$3 dollar trim spotted across the hallway

Impostors live among us. After a long day of being pathetic and doing nothing with my life, I go to bed at 3 am and lie awake. It’s been 5 days since I’ve slept in to a god damn dream because I keep hearing a knocking sound coming from my walls. It must be some stupid move-in crew or the government sponsored bastards again. Or it could be Jim, that fellah who pestered me on the street the other day selling me some pills or something that is supposed to knock you off to sleep in seconds. That bastard, you could tell he never thinks about what he’s doing, and I’m almost certain that he would chisel his humungous forehead onto the wall next door because he needs those shitty bucks from anyone to buy himself another cig or drug or whatever gets his non-functional brain to feel better about being retarded. But right now, I could really use some pills like that, maybe even better if they’d knock me out for longer, like sleeping twice or something, I dunno. A sharp stabbing pain enthralled my skull again, can’t the idiot just knock it off or fuck off for once? I tried getting back into my sleep, but the knocking kept getting worse, even the damn noises felt like they were in my face spitting at me. You know, I’ve had my fair share of confrontations beside me. I used to keep a blaseball bat just under my bed at all times, so the old pranks don’t get to me or some shit like that. Then it came over me one day and I got myself a gun from old Piper down the street, worked my ass off picking old garbage to get it over to my hands, illegal and all. But it was damn near worth it, the fucker fired like an absolute ripper through the wall. Piper told me that it’ll blow a limb off if I was lucky, that killed me, I was no pussy that I was gonna fire it at an arm or something; it only came in with two rusty old shots, two cents I’d bet the gunpowder in it was off and wet. I kept it more as a deterrent so no do-no-gooders ever bust with me. I tell’em, I tell’em I had a gun up my trunk and if they were going to take a face load of stings then they better not knock it with me. Old Piper wasn’t the brightest guy on the street, naturally, I heard he got caught the other day trying to sell grenades on the street while the Ops were watching him. Funny, I got so scared that they were gonna find my gun and charge me I ran to the outskirts with my it and camped in a bush for two weeks. I ate like shit all but I was used to not eating for weeks it didn’t mean much to me. Like you know when you get hungry and your stomach rumbles and you get weak? I don’t get that anymore, think something’s wrong with my gastroschises system or whatever, never got a use out of that word since I dropkicked myself out of school 10 years ago. Eventually I figured something had to be wrong with me and that I should go check with a doctor or somebody with a degree in medical sciences, but I only got 10 dollars left in my pocket though so if I starve to death don’t even think about me. Well anyway, it was worth it in the end cause those assholes are cheeky enough to prosecute anyone with enough of a reason and drop you in jail for their paychecks and I still got my gun with me.

Tonight, or rather this morning, I hear it again and right away I punch with my forehead another hole into the drywall and cautiously peek my head into the opening. The fucker got away again. I should have kept the bat I used to have beside me because I’d beat his ass with it before he could get away. Dejectedly I return to bed, but, as if the good God above has finally taken pity on my worthless self, suddenly I hear him approaching from the hallway and I promise to myself that I will get him this time. I grab the shotgun on my bedside table and load it, pointing it towards the door. The footsteps get closer and closer and eventually stop. They begin fiddling with the door handle and the lock on it (which doesn’t budge as I keep the door locked at all times, never mind that I don’t even leave my room unless I need it), and at some point, decide to give up. The useless lock I bought when I still had some old cash on me, saved from granny smith who’d said that this small cash should start my life up or something cheery like that. That was the biggest sum I’d been handed in my life and it nearly got me motivated to get up from bed once in a while. Part of me still feels bad for taking that cash, I figured now it was like her life saving or something. I should have told her to give it to charity or save it herself to go buy some new clothes before she dropped dead from her age.

