Artwork: The Suicide House by Will Jacques

Safe as Houses
Jess O'Donnell

It takes some time for you to realise that your footsteps have an echo.

You stop to check behind you. Your glance turns into a stare as the sound stops when you stop. There is no source to the sound, other than your own two feet. You’re alone on the rain-soaked street, only two away from home. The night’s cold stings at your eyes but it doesn’t stop you from staring, unblinking, searching out the source of those too-close footsteps.

You are alone. So very alone, in fact, that the street’s houses stare down at you, and whisper to each other about it. These houses are full and bursting with warmth and light, but you couldn’t even get someone to walk you home after your late shift, necessary after last month’s extortionate mobile bill.

You can’t recall what or even who you’ve seen in the last hour. Was there anyone who watched you lock up and leave the office? Was it that one person from your shift still there, watching? The one who smiled at you for a little too long, too friendly, while their eyes dove down into the depths of your shirt.

You walk onwards. The other footsteps start up again, at just the same pace, no matter whether you slow down or speed up. Something closer to panic than anxiety churns in your stomach. You want to sprint away but know that running isn’t an option when you’re stuck wearing the heels your boss insists on. You will be even slower if you try to run. Your brain recoils at the realisation that the heels have turned you into a ripe target for the taking.

You walk on and glance in, wide eyed, at the houses on your right-hand side. You hope the inhabitants, all comfortable and cosy on their settees, will catch a glimpse of your panic. Maybe, just maybe, they will remember your face. They will remember the looming figure that strode after you. But they avoid eye contact, those chameleon TV watchers whose faces reflect the lighting from their TV show, and pretend not to see you. You think you can see their lips move and imagine they’re muttering about a pair of strangers looking in at them.

Your feet beat a double tattoo on the ground even after you round the corner. The road looms ahead but trees block any glimpse of the sky that might’ve offered some comfort. You realise that the streetlamps have been left off today, despite the fact it is September, and your home-time means that you are forced to walk home in the darkness. You can just about make out the slumbering cars along the street but not much else.

Your footsteps still have their shadow.

Abruptly sick of it, you turn around. You’d be scared to see your face in a mirror and remind yourself that you’ve been called dangerous when you are in a mood. You know the reality is that you are five feet tall on a good day. You face an ongoing battle with the wind when it tries to pick you up while you’re walking uphill in winter. You know that you are just a sliver of glass waiting to be trodden on and splintered into shards that no one will want to put back together.

You know that you should get your pessimism checked out and while you’re at it, consider looking into your obsession over missing people documentaries, because they are all getting out of hand. You scour both sides of the road. The top of the road looks like a sea horizon in the near-distance. You can’t see the shark that’s copying just how you walk on dry land but you sure can hear him.

You stride on and begin to reason with yourself; you obviously have a hearing problem from listening to that music in your teens, the phase really did ruin your hearing, just like mum threatened. You decide, then, to buy a very sharp keyring and carry it around. Maybe this will scare your shadow away so it no longer wants to follow you home.

Home. Your brain flashes back to when you last locked your door now you are so close to its salvation. Did you really lock your front door, or are you just picturing yourself doing it yesterday? Did you forget this morning? The monotony of your day to day existence echoes back at you in a maze of mirrors, all jangling keys, until you have to paw through your bag to find them. Even with the keys gripped in your fist, you remain uncertain.

You remember the man that you looked through this afternoon while walking to work; you ignored his admiring gaze and comments about what he’d like to do to you. You wonder if his mouth watered at the taste of your perfume. Your imagination decides that of course he watched you and waited for your trek home. Maybe, just what if, he keeps ducking out of sight every time you turn to look?

You spend so much time turning around to check if there’s really someone there that you trip over your own feet, into a car door. Now you think, this is when he’ll catch up to me, but it doesn’t happen. There is silence while you are still, but when you stumble ahead, those sounds follow you. You know you’ll hear footsteps in your sleep for weeks.

You spot your door in the distance and breathe a long sigh at the beacon of lights in the flat block. For once, you are grateful for the trio of students upstairs, and Mrs Haddlestadt on the ground floor. You have ears that will hear loud screams and do something about it, rather than turning the television up.

You use your clammy keys to pry your front door open and slide inside. The clang as it shuts behind you and the empty darkness of your flat are two arms in a soothing embrace.

You take a step and realise that your footsteps are alone now. The only sounds that you can hear are yours alone. Now, you see, you can control what happens here. Nothing can touch you now, you are home and shut away from the rest of the world. You resolve, in fact, to get your hearing checked, and decide that there was nothing there, no nothing at all, nothing that tracked and copied your movements all the way home. Your hearing is just dodgy, that’s all, and the acoustics are better indoors. Come on, now.

You put the keys in their safe spot and worry that you are becoming predictable. You have been echoing days without intending to. Even so, you follow yesterday’s to-do list; you tuck your bag away, put the microwave on, lay down on the settee, keep the curtains pulled shut, and resolve to never voluntarily speak to another human being ever again.

Below the microwave’s groans of effort, cooking your food, you become aware of a faint but growing sound. An unnatural, unexpected, continuous scraping. You feel compelled to look up and around for its source even though you’ve already decided it’s fine, no big deal, and really, nothing at all. You see it and do not comprehend until you blink seven times.

Your letter box has been pushed up and gapes open towards you.

You catch a shy glance of something before it clings shut.

You summon all the courage you have left and slide on the front door’s bottom latch and chain. They silently promise that you are protected and invincible all at once.

You walk backwards, too scared to turn away from the door, and tumble onto the sofa you found at that charity shop in town. You forget about the window at your back while you eat that lukewarm curry from the microwave and enjoy a too-large glass of red. The merlot swirls like blood when you cup the glass.

Once you’re done, you follow yesterday’s next step; migration to the serenity of your bathtub and its scalding water. You’ve decided that, as you do every evening, you’ve earned this time for yourself. You must take the time to melt into the water. You order yourself to forget the fear from only moments ago. You have no obligations to return to work, no pressing need to post anything online for someone to be impressed by, and the voice that tells you to work on yourself has all faded into the sound of a heartbeat in your ears.

Once you have been gently pickled by the water, you gaze through the gap between the door and the wall.

An eye blinks back.

 

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