Home.
This piece of writing has
been inspired by a recurring dream that Sandra, a sufferer of OCD, has had for a
number of years. It is interesting to note that since writing this account Sandra has not
had this particular dream again.
Copyright Sandra Donkin.
he house wants me. Deep within the walls it festers. The wood on the doors and windows ache with the weight of it. Its in the wood of the piano in the music room, hides in the ivory keys, snakes along the liquorice above, lingers in the pedals.
In the dining room the brocade covers on the chairs kept it moist and hungry. It clings to the heavy velvet of the curtains, curls around the curtain hooks. In the library it lives in the dust, the old paper and leather bindings stink of it. The wood panelling holds it around the room in aching oak arms.
It winds its way suffocatingly up the stairs, gasping a little at the top as a living entity. It finds its way into the bedrooms, testing each one, fondling the flock lined walls, anxious to find a resting place. And it does.
A room along the corridor of the west wing draws it in. It nestles along the window ledge, breathes into the rotten wood, invades the cracks in the walls, finds a resting place in the bed. It seeps into the mattress, begins to multiply, stretching and curling like a lover, into the heart of the bed, into the minute strands in the blankets, sinks deep into the pillows. Grows, flourishes.
I’m drawn into the room, almost subconsciously. Other times willingly, wanting to face the demons, challenge the vileness. I have never succeeded. Some nights I try to tear the wallpaper from the walls, but the plaster comes away with it. Mould rots behind the plaster. The smell gags me, it’s vile. Once or twice I manage to clean the wall, but when I turn around the other walls are rotten.
The furniture is old, smells dank, when I open the drawers they are filled with the clothes of the long dead. Rank underwear, faded dresses, and always dirty.
The bed fills me with fear, it’s like a living entity. I feel It’s fibre hands stretching out to me, it wants me to lie on it, to become part of it. The blankets are grey, they smell of death, the sheets musty, the pillows damp. The mattress filled with the sweat of long departed bodies. I know if I go there I won’t get back. I try to find a place where I feel safe. I never find it.
Each night I’m there, it’s a different room. It changes, has a thousand faces, the walls always alive, the smell of the furniture thick-it sticks in my throat, chokes me. Other rooms are blocked off, fingers of blackness seep around the gaps in the doors, reaching out to me, I dare not go in for fear of finding a horror too great for me to bare.
Why must I always be here? What draws me to you? You fill me with fear and yet you are of my mind. Are we adversaries? Or am I you?
You are my nightmare, always different, always the same.