That probably would have served her better than the fucking dismal ass lock I brought with it. The shopkeeper said It was like a state-of-the-art nuclear compound lock and I fucking believed it like the social deject I was. I say that since I brought the thing home and installed it as the shopkeeper said, but the key he gave me was like bent at a weird angle and stuff. I called him back saying despite my appearance I’d seen a key before and that he better not be flirting with me with the bent metal joke he milled from some baked beans can. He called back saying something along the lines of it being “special like you Blake” and that it had extraordinary craftsmanship or whatever. The old shopkeeper had a way around his words, and just kept going on and on and on until I hung up on him since I got bored from his non-stop chattering. I guess it was a good thing since I got so frustrated, shoved the key into the lock and turned it as hard as possible and the door opened. I think I might have broken something inside though since the lock now I swear takes ten bulls' worth of strength to open and I’ve resorted to climbing in from the window to get into my fifty square meter apartment. Now that I think about it, buying the lock was probably the second worse financial decision I’ve made; it probably cost more than everything in my goddamn room and a half. But at the current moment, I couldn’t pray for a better way to screw over the guy that decided to deprive me of my only enjoyment in sleeping. The dude must have fondled over the lock for about thirty minutes, you could hear his clumsy hands squelching over the insertion and not having enough intellect to figure out how to turn a lock. You could really tell that he tried everything, respectfully so. I nearly burst out a laugh when he slipped and dropped a metal object he must have used to attempt to pry the lock open. I could almost make out a frustrated grunt here or there but I was too fixated on checking the shotty that I must have missed most of the crazy noise he was making in the corridor. I say that since my neighbour Connie let out a cry of anger at the intruder, a sort of high-pitched screech as if her tendies had just been converted to crypto before the bubble crashed. I swear that Connie’s voice is so recognisable that one could hear it in the depths of hell, she screams like a tridactyl that got hit with the worse sort of tuberculosis in the middle of Alaska or something so. But anyway, I think they’ve decided to leave. But something inside of me ticked, like when I realised that I ran out of savings to spend on food again this summer and that I was going to starve if I didn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t tell you what came over me, but I must have thought the consequences are far more optimistic with my skull so I aim my shotgun at the door and shot. It was like a subtle knock against the doors of heaven while I hear a bloodcurdling scream and send another round into what remains of the door and the unharmed lock.

I look through the opening I have created and peer down at the mangled body. It appears I may have taken it a bit too far this time. My mother lies dead down on the now blood red carpet, contorted and almost unrecognisable, bits of her flung across the hallway and on the ceiling. I must have felt something about this slight predicament, like how I was going to clean up the carpet, pay for the damages I caused to the apartment and apologise to the shop owner about his indestructible lock. I was in grief, you know, I really was. She was really a nice person, I mean, she took care of me and all. But just last week she said she would go out and buy some milk and ever since then she’s been acting all bonkers and shit. But as a pragmatist, I had to think about what must be done about this horrid situation. And in my panic, I must have miss took her limb or some other organ for an extra hand or toe or forehead like that because I let out a rancid scream that I nearly killed myself for. It wasn’t good for an alibi or anything of the sort to scream like that so the whole city could know where I was and what I was doing. Her boyfriend peers out of their bedroom with a look of anger painted all over his soaked, red face that looked like an overcooked tomato. I must say his reaction towards the dead body was less than timid though, I could tell the son of a bitch never really cared about her anyway since they got together not three days ago. All he cared about was her dough, and that she was easy to get to, you know, a single mother that looked passable but not enough for desire. He probably regrets his life decisions after finding out she still lived with her son next door and all her dough had gone into buying essential oils that she would rub onto herself in replacement for the new meningococcal vaccine that she refused to take because she was afraid of pain. The fucker boyfriend never treated her right, I could tell, I swear I could have done better if I hadn’t failed all my subjects and gotten into some half assed community college to learn wood crafting or plumbing. But now I get to lie in bed listening to belt sounds next door every night which added to my sleep deprivation. I think it stopped after she threatened to call the cops on him or mental abuse, and you know the evidence was quite overwhelming despite all the condoms I see loitering around the festy draws and cupboards. You could also tell they were really enjoying it from the howls and arbitrary arguments that happened from time to time. They said it was some BDSM shit but frankly if that was any pleasure, I wouldn’t have to find fulfilment in life since I was in pain every day just from waking up and trying to find something to do that wouldn’t land me in jail.

