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averykedavra · 4 years

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Valley of the Dolls 2/10

The wonderful idea of apathy!Roman goes to @caffeinated-cryptid, an amazing artist and all-around great person. Check out their @ts-unsolved au, it owns my heart! This is mostly in line with their ideas, but I took it in a slightly different direction. And my description doesn’t do justice to their amazing costume design, so take a look yourself! Also, this chapter is chock-full of my favorite headcanons. I got some of the ideas from this post and this post. You can find this fic on Ao3 here.

(Title is from Valley of the Dolls by MARINA. Chapter is based around Surrender by Malinda)

Pairings: platonic DLAMPR

Warnings: sympathetic Remus, sympathetic Janus, a ton of angst (but I’ve got a happy ending planned), blood mentions, death mentions, death threats, slightly NSFW jokes, attempted violence. Basically Remus being Remus. Set immediately after Putting Others First.

Summary: After the disastrous video and a week of spiraling, Roman becomes a Dark Side, Apathy. At first, Remus is thrilled, dragging his brother into all sorts of trouble. But Roman’s no fun anymore, the other Sides are paying a visit downstairs, and it’s becoming clear that Thomas can’t survive without Creativity by his side.

Chapter 2: Hours From Another Day

First. Previous. Next. Masterlist.

We're a bomb, ticking time away You belong to hours from another day... All we need is one disaster, one relief Hearts beat, hoping for that old belief... But that was then, and this is now And we made it through the woods somehow Willing and able to breathe.

Remus was minding his own business, welding two dildos together, when his brother fell from the ceiling and landed on the living room carpet.

Remus hopped off the couch and tossed the half-melted dildos behind him, where they burned a hole through the middle cushion. But there were enough stains and burns already that the new hole fit right in.

Roman was lying still, three inches from the coffee table with the extra tentacle leg, face-down and silent. Wait, was it Roman? He wasn’t wearing the right clothes. Black, not white. And Roman would never go this long without jumping up, waving his sword, and making declarations of undying love or great heroism or something.

Still. Remus just knew. Maybe it was intuition, or twin-tuition, or separated-from-this-guy-at-age-seven-tuition. This was Roman Creativity Sanders himself, lying on the Dark Sides’ ragged tan carpet.

Which begged the question. What in the name of Mary Shelley was he doing here?

“Ro-bro?” Remus asked. “Why’d you decide to drop in?”

Roman didn’t congratulate Remus on his pun. He didn’t respond at all. He didn’t even twitch.

“You in there?” Remus tilted his head, neck cracking. “Did you pass out? You’d better not have passed out, Jan will kill me if I bring another unconscious human into his room.”

No answer.

Remus summoned a chalkboard and dragged his nails down it. The ear-splitting screech echoed around the room.

Roman didn’t flinch.

Which was rude! Remus didn’t like being ignored. He grabbed the fused dildos and chucked them at Roman’s back. But he’d never been super great at throwing things so it flew over Roman’s shoulder and began to burn a hole in the carpet. Eh, there were lots of stains in the carpet, too. Nice things in the Downstairs didn’t tend to last very long.

“C’mon!” Remus prodded Roman with his foot. “C’mon, wake up! Say something! This is boring!” He kicked Roman’s ribs, hard, and Roman curled a little tighter, making a pained noise.

Success!

Now. If a kick got him to move, what would get him sitting up and talking? Maybe a nuclear warhead in the face? Or nipple tasers? Or branding his face with swear words! All fun options, but if Roman was in too much pain to talk, it wouldn’t do anyone any good.

Remus decided answers were more important than nipple tasers. A sad truth, but there it was.

“Get up,” Remus ordered, kicking him again. “Or I’ll electrocute your nipples.”

Usually, that statement elicited a lot of screaming. Or, in Jan’s case a ‘good for you, Remus,’ but Jan was different. So it was a surprise when Roman didn’t even look up.

Was he sleeping? Unconscious? Ignoring Remus like the little bratty baby he was? Wait, was he dead? No, he wasn’t dead, he’d moved—but what if he died right after that? Could Sides die? Remus had done a lot of real nasty stuff that would probably kill a regular boring human body twenty times over. If ripping out his own beating heart and feeding it to a dinosaur didn’t kill a Side, Remus didn’t think anything would.

