Salad Days

I've been excited for this episode because Liv eats a salad! I can force myself to be healthy.

My mom used to make huge salads for dinner and offer to make me one. I'd always reply that salad is not a meal.

That's because she never made me cobb salads.

As an adult, I've gotten to explore the wide world of salad toppings, order fancy salads from restaurants, and over-priced salads from Wendy's. I think I had started to make salads in my first apartment, but could never get through a bag of greens. But I didn't start a blog to write about the wilted and rotting vegetables in my crisper drawer. At least I don't think I did.

I made a salad, and it was delicious, and I'm inspired again to actually do the things I've always been meaning to do. Which is why I started the blog. This morning I decided it's finally time to quit caffeine. I've thought about it many times, but never found it necessary to torture myself in that way. But trust me when I say it's time to stop torturing my intestines with shitty office coffee and only drink fancy cappuccinos when I truly need a boost. I've been researching superfoods and after Christmas I will be glad to share what I'm eating instead of coffee. Honestly, I don't need coffee. I wake up energized and ready to go as it is, I just use it as a crutch. I keep telling myself I can't write without a warm mug in my hands....and a bag of gummy worms. So that needs to end.

Wanna read about my salad?

I bought spinach, pears and a carrot that cost a whopping 15 cents. I think the secret to grocery stores is to not buy the pre-packaged things like a bag of spinach or baby carrots. I love baby carrots, but they're just giving you less carrot.

Anyway, I also got blue cheese and fakin', facon? Fake bacon. Ok, I cheated. I didn't use brain crab meat and I didn't watch the episode. Maybe I'll redo this one, who knows!

Then I candied some walnuts. Good on me. I love walnuts and they made for a very tasty salad. I only added a dash of vinaigrette. It was good.

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Did you come here for a horror story? I hope so!

I couldn't figure out how to indent, so hopefully it's not too hard to read.

He tried not to return to the house, but there was always a reason. His sunglasses, checkbook, favorite tie. Otherwise the hotel suited him fine. He didn’t need the kitchen or limited cable subscription. He’d get his mail once a week and find a snack in the cupboard.

This time, he’d let it go two weeks. He didn’t want to admit that he was scared. He thought he’d seen her face in the mirror. Just a glimpse, yet it had felt so real. As if she was waiting for him. He had shuddered, and then been embarrassed by his reaction.

So another week passed, and then another. And his credit card bill was due.

He stepped out of the shower, dried himself with a fluffy hotel towel and stared into the steam-covered mirror. He wiped it with his hand, smearing the condensation across the wet glass. His face, nothing more. He smiled at the simplicity of the hotel. The luxury of belonging without the commitment of forever.

On the way home from work he stopped. Told himself he only needed to go to the mailbox. He watched his feet carry him up the sidewalk. Looked up to see the letters, magazines spilling out of his mailbox. In a different state of mind, he would have worried about being a target for burglary. At least he had put a stop on the newspapers. But this wasn’t his state of mind. The magazines were hers. He didn’t want to touch them. He let them fall to the porch as he thumbed through for his letters. Found the American Express envelope. He could go now. But something locked his feet into place.

It was faint at first, but like all living things, it started to grow. It was a mew, helpless and tiny. He unlocked his front door. It drew him inside. He could hear it better now---a helpless cry. It couldn’t be a cat, how would it have gotten in? He tried to remember if they had ever had a rat problem. Her wouldn’t be surprised if it had chased a rat up through it’s hole in the wall and gotten stuck. Cat’s were demons like that---fitting into cracks half their size. That’s what it sounded like anyway. The meow now had an undercurrent of anxiety to it, borderline painful. He tiptoed through the hallway. Why he needed to tiptoe in his own house was mysterious, but he felt a strong urge to keep it undisturbed. As if the lighter his footsteps, the easier to erase him being there.

The hallway led him to the kitchen, where the mews, now anxious screams grew louder. He shuddered, the phrase ‘There’s two ways to skin a cat’ flashed through his mind. Or was it ten ways? There was more than one way to skin a cat, that was certain. The cries were agonizing now and coming from the cupboard, or beyond the cupboard.

Shhhhhhh, he started to whisper and it seemed to echo in his mind. As if the world had rejected his shush and thrown it back at him. He bent down on one knee, hand to the handle, his breath unsteady. He opened the cupboard, there was a loud SCREECH and everything went silent. He didn’t see a cat, just the appliances he stowed there. The toaster and something in the reflection that was not his face. Something dark and swirling warped by the rounded edges of the toaster, and then he found his face. The dark thing was behind him. But it wasn’t his face exactly, it was smaller and it was...screaming. For a moment the air around him had weight. It sunk around him and he found it difficult to breathe. He leaned in closer, starting to make out the edges of the shape, but it kept moving. He squinted into it----there was one final feline SHRIEK and the cupboards shook, jostled violently. He jolted upright. Without another thought, he ran. Ran through the hallway to the front door, which he was quick to shut behind him. He let his breath catch up to him.

Well, that was stupid. Much more stupid than seeing her face. Had he left the cupboard open? Surely the cat could wander out without his intervention. And what had he seen? The light failing to reflect off of the toaster? He had felt something but surely his eyes were playing tricks on him. He was being ridiculous.

