1081 Whispering Meadows Ct Apt 205:
The water in Matt’s bong looked like industrial runoff. He was never one for cleanliness. He liked to see how bad things could get.
His studio had never been fully unpacked. Cardboard boxes were strewn across the room at random, harboring layers of dust. At some point, maybe after he’d gotten his first real job—one with real benefits and a real office and real coworkers—he’d decided to put his life on hold, just until he could figure it all out.
He moved from somewhere he couldn’t remember to work a job he couldn’t describe.
He kept an unsecured IP camera in the corner of his room. He loved the feeling of being watched. Sometimes he waved, winked, danced in front of the camera because it made him feel good.
He kept his futon/bed/dinner table in the dead center of the room. He’d even measured to ensure that it occupied the exact midpoint. The energy of the room flowed around him, he thought. All of the negativity swept around the center and filtered out of the window.
He used to joke that he lived in Roku City, but recently, his TV screen had been dark. If he looked close enough, he could see himself vaguely outlined in the reflection. He preferred not to look. These days, he exclusively used his laptop. It was more intimate. His eyes glazed over as he watched a train obliterate a man's body. In one frame, he was a fully formed person with a brain, a past, a present. In the next, he was nothing. Matt’s scalp tingled. He felt like his thighs were melting into the futon. It’d been a few days since he’d showered.
There was a certain stain he loved. It was amorphous, sprawling, slowly taking over the futon. He imagined drowning in it as he fell asleep. He dreamt of a man standing in front of a stopped train. Matt waited for the train to start.
1082 Whispering Meadows Ct:
His shoes’ rubber soles helped mask the sound of his footsteps. Every night, Thomas walked the perimeter of the house. He had a solidified route: living room (check the windows), kitchen (check the window over the sink), foyer (check the front door’s frosted window), upstairs (check all bedrooms including closets and windows). His wife forbade guns, so he carried a Louisville Slugger. Nobody in his family slept well. His wife, daughter, and son all took trazodone, and each would, periodically, wake up in the middle of the night, screaming. Night terrors, the doctor had said, an unfortunate side effect but one which was preferable to chronic sleep deprivation.
Thomas didn’t trust the pharmaceutical industry and refused to take the drug on principle. Instead, he walked the perimeter of the house—keeping watching for suspicious figures—until he felt tired. Nobody knew about Thomas’ nighttime activity. They didn’t know that he rarely slept more than three hours a night and that, for the past three nights, he hadn't slept at all. He felt like he was warding off whatever brought on the night terrors.
Thomas spent 45 hours a week analyzing and reporting on financial risk. His nighttime activity was merely an extension of his daylight hours. Lately, the security faults had been piling up. Doors and windows were left unlocked. Yesterday, the garage door hadn’t been shut. Thomas knew he was starting to slip. He decided to take 60 mg of his son’s ritalin until his internal threat summaries went back to normal.
As he walked past the living room window, Thomas noticed the blur. It was just clearing the frame, but he’d caught it. It’d been slinking along the hedge in the front yard, just barely visible above the foliage. Somehow, the motion sensor lights hadn’t caught the prowler. Thomas imagined himself bringing the bat down onto the shadowy figure’s head until it was nothing but pulp. The cops would be proud of him. His wife would run her fingers along his arm in the way she used to. His son would tell his friends at school. His daughter would know what a man should be.
Thomas waited in the foyer. A blurry, oblong shape appeared in the front door’s frosted glass. Thomas swung. The translucent wall shattered and sprayed across the front porch. Tiny shards of glass twinkled in the front-porch light. Diamonds seemed to sprout from the potted hydrangeas.
The security alarm only sounded in half of the house. Another security flaw.
Inside the house, his daughter was screaming. Must be the night terrors.
1083 Whispering Meadows Ct:
Every night, Michael Knott (Mr. Knott to his students) stayed up late constructing alt-history scenarios of Civil War battles with miniatures. Over TV dinners, he’d tell his wife of the many ways that the Confederates could have won. After she went to bed, he’d disappear in the basement to prove his point.
There were incidents at school that he could hardly remember after the fact. He knew he had a temper. The breathing exercises he’d been trying weren’t helping. After a student recorded one of his blowups and shared it with a local news station, he’d been all but commanded to begin seeing a therapist. His psych thought that the scenarios helped him productively work through his frustration.