But Roman still wasn’t moving. And hey, intrusive thoughts sucked. Remus couldn’t stop picturing Roman dying, his corpse decaying on the carpet, his eyeballs drying up and—

He wasn’t dead! He was breathing! He was breathing, right? He wasn’t dead, right? Remus sniffed at him and grabbed his arm, lifting it high in the air. It immediately fell back down. Alrighty, fun game! But he needed to figure stuff out. No time for games. Be a detective instead! Logan liked detective stuff, right? Remus caught him reading a Sherlock x Watson fanfic that one time. What would Logan do, and how could Remus do that better and with more butts?

Remus stuck out his tongue as he thought. He should try to gather information! Right? Like the answer to that is-Roman-breathing question. He’d completely forgotten about that. Sometimes Remus really didn’t like how his mind worked, all slippery and fluid and changeable. Like a greased pig on caffeine. How slick was a greased pig anyway? Were some animals faster when greased? What about humans? What about a few specific body parts—

Breathing. B-R-E-A-T-H-I-N-G. Focus, focus, focus. Remus had a mystery to solve and he didn’t have time for this.

How did someone check for breathing? Remus held his hand in front of Roman’s face. Was that breath? He hoped it was. He barely got to see his bro and it would be a real shame if Ro-Bro’s visit was cut short by cardiac arrest. If Roman died before Remus got to kill him, Remus would murder him.

Wait, heartbeat! That’s something Remus should check, right? Remus immediately reached for Roman’s chest to extract his heart. Nope. Wait a sec. They were both Creativity. Injuries hurt when the other did them.

Although it might get Roman to move—

Before Remus could decide whether to jumpstart Roman’s brain with a defibrillator-style shock to the system, Roman shifted again. It was tiny, but there.

Okay. Definitely alive. Cool. Cool cool cool. Was he asleep? Wouldn’t the impact have woken him up? And he was sleeping face-down, which sounded fun and suffocating but not the sort of thing Roman was usually into. Remus couldn’t see if his eyes were open. They’d better not be, or Roman was just ignoring Remus and making his life harder on purpose.

Remus lodged his foot under Roman’s chest and flipped him over.

Huh.

That was new.

Roman wasn’t wearing his usual prince costume. Well, he was? Sort of. But the white parts were all black, and the sash might have been darker as well or maybe it was just Remus’ imagination. Maybe it was because the red didn’t gleam and the gold didn’t shine. Roman was always easy to spot, like a strangely plumed peacock. Remus was the same, dousing his outfit in sparkles and ruffles. Maybe it was tasteless in Remus’ case, or ostentatious in Roman’s, but it made sure they were always the center of attention. Now, the colors were dull and seemed out-of-place on Roman’s outfit. They didn’t have any life to them, like veins with the blood drained out, only a shell left behind.

This was Roman, right? He’d never be caught dead in that outfit. It looked like Jan and Virgil had dressed him on a dare. But no. It was Roman’s face. Although his skin was pale and he looked a little thinner than usual and dark purple makeup dripped down his face. Like tears.

And was a lock of hair in front darker than the rest? Remus absently reached up and fingered his own white patch. He’d dyed it as a teenager and kept it around. It reminded him of Cruella de Vil, of raccoons. Roman talked about dying his hair sometimes, but usually something colorful. Red, or purple, or full rainbow. Never just darker brown.

Very emo indeed, Remus decided. Maybe this was a prank from Virgil? Virgil wasn’t really the prank type.

Then Remus noticed something really weird. Roman was wearing a crown.

When they were little, back when they were the same person, they wore a crown. After they split, for a while, they’d wear cardboard crowns and paper wreaths. But as they grew older, Roman and Remus decided against the crowns. For Remus, they brought back bad memories and stories he didn’t want to revisit. For Roman, the crowns always ended up falling off. Roman was full of restless energy—maybe it was a twin thing—and any hat or headgear was bound to wobble around and tumble to the floor. Remus was the same way. He tried wearing a dear skull to dinner and it fell into Virgil’s soup. Virgil was not impressed.

But now, Roman had a crown. A small golden crown perched on his head. Like it was glued to his scalp. Like Roman wanted a crown so bad he made it stay put, or he knew he wouldn’t move around enough to make it come off.

