlds where we either flourished in this darkness, or were the heroes who vanquished this darkness.

Now don't go stereotyping from this concept, please! This is just a general idea and theory as there are, as I stated previously, many other reasons for many other authors. Hell, I'm even proud to say I was a "loser" in school (well, til my junior year anyway). If it weren't for that, I'd probably sitting behind a desk in a cubicle somewhere, venting my frustrations and expanding ideas into oregamy animals!

Well, thank you for listening to me rant and rave about my school days, and see ya next time! Don't let life bite you in the ass...without biting it back!

S.D. Houston


P.S.

Before anyone gets all pissy, I was not calling anyone (besides myself) a loser. It was a loosely generalized term often used by the ones who outcast others because they dont "fit in" in their scheme of what's cool. And those people don't realize that, oftentimes, their outcasting only puts them into a higher social status later in life when their artistic abilities are honed to a razor's edge to make up for and/or express the feeling of social abandonment. The mind pushed to it's most negative limits emotionally is often the greatest tool an artist can have.