But I’ve done it now, I’m truly in for a world of pain I think as he grabs . But the rope he used to tie my mother up from time to time. Before he can get to me I quickly rush off and drive to the nearby GameStop. I pretend to look over their selection of consoles, games and whatnot, but I'm not really paying attention to their products. The main reason for my visit is because of the cashier, who looks just like my dead brother. I swear it’s him, they’ve got the same hair and nose and are around the same height. You could swear they even talk the same with that cringy ass southern accent and ending every goddamn sentence with “truly I tell you” as if he was really hip and cool quoting the bible and all that jam in this century. I look at him again and I try to tell myself that it isn’t him. I mean he died 5 years ago, it’s not possible that it’s him. But what if it’s him… no It can’t be… but what if…. I look over again just to confirm and he’s gone. It was as if he suddenly decided to purchase some GME stocks which I heard had a resurgence or something and were selling at a few morbillion bucks nonetheless. I walk out of the GameStop, back through the broken window I used to get in and get back into my car. All of a sudden the glove box opens and starts speaking to me. It tells me that my neighbour is a lizard and that I need to kill him to save the human race. I try not to believe it, but I can’t help but think that the glove box is kind of making sense. Old Connie really liked taking baths in the middle of the day and there were always like scales that I thought were just makeup in her room. I mean, she says she keeps a pet iguana at home that she feeds for the annual reptilian contest every year on the 31st of February. I mean, who even showers in the middle of the day anyway? I know I can’t speak for the topic, last time I showered you could have sworn john the Baptist looked cleaner than me, but with the amount of water she uses every day you swear she could have put out a fire or two every year.

I drive back home and check the mailbox because it also keeps making noises and I find a letter. It’s addressed to me so I open it. It’s from NASA and they want to send me into space on some spaceship called the Skeld because they think that it would be funny. I laughed a bit myself because the name of the spaceship was so goddamn funny, it was like somebody called their spaceship explore or curiosity or something, because names obviously mean something to whatever they wanted to accomplish. I rush inside to tell my mother the good news, but she doesn’t respond. I then look over to her boyfriend, who has turned himself into an innovative piece of abstract art and I also tell him the good news. Once again I get no response. Ungrateful bastards I say to myself. They have pestered me to get a job for years and now that I have one this is how they respond? I decided to reward myself by taking a long dump on the toilet while I waited for them to rejoice in some fashion to the news. I even took the time to grab a condom and blow a balloon out of it just to see how much it stretched, and boy you could tell the engineers really put a lot of effort to design that rubber because I could fit a limb or two in that cover. And you know it made me really think hard about what was coming next you know, now that I got a reasonable job and everything. I could buy myself a pair of really good headphones, or pay off the debts I owe to the thugs I brought crack off of. I could even try and get back in touch with old Granny Smith or something, tell her I made a bright future for myself by going above and beyond. I heard on the news she died sometime back but I could have sworn I saw her just a few weeks back sitting in her usual position feeding the cats and talking to her neighbours about nothing too significant. It got to the point where I began subconsciously cleaning up the mess I had caused moments back. I figured that the condoms I blew when I took a shit were big enough to fit the splintered body inside. I had to occasionally go to the kitchen to dice up some parts that were too big, but eventually, I got everything inside the latex enclosure as I brought the dozen or so loaded condoms to the back of the building where the bins were located. Funny, I only noticed now that that composting bin was coloured red today, but I guess I should have kept some of the bags behind as I was starting to feel a bit hungry and drifted into the nearest store I could find. But before I could get my hands on the first big mac or meaningful piece of food in years, somebody bagged me and shot me off into a van or something faster than I could ren away from. You could tell they were speeding as the van made a really loud ruckus through the neighbourhood that you rarely hear at this time of the day. Just then in my complete darkness, I remembered the letter I got for my new job had something about this or something. Either way, I didn’t really care, as long as they paid me well enough for this trip to where ever I was going to be happy and all. It wasn’t every day that you find a job out of thin air.