Something was definitely wrong.

Remus reared up to give Roman another kick, because he was getting answers. Then he noticed Roman’s eyes were open.

“You dork!” Remus yelled. “You’ve been awake this whole time? Why are you here if you’re just gonna ignore me?”

Roman’s eyes shifted over to him. He didn’t speak.

“Are you giving me the Silent Treatment?” Remus stuck out his bottom lip. “Rude! You visit just to act like I don’t exist? I thought princes have manners!”

Roman swallowed and whispered “Not visiting.”

“He speaks!” Remus paused. “Wait, what d’ya mean? You’re here, aren’t you?” He groaned. “Oh, is this another hallucination? I knew I shouldn’t have eaten those carrots—”

Roman shook his head slightly.

“What are you saying?” Remus stomped his foot. “If you don’t start talking sense, I’ll bash your skull in!” Remus summoned his mace and swung it from his hand, leering at Roman. “I’m gonna.”

Roman looked away.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Remus said, poking Roman hard in the leg with his mace.

That leg should have bled, thick and strong. Roman should have screamed like a girl and clutched the wound as the skin split and veins separated. Remus should have Sides at his door, patching Roman up and giving Remus dirty looks that weren’t the fun kind of dirty. Roman should be back the next day, sword in hand, and it would be Remus’ turn to bleed out, JanJan lecturing him as he tightened the bandages, asking why they couldn’t just leave each other alone.

That’s what should have happened.

But the mace stuck in Roman’s leg. No blood bubbled up around the points. Remus pulled it out with a squelching noise.

There was no damage.

“What?” Remus said aloud, prodding the area. Not a scratch. Even Roman’s clothes were intact. He’d sharpened that mace this morning, why wasn’t it—

A new outfit. A new crown. Makeup running down his face. The usual just-the-brothers-can-maim-each-other-rule no longer applying.

Remus dropped his mace. It clattered on the ground.

“No.”

Roman met his eyes and nodded.

“No, no, no.” Remus shook his head hysterically. “No! Nope! Not dealing with this!”

Roman exhaled and turned away again. Remus stared at him with wide eyes. This was a prank. A joke. It had to be! Sides didn’t just change, that wasn’t how this worked. Virgil switched, but Virgil was different. Roman was the fan favorite, the pretty boy, the good twin, everything Remus would never be.

“Jan?” Remus called, eyes trained on his brother. “Roman just fell into the living room and I think he might be a Dark Side now?”

He waited for Jan to respond. The Mindscape was quiet.

“JanJan?” Remus yelled at the top of his lungs.

No answer.

“Guess you’re not here,” Remus muttered bitterly. “Again.”

Great. He was alone in the Downstairs with a half-way comatose twin brother in a weird new outfit, that he couldn’t even stab!

“What happened to you?” Remus asked, not expecting an answer. “Did someone say something? I know the last video was a mess, but I thought y’all would figure it out. That’s what you do, right? Kiss and make up like in My Little Pony?” Remus blew a giant raspberry at Roman’s face. “I had things to do today and you completely messed up my schedule, so thanks a lot.”

Roman didn’t apologize. That tracked.

“You know what?” Remus asked, pacing back and forth. “You know what?”

He reached down and grabbed Roman’s face, squishing his cheeks and puckering his lips. “What?” he asked in a falsetto.

“I’m so glad you asked!” Remus released Roman’s face and stood up again. “I’m going to pay Upstairs a visit and see if I can pawn you off. You’re gonna be someone else’s problem, dearest brother-of-mine.”

Roman did not protest. Remus grabbed his mace off the floor and, swinging it joyfully, headed down the hall. His feet squelched on the carpet—it never really recovered from that cloud of blood, did it? The staircase was past the doors, a rickety set of spiral stairs perfect for pushing people down. Jan did that to Virgil once. It was hilarious.

Remus passed his own door first, a green slimy slab of putrid, hardened pus. ‘CREATIVITY’ was scratched into it with, Remus recalled, a double-bladed knife. The next door was Jan’s, made of dark burnished wood, a golden plaque proclaiming ‘DECEIT: Please Enter.’ The third door had no doorknob or keyhole, and the only marks were four long scratches down the front, like something had clawed it.