He retreated to the hotel. He wrote a check for his American Express card and asked the front desk to mail it. The man surveyed him.

“We’ll bill the postage stamp to your room.”

“Sixty-four cents? Sure, go ahead.”

There were stamps in the desk in his den, he had remembered. But he would gladly pay more than a dollar to not return to to that room right now.

In his room, he let the nonsense of television drown out his thoughts. He could pass hours by without a single thought or emotion. And that’s how the next few weeks passed: without thought or emotion.

Then his sister called. Offering to fly out from New York.

“I should have come down months ago”

“No”

“Heck, you should be staying with me! Dear, mother in heaven, I have failed you.”

“Christine, I still have a job.”

But she was already ranting. It had become her gimmick. Drown every moment in chatter and hyperbole. Everything to him lately had become a gimmick. His boss’ ties. The girl at the front desk who blew bubbles with her chewing gum. The newscasters on TV with their wide smiles. The old woman walking her dog who disappeared when the sun went behind the clouds. All of it hyperbole, none of it real. It made his side ache.

“Christine, you can’t come.”

“But Peter….”

He hung up the phone before she could finish her sentence. He knew what she would say and it had to do with the house. So he cut her off.

He pulled out cold take-out from his mini-fridge and ate in a daze. He chewed without tasting. Let the room fade from his eyes.

There were little things he missed, like his spice rack. Though he knew that wasn’t it. He went to bed every night in a bed that smelled like nothing. Woke up to take a shower with unscented soap. Wore the same three suits on a cycle. One of his ties had a splash of blue (his favorite, which he had gone back for). The rest were gray.

What he wanted this time was the book of sodoku that sat by his bed. Of all the times he’d been back, he’d never been upstairs, and he resolved to do it quickly.

It was mid-afternoon, but he brought his flashlight anyway. Every corner illuminated as he ascended. No shadows, no contrast.

His bedroom was to the left, and he dare not look to the right. He kept his head turned towards the door, eyes never straying. The air felt damp, as if the walls were breathing heavily around him. The door was slightly ajar, all he need do is gently push it open. Something about that disturbed him, as if he was invading a space that wasn’t his. And in a way, he thought, he was.

The room was impossibly dark for mid-afternoon. She had convinced him of blackout curtains, now he wished everything were a blackout. He let his flashlight guide his feet towards the bedside table and frowned. The light met bare wood, no sodoku book in sight. He turned, puzzled, and as he did, his foot hit it. He glanced down and saw the book against his toe. He reached down, and he swore it moved. Shaking his head, he grabbed it. It didn’t release.

He dropped to his knees, dismissed the flashlight. Both hands on the book now, he pulled. At first he thought it was stuck to the floor, somehow cemented there. But it was free from the floor now, and it felt like something was tugging it from under the bed. The impossibility of the suggestion didn’t shake the dread that was surging up his stomach. He couldn’t breathe. He pulled even harder. Dread filled his lungs, burned his throat.

It released without warning, sent him reeling back, one elbow bumped against the nightstand, the other the floor. He sat up, reaching over to rub the elbow he had banged against the nightstand and he shrieked. The shadow of a figure filled the doorway, so backlit against the darkness of the room, he couldn’t even be sure there were features to make out. He couldn’t even been sure that shriek was his. It had sounded so inhuman. And weren’t his lungs empty? He breathed and scrambled for the flashlight, the figure disappearing as soon as the light found the doorway. It felt good to breathe again.

He had relaxed too much, because as he exited the bedroom, he looked right. Or what was right as he had ascended the stairs and now was right in front of him. He had to blink himself out of catatonia. But unlike the figure and the cat, he knew he wasn’t imagining this. The rope still hung from the bathtub curtain rod. No one had bothered to cut it down.

He sprinted down the stairs, feeling the eyes of the portraits upon him. Now he was part of a cliche. A gimmick. The walls have eyes.

He lay in his hotel bed, letting the news drown out his thoughts. He uncovered the sodoku book. He had read that those who do crosswords and other puzzles reduced their likelihood of dementia. Not that it mattered now. He squinted as he opened the book now, and put on his reading glasses. She had always loved them on him. These details were starting to seep into his consciousness and force his memories. There was a note tucked away in his book, folded into a neat square. He unfolded it and read:

Dear Peter,

There’s a lot you can’t understand yet, but soon you’ll realize that I know things. Like how I know you’ll scoff when I tell you that I’m sorry. I know you’ll avoid the house. You’ll pretend it doesn’t exist. You might eventually go back for your favorite tie, but you’ll avoid our room, our things, and you’ll avoid where you found my body. I’ll bet you had a closed casket, too. You blew up that photo of me in Hawaii and squeezed every other image from your mind. I’m sorry that last one was so awful. I know you avoid those things, Peter.

But you won’t let your sister sell the house. I doubt you’ll know why. You’ll start to feel that something’s pulling you there and something’s keeping you away. That’s how I felt. That’s what I started to see on the long days you were toiling away at the office. I saw shadows everywhere. And I saw what I’d become. I didn’t do this Peter. These things...they held me hostage. There was only one possible end once I saw them in the shadows. Heard them in my head.

And I’m sorry. There’s one last thing I know. I know that you’ve started seeing them, too.

-Belinda