The basement was nearly full of Confederate memorabilia, most of it fake. Mr. Knott considered himself a niche collector. His wife didn’t mind, and his kids had long since moved away. Next to the table housing his miniatures was a workbench he’d repurposed to hold his statues of Robert E. Lee. He liked how each figure accurately portrayed Lee’s hair. Some of Mr. Knotts students had begun to comment on his hair loss, but he didn’t mind. He felt that it made him look more dignified. In the morning, he’d think of the statues as he slowly ran his hands across his scalp, affixing the remaining tuft of hair so that it mirrored Lee’s in its own vulgar way.
Michael had his work laptop set up on the corner of his wargaming table. As he worked through his scenarios, he monitored a particular forum that prided itself on its commitment to free speech. He’d struck up a friendship with another user, dixiegirl71, who often agreed with his military strategy. The two swapped photos of their memorabilia. Recently, dixiegirl had made a point of telling Mr. Knott that he had a moral obligation to tell his classes the truth about the Civil War. He agreed, and she helped him compile evidence.
During last night’s research session, dixiegirl had suggested that they share photos of themselves. Mr. Knott had pushed it off until today. On June 21st, she began their conversation by demanding a photo. As he paced the perimeter of the basement, she sent a picture which would yield hundreds of results if research-image searched. Mr. Knott undressed while staying entirely focused on the confederate flag bikini.
After Mr. Knott sent his photo, his chat history with dixiegirl suddenly disappeared. He refreshed the page to find that dixiegirl had vanished. Her account was gone. With the point of his thumb, he slowly nudged the laptop until it tipped over the table’s side. Keys exploded across the basement floor. Mr. Knott raised his foot, ready to crush the screen.
1084 Whispering Meadows Ct:
Mrs. Richardson had the best-looking house on the street. She paid for a premium lawncare service that made her front lawn look like a film set. Those who’d been inside spoke of her refined artistic palette. To these sorts of comments, she’d wave her hand and mention that she’d been collecting art since she was a girl and that Ernest—her late husband—had always appreciated a well-manicured lawn. Though she often invited people inside, nobody knew if she had family nearby.
A large bay window overlooked the front lawn, and Mrs. Richardson never shut the blinds. As people walked by, she’d smile and wave, almost inviting them to look inside and admire what she spent her days cultivating. Her neighbors treated her almost as a mascot for the street. When she arrived at a block party, everyone would stop and smile and hug and wave. She always brought a bottle of wine, but she herself didn’t drink.
In the evenings, she spoke on the phone for hours. If you walked by, you’d see her perfectly framed in the bay window, seated on the rightmost side of an antique, Victorian couch. She sat for hours, lit by the warm glow of a Tiffany lamp, with the phone to her ear.
On June 21st, Mrs. Richardson’s conversation stretched well into the night:
“It’s never too late. Remember that. You can always apologize and make amends. We all make mistakes. I’ve made some big mistakes, but that’s alright. I’m better now. I’ve come back from them.”
“…”
“Remember when we lived on Birch and that boy went missing?”
“…”
“I clipped all of the stories about him. I still have them in a box. You know he was never found? He just disappeared. He could be anywhere.”
“…”
“I keep them in the basement.”
“…”
“No need to drudge all of that up now. It’s in the past. He’s been missing for years and years. If his parents are anywhere near my age, they might well be dead.”
“…”
“Yes, we were quite close back then, but I haven’t spoken to either of them since he disappeared. Ernest would play golf with the husband on occasion. I can’t even remember his name anymore.”
“…”
“Sure, there were plenty of theories. Some thought he ran away. Others thought he got abducted. The husband was a drinker, and he got mean. I always thought he might’ve scared the boy away.”
“…”
“Sure, he’d come over to our house sometimes after school if Patty had an errand to run. Ernest used to help him with his golf swing.”
“…”
“Ernest had some rough years. He was under a lot of pressure at work. But even with his drinking, he kept climbing the ladder.”
“…”
“Sure, I noticed the two sharing a beer on occasion. The boy’s father was a raging drunk. He needed a better role model in his life. There wasn’t anything wrong with it.”
“…”
“No, no, of course not.”
“…”
“I was always happy. Always. Even on the bad days.”
“…”
“One day, the boy stopped coming. We were never that close with Patty and her husband either way.”
“…”
“I have plenty of regrets, but they can all be atoned for.”