Remus deliberately ignored the blank, dirty patch of wallpaper where a fourth door used to be.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move.

Remus whirled, mace at the ready. At first he didn’t see anything. It was just a stretch of ugly wallpaper with some unidentifiable stains and graffiti that yelled ‘EAT THE RICH’ in bold letters.

But one of the stains, a dark one in the center of the wall, was steadily growing wider. No, it wasn’t really a stain—it was a rip, a tear. The wallpaper peeled away, revealing—a door handle?

What?

Remus creeped forward, hand still on his mace. Despite himself, hope bloomed in his stomach. The door was a familiar shade of black. It was impossible, but—was Virgil coming back? No. He wouldn’t. Would he? Could he? And if he wasn’t, why as a door appearing on the wall?

Maybe it was a storage closet or something. Who summoned it, Jan? Ugh, if Jan was here and had just ignored Remus, he’d have a bed full of shaving cream tonight.

The door was getting larger, stretching until it reached over Remus’ head. The wallpaper folded around the corners of the door and was scored away along the edges. The gold doorknob rattled and clicked, a new keyhole right below it. Remus reached out and tried to turn the knob. It wouldn’t budge.

The whole door was black. On closer inspection, it wasn’t the same black as Virgil’s door. Virgil’s was iridescent and almost purple. This black was just matte black. Virgil’s door was paint on wood. This was—Remus touched the surface carefully—almost glassy in texture. Cool and smooth.

Then, under his fingers, red scribbled across the surface, looping around and tucking back into itself. A red square settled around the doorknob, a red stripe slashed across the door like a sash, and on that sash, black cursive etched out a name.

APATHY.

In little golden letters beneath, ROMAN SANDERS.

In even littler letters, DO NOT ENTER.

Remus pressed his fingers to his mouth, reading the words again. Apathy. Roman Sanders, do not enter. Apathy. Roman Sanders. Apathy, Roman. Roman.

A hysterical laugh bubbled in Remus’ throat. He stumbled to the opposite wall and slid down it, staring at the door. He blinked hard. It didn’t disappear. He ripped his eyeballs out, dusted them off, and popped them back in. The door was still there.

Apathy Roman.

“You little…” Remus laughed. “You little b*tch!”

He didn’t even mind that Thomas’ mind censored swears. He swore anyway. He swore and laughed until he was gasping for breath. He said every swear word he knew and some he was pretty sure he’d just made up. He laughed until his eyes watered. Was he complaining or celebrating? Remus didn’t know.

He didn’t know a lot of things. How did this happen? Was it permanent? Would Roman stay for a day, a month, a year, forever? Remus glanced toward the living room. Roman hadn’t moved from the floor. Well.

“Hey, turd!” Remus called. “You’ve got a room here, did you know that?”

Roman didn’t respond.

“Seriously? Don’t tell me you died while I was over here.” Remus walked back down the hall and poked Roman in the chest. “Get up. The door won’t open for me and I’m really curious what it looks like inside.”

Roman looked blankly up at Remus. Remus leered back. When that got no reaction, he tore off his nose and let blood drip down his face. Still nothing! Was Remus losing his touch or was Roman just that apathetic?

Apathy. Apathetic. Oh. Yeah, that made sense.

“Okay, I get it,” Remus said. “Your new gig is being a grumpy formless blob. Cool. Fine. But I’ve got business to do in the living room and you can’t just lie there forever. Get your tuchas moving and come check out your new digs.”

Roman looked away again.

“You’ve taken a vow of silence or something?” Remus flexed his fingers. “That’s irritating, I can’t read minds like Jan. Tell you what. Blink if you’re gonna get up and walk with me to your room, don’t blink if I’m gonna have to drag you down the hallway like a dead body.”

Roman didn’t blink. Either he wanted to be dragged or couldn’t be bothered to move his eyelids. Good enough for Remus. He grabbed Roman’s ankles and tugged him down the hall.

It was slow going. Roman was heavy and he kept getting stuck on the carpet. Remus tried his best to make conversation. He was used to talking to people who ignored him, so it was pretty easy. It was like that scene in Inside Out, he thought vaguely. Huh, that was weird. Usually his similes were more X-rated.

Wait.

If Roman wasn’t Creativity anymore—did that mean Remus was—

Remus stopped dead in the middle of the hallway, his brother in one hand and his mace in the other.

