Happy October! I thought you might enjoy something a little scary this month - Kate
Somehow,
being lost in the drywall seems so much worse than being lost in the barrens
(ah, a literary reference) or the Antarctic (a scientific reference) or in
space (a TV and movie reference). Spencer wishes he could transform himself
into one of those other stories but he’s well and truly stuck here in the
drywall.
He isn’t sure
how it happened. What he does know is that, if he gets out, he will never say yes to helping with renovations again.
Even if the person asking for the favor is the woman he’s been trying to get
next to for almost five years.
He said yes because of her big brown eyes, her
silky hair, her jaw-dropping breasts and perfect hips. He said yes because he’s been in love (or lust,
at least) with Leanne for what feels like forever.
He didn’t
know much about drywalling when she asked, but he’s a quick learner and the
drywall guy at the Home Depot down the street was a genius at telling him what
he needed to know. He and Leanne had no trouble lifting the big slabs into
place and he was damn good – if he said so himself – at the taping and filling.
But then something went wrong.
And here he
is in some limbo between her apartment and his, surrounded by slabs of
perfectly taped and filled drywall, the dust on the floor silencing his
footsteps and making his eyes water each time he moves. He has tried yelling
but the dust and the drywall throws his voice back at him. He tried pounding on
the walls with the same result. Finally, he sits in the dust and ponders his
situation.
The last
thing he remembers was filling the final nail hole while listening to the chant
Leanne crooned behind him and smelling the oddly scented candle she had lit to
celebrate the completion of the job. It was an odd-sounding piece of music,
certainly nothing he’d ever heard before, and an unusual scent. Together they
made him a little dizzy. Maybe he fainted.
Spencer lifts
his head and looks around one more time. He swears he’s been in this space for
weeks but he’s neither hungry nor thirsty. And he swears he’s walked miles and
never once re-crossed his footsteps. When he looks behind him, the indentations
in the dust are clear but when he tries to step back into them, they disappear.
Something is
keeping him here. Be realistic, he tells himself. Someone named Leanne is
keeping him here. And he doesn’t know why. Except maybe she was a little upset when he accidentally
brushed against her breasts for the fifteenth time. The look in her eyes scared
him to death. He remembers that.
And he
remembers occasionally thinking that he should maybe give up this job but each
time he thought that, Leanne would say something or make a slight gesture with
her hand, and he would forget all about it. He would remember how much he loved
working with Leanne and how the sight of the drywall he helped her with, would ensure his success with her.
But it wasn’t
too long after the chant and the candle that the dizziness started. He picks
himself up off the floor and starts walking again. This time, he follows no
plan, thinking that a completely random walk might lead him somewhere.
Anywhere.
And it does.
It leads him to a big black metal door. It’s slightly ajar and he pushes at it
until it swings all the way open. There is a fire flickering in the room he
enters and it’s warm. There is no dust. And there is no drywall.
Spencer
carefully sits himself down in the leather chair on the hearth and takes a sip
from the glass of water on the table beside it. He is a bit worried about
poison but suddenly, the thirst he has been denying seizes him by the throat
and poison becomes the least of his worries. He crams the meat on the plate
into his mouth and swallows it without chewing. Spencer groans in relief.
A tall woman,
taller than he and Spencer is considered a tall man, materializes at his elbow.
“Spencer.
Have you figured out where you are? And why you are here?”
He shrugs and
continues drinking and eating.
“You are
here,” she says in a stern voice, “because of your bad attitude.”
“I figured it
was something like that,” he says around a gob of meat. “I’m sorry, but I’ve
been attracted to Leanne for years. I couldn’t help myself.”
The woman
smiles at him, her teeth shiny and bone white. Spencer feels a frisson of
horror but thinks about the days in the drywall and shakes it off.
“Go home,
Spencer.”
And just like
that, he is in his dining room, drywall dust falling from his clothes and hair
and skin onto his mahogany table and matching floors. He can hear each droplet
as it hits. Each time he inhales, dust invades his nostrils and his
throat. He shakes himself like a
Labrador puppy coming out of the water and the dust flies around him, coating
everything in the room.
Spencer
listens carefully but there is no one else in the apartment. He leans against
the wall and hears nothing from Leanne’s apartment. He drops his clothes to the
floor – no point making another room messy – and hurries into the shower.
The Chinese
food – five different dishes – is delivered just in time to stop him from
fainting again. He sits in his recliner and repeats his new mantra. Just say no. Just say no. Just say no.
But the thought of Leanne in the apartment across the hall has him rushing
through his shower. He wonders what he might help her with as he steps outside
his door and into the dust.
