The darkest room is the atrium

Section 1 - Impossible Existence

    I just don’t get it. I get home from a long day at work, turn on my T.V. and Wham! I get hit with a cacophonous noise, which tells me to buy, buy, buy! It directs me what to do, and where to go. This noise keeps clamoring in my head as I start up my computer, never relenting. Of course, then I turn off the radio and the ringing is gone. It’s perfect again just me, my computer, a T.V that has a dead speaker system, and an old broken down radio that hardly ever works. The cord is frayed and I have not had to change the batteries in my entire life. I just don’t get it. The people at work tell me I am going crazy, staying up here all alone in my house, in my atrium.

    There it is again that blasted little guy that chitterling, chattering creature of the wooden kind. He always comes here to mock me and laugh at the way that I have been living. What to do about this little thing. Every hour it is the same thing the long arm reaches out to the heavens, to touch the sky, to feel the clouds. Then that little chitterling, chattering thing comes out to mock me. Sometimes it is not so bad, but other times, especially when the sun or the moon is directly over head, he comes out to mock me as much as he can. I have tried to get him, but he sure is quick on his feet. Dodging out and then retreating away to safety. The little cuss I would like to get him just once and tear that little voice box out see how it would be for him to really identify me then. My buddies say that I am obsessing too much about all of this stuff up here, but you know that I feel as if it is my own wonderland in a sense. Though, Alice never wants to visit me anymore. She always looks so sad. It makes my heart ache to see her so. I want her to be happy when she is here.

    I am being as gracious a host as possible, perhaps all the junk I have here makes her sad. I do not think that is it. This atrium is filled to the brim with all of the treasures of the past three centuries. I have amassed a grand fortune in all of the years that I have lived here. Three centuries of things here to look at. Quite a bit of the treasures are metal or wood, like that tick tock talker. There are also things though that I have which are not at all like the others. I have some metal serving trays from the late 16th century. They were said to have been owned by some king of old. They are gold trimmed, with a silver crest on the center. This crest of a stag on a shield is amazing. There is some gold plating still attached to it and it looks rusted in spots, but is still usable. Another thing that my mind wanders to quite frequently is the black metal gothic gate. I have never gone through it though. The gargoyles etched into the arch of the gateway scares the life out of me. It looks like there is a strange yellow green light on the other side of the gate. It makes me feel tranquil to look at it, but the gateway is too scary to go through.

    Still I almost wish that I had more time to live among the others. They are all gone now and it serves me right I suppose. They abandoned me and there is no way to go back in time. Or is there? Perhaps that little tick tock talker has the key; he mocks me every day, every hour in fact. Yes he must have the key to immortality. He must have the knowledge that I lack, it is too bad that my reflexes are not what they used to be. I am getting tired of playing around trying to find the right words the right phrases that will tell them who I am. They never listen to me anymore anyway. It is like I am a ghost or something.

    This feeling of loneliness, of being lost to the world of the living is stronger every day. How can this be though? I am still alive, I can still move about and make things do what I want them to. Perhaps I am just having a nervous breakdown, my mind wandering without my body following, or perhaps they are right about my insanity. It does sometimes feel like my brain is tearing into pieces, splitting into parts, different voices that did not use to be there before. Sometimes I hear them clearly, but other times the voices are muffled as if there are walls that they must get through first.

    When do you think the rest of the world will catch up to us? Those below in the houses are just specks to me. My atrium is the biggest greatest place in the whole world to sit and observe those people, those ants. All of them are working for one particular thing, which they may never end up finding. This concept of emotions and love, heh, all of it is laughable, yet somehow being up here in the atrium leaves me hollow. How can this be? I have all of the greatest and best things from the last three centuries just sitting next to me a stone’s throw away and yet there is nothing there at all. This collection means nothing; this life that I have built means nothing… Where do I go, what should I be doing? This is not me, I am not like this; I am strong and smart. This indecision should just be ignored, thrown away, cast aside because it is not a part of me. What if it is me though? This life means nothing to me yet I still feel that this should not be the case, I love this way of living in the dreams don’t I? This hazy disillusionment is my life.

    The noise is back, it is not the chitterling chattering of that tick tock talker. This is different; this is the cacophony from before. I thought that I turned off the radio. Yes it is turned off. Is it the T.V. then? No it is still the way that it should be. Oh god, do I have more than one radio? I remember a few weeks ago that one was… No that one committed suicide. It jumped off the rickety shelf and dashed its internal organs all over the floor. I had to clean up the glass and plastic afterwards. Perhaps there is a neighbor nearby that has one? How awkward would that be to just show up and take the radio apart? I think they would bring the psycho lady again. It was hard the first few times being near her by myself, hearing that cacophony all night long from a dozen different rooms and a million different frequencies. I hate that place, neither here or there, this existence between their house and my atrium, lost in time; it scares the life right out of me. But where is this noise coming from.

    I must find it. Follow the sound, follow the sound. There in that room perhaps, behind that door. Locked, locked, it is always locked. Break the handle or tear the door down? Where are the hinges, oh I see there they are on the outside, why on the outside, guess I could just walk around the freestanding door, but what would be the purpose of that? There the door is now on the floor way, follow the noise, follow the noise. Here is it in this bag perhaps? Yes it is there. Tip out the contents and smash them to pieces. Wait is that the destroyed radio? I though it committed suicide. It is in a billion pieces… The knob, of course the knob! I will take this back to the other radio and turn it then the noise will go away right?

    The noise is finally gone. The fridge is right over there, perhaps a quick peek inside. Cans, empty forgotten and forlorn, the contents must have decided not pay their rent last month. They just up and left leaving the home behind for some other little thing. The label says beans, hmmm where might we be able to find some more tenets. The store is closed tonight due to the masked parade down at the square. I should join them; maybe get some beads and some food at the same time. Wonder if there will be radios or T.V.s; that would complicate things.

    I am staying here; I can have the neighbors bring some food over tomorrow while they are at work. They never notice anything anyway, except, perhaps, when you are trying to take apart their radio. That is the only thing they have a large attachment to. The guys in the white coats, wide glasses, and video cameras chase me often trying to convince me that I am unwell. Though it is odd how they try to talk to me when I am standing right next to them. They call out to have me tell them who I am and why I am here. As if I was the one that did not belong in this place. They intruded upon me in my home, telling me to pass on. I am not some ghost and I will not be removed from my atrium, if they do not choose to look me in the face that is their problem right? Suppose though that they are blind, that they do not see the things in front of them. Perhaps so, but these people seem to be able to see clearly enough to move around all of my treasures. I have caught a few trying to take my things away. Once I saw Alice, she was draped in black and riding in a hearse. I thought it strange at the time, but this is of no consequence. She never visits my atrium anymore and these neighbors living below took up residence instead.

    Where are my friends and buddies I wonder, they usually visit me frequently. I haven’t seen them in a long time though. Vacation, perhaps? That has to be it they are simply on vacation. It can’t have anything to do with the missing spoon set, though I do remember someone asking to borrow those. Who was it? Ah well I better get to bed, tomorrow is going to be another long day.