Was he the only Creativity now?

Was he like Him?

No. No, he wasn’t. He’d know. He could tell if something was different. Remus hadn’t changed. He was still demented and disgusting and delectable.

But wasn’t that worse?

Thomas…Thomas didn’t have Roman anymore. No flights of fancy or unicorn horns. Just asphyxiation and zombies and everything in between. Creativity was no longer balanced in a yin-yang black-white good-evil situation. It was all Remus.

He’d always wanted more control. More attention. To really have a say in Tommy’s decisions, to not be shunted aside and sidelined because his ideas were too ‘mature.’ He’d always wanted to knock Roman down a peg, kick him a few rungs down the social ladder.

Just...not like this.

He didn’t want Roman to fall off entirely. He didn’t want Roman to leave the stage. He didn’t want Roman gone.

Remus couldn’t—he couldn’t be the only Creativity. He was no good! Everyone said so! They’d probably blame him for Roman’s fall even though, for once, it wasn’t his fault, and Virgil would hate him and Jan would finally leave and—

There was a light tap on his leg. Remus jerked out of his thoughts, glancing down at Roman. Roman’s eyes were a little wider than normal. He looked worried.

“Okay?” Roman asked quietly.

Are you okay?

“Of course,” Remus said, waggling his eyebrows and ignoring the pang in his chest. “Let’s go.” He grabbed Roman’s arm and swung him around his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Without the friction from the floor, Remus was at Roman’s door in seconds. He reached out and jiggled the handle. Still locked.

“You’re gonna have to open this,” Remus told Roman, twisting his head around to look at him.

Roman sighed quietly. His finger twitched, and the door swung open. Remus barged in and tossed Roman on the bed. It had black and grey sheets with a red quilt and was the only thing in the room. The walls and floor were bare plaster. It looked like a prison cell.

“Jeez,” Remus complained, “not very stylish, bro. Would it kill you to add some color?”

Roman was already curled up on the bed, not bothering to cover himself with sheets. He stared at the wall.

“Fine, I’ll decorate.” Remus snapped his fingers and added a large mirror with claw feet, a few grotesque paintings on the walls, and a knitted carpet the color of dried blood.

“Perfect.” Remus glanced at the still motionless figure on the bed. “Look, I’m gonna call in some backup, okay? Don’t die while I’m gone.”

Roman closed his eyes and seemed to fall asleep immediately. Remus watched him for a second before bolting out of the room. The door banged on the wall as he threw it open.

“Jan!”

Why wasn’t he here?

Remus stomped down the hallway toward Jan’s door. If JanJan wasn’t here, he’d just break into his room and make Jan pay attention.

As he passed the handle-less door, he paused. The food flap was locked but Remus knew the combination, he could—

No. He wasn’t that desperate. Not yet.

Instead, Remus kicked the snaky boy’s door open. Ha, joke’s on JanJan for letting Remus come in whenever. A snake hissed at him from its terrarium. Remus hissed back.

It would be pretty much impossible for Jan to ignore this. All Sides knew if someone else was in their room. Remus usually resented that. It made pranking harder. But today it came in handy.

“Oh, JanJan!” Remus stepped toward the bookshelf. “Sure would be a shame if all these lovely volumes were dumped into a vat of motor oil and set on fire!”

No angry snake appeared. Remus kicked over a end table and tossed some slime on the bed.

“Seriously, Jan,” Remus continued, releasing some crickets in the closet. “I’d get in here if I were you!”

There was a loud clang outside. Footsteps. Remus ran to the door and saw Jan, capelet flying behind him and face flushed, running down the stairs.

“There you are!” Remus complained. “Took you long enough.”

“I—” Jan stumbled to a stop in front of him, bending over and panting. “There—Remus—”

“What’s up, Double Dee?” Remus glanced at the open door behind him. “Um, I’d be careful going inside if I were you—”

“Remus,” Jan repeated, finally catching his breath. He straightened. There was panic in his eyes. “Remus, we—we have a situation.”

“Yeah, no sh*t, Sherlock!” Remus snapped. “While you were off playing nice Upstairs, that situation fell into our living room.”

“What?” Jan’s mouth dropped open. “Roman—what?”

Remus grimaced. “You’d better come see this.”

Next. Masterlist.

General taglist:

@the17thmeatball

@most-likely-fandom

@csi-baker-street-babes

@caffeinated-cryptid

Valley of the Dolls taglist:

@cluttered-wonder

@wouldnt-you-like-that

@gotta-love-alejandra

@mihaela-tbg

@tombombadi1

@kaefish

@not-enough-sketchbooks

@marshmallow-fluffy

@confusedhost

@ghostlygalactics

@a-salty-alto

@youthquake-in-the-making

@itriedandimtired

@aromantic-karamatsu

@fear-is-nameless

@somehow-i-got-an-account

Ask to be included or removed!

116 notes · View notes

sending-the-message · 7 years

Text

A drawing by my 10 year old son is driving me crazy by has_permission

I come from a family of long artistic tradition. My father was a writer and my mother a painter. I love art, but I’m actually pretty lame as an artist, so I guess that’s why I ended up working as a paintings conservator in one of the biggest museums of my country, Spain. And that’s also the reason why I encourage a lot my 10 year old son to draw, listen to music carefully and reading. I don’t know if that’s what made him a lonely kid.

Anyway, I was really happy when a week ago a “friend from school” telephoned. My son was having a bath, so I asked the kid “do you want me to give him a message or tell him to call you back?”. He just said something like “Tell him I’m Jaime. And tell him i don’t know how to reach the door”.

I guessed they were talking of a videogame or something similar, so I just passed my son the message. He just said “ok”, and we had dinner. I’m always happy to see he has friends, but I don’t want to push him with this. So whenever I see he makes progress, I keep the party inside.

The next day I was plain surprised because, when I went to school to pick him up, I saw him surrounded by a lot of kids asking him questions in a friendly mood, like if they respected his opinion on (whatever the subject was). I kept the distance and waited until the crowd scattered.

Walking home I asked him, “hey, what were you guys talking about?”. He told me “you know when you rub your eyes and you see things?”. “Yeah”- I said- “Phosphenes”. He smiled. “Phosphenes, that was the word. We were talking about phosphenes”. “Oh” - I said- “how’s that?”. “I’m making a map of the phosphenes we see”. “A map? That’s awesome, maybe you can show it to me later”. “Yes - he said- I’ll show it to you”.

That night was when things started to get a bit weird.

When he was in his bed and I was finishing some paperwork, the phone ringed. It was the mother of the kid I talked to the night before. She was anxious and wanted me to wake up my son, “to have a few words with him”. I told her my son was in bed, “what’s the problem?”. It turned out his son had spent the afternoon rubbing his eyes and now he refused to go to sleep because “something my son had told him”. I was figuring out what to tell her when I heard my son’s voice behind me. “It's ok, dad, give me the phone”. I was then surprised with how adult my son looked dealing with the crisis, telling the mother that he needed to talk to his classmate and promising her it’ll be fine. And it was. He told Jaime to relax, because it was pointless to get anxious with something that would be always available at the closing of his eyes. “Tomorrow in school I will show you how to get through the door”.

I was surprised, but also a bit scared. It seemed like my son had actual power on his school partner. But I didn’t want to panic. I told him I was proud he was able to calm his friend, and also asked if he could explain things to me a bit. “Can I see the drawing you made?”.

He went to his backpack and picked up two A4’s glued together. It was big.

I was...well, shocked.

I never imagined the drawing like that. It was a complex, detailed depiction of the evolution of the shapes that you see when you close and rub your eyes.

It was indeed beautiful. It started with the usual shapes I remembered from when I was a kid and i closed my eyes after looking a bright light source: geometrical patterns, circumferences, rays (or veins), tiny molecule-like shapes... then the evolution went with more intricate designs to reach a point where the shapes were somehow figurative. Also, there was a name for some of them. There were things like “el indio” (the indian man), “la ciudad junto al lago” (the city by the lake), “la mano con la llave” (the hand with the key), “la cerradura” (the lock) and also “la puerta” (the door), the silhouette of a door which contained a door and inside it, another door.

My ex-wife says my face is like an open book. I think my son saw my surprise. He said, pointing exactly where i was looking “you only see these if you are relaxed, after 15 or 20 minutes”. It felt like i was talking not to a kid, but to an authority in a strange matter I never thought could exist. I needed a glass of water. And also, to be careful.

“Ok... this is... fascinating. It really is. Look, you have a powerful imagination, and I’m proud of you. Hmmm you know what? this reminds me a lot of an artist named Jean Dubuffet who worked a lot to reach an art who was close to the authenticity and uniqueness of the drawings of some children of your age”. (Now that I write it, i realize how pedantic I sound sometimes, but my son asks me a lot about art so I feel like I’m free to be a bit scholastic with him). “BUT THE THING IS… people who have a strong imagination have also a great responsibility, because his images can be inspiring or can hurt people.”

Shit. That sounded a bit strong.

Luckily, my son smiled. “Dad, I’m not hurting anyone.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry, i never meant to say that. I’m just saying that if you are turning this into a game, which is fine, you’ll be like the referee, and you have to take care of your friends.”

My son looked thoughtful. Christ, he seemed so adult. (proud dad mode now off)

“You’re right. I haven't seen it that way.”

So we went to bed.

Next day was intense at work. The barnish of some paintings from the XVIII is rusting and that’s giving us a lot of headaches at the museum. I needed to take a break, so I went to my office. I laid in my chair and rubbed my eyes a bit. Then, I recalled the phosphene thing. I smiled and rubbed my eyes again. I remembered some geometric patterns my son drawed were almost exact depictions of things that I saw when I was a kid.

But… nothing happened. Plain darkness. I rubbed my eyes more.

…

Just some blurry shadows in washed colors.

Its childish, but I felt frustrated. I turned off my lamp, looked directly to the light, closed and rubbed my eyes. Nothing.

Maybe if I waited some minutes…

… …

Fuck! Nothing. Just that vague darkness, green like a dirty ocean. How was this possible? I recalled a feast of kaleidoscopic forms just at the closing of my eyes. When was the last time I saw that? A year, or years ago? Maybe… a decade, maybe more?

I was about to lower the curtains and turn off all the lights to try harder when

KNOCK KNOCK

(Work person wanted to ask work thing)

Although I was a bit embarrassed, I kept thinking about it the rest of the day. Like our hearing decays, may be that I progressively lost the ability to see the richness of the phosphenes?

That day, when I picked my son at school he was also talking with a lot of kids, but he wasn’t the center of attention, which I don’t know why but made me feel better. This time I got closer. They weren’t talking about phosphenes, or “doors”, but about cowboys, sheriffs and that stuff.

In the way back home we talked about homework and a videogame he wanted to buy. Normal things. In some way, I was relieved. I didn't wanted to be called that night by the mother of Jaime and tell me his son hurt himself chasing lights and shapes.

But on the other hand, strangely, I felt like I needed to ask him about my frustrating experience. Why I couldn't see anything, when I vividly remember things very similar to those drawn by him? I tried to be an adult and kept my mouth shot.

The urge grew in the late hours of the afternoon so when I went to bed I was determined to work on the matter. I thought maybe work stress and anxiety didn’t go well with the phosphenes, so I got myself a homemade sleeping mask and added some relaxing classical music in a low volume. I closed my eyes.

N o t h i n g

N o t h i n g g gg

Just that blurry, dark mess. I tried to FORCE me to see patterns, visualize things in there. But it was impossible. It was all messy, flabby, vague.

Maybe-- maybe if I got the “map” of my son… But what I’m thinking? I’m a grown man, If I can’t get to see that shit, fine, I should go to sleep and forget it.

My son was sleeping when I opened the door of his room. I silently got his backpack and took it to my bedroom to examine it.

Fuck! No map for you, stupid 40 year old peter pan. But just when I was about to close the zipper I saw something. A small piece of paper, like the result of tearing off a bigger one. In it, you could still see a spiral.

NO!

But yes, my son had destroyed the map.

That was the time when a normal person would have returned the backpack. But besides my growing obsession to see something, I always keep the drawings of my son. Funny, he loves to destroy them, so he doesn't know I keep a folder full of them, some of them glued together out of pieces found the trash. but he will thank me when he grows up and discovers his father kept some testimony of his art.

And that’s what I did. I went to the kitchen, and there, in the trashcan, i found A LOT of pieces of paper. It took me some time, but I had practice, so i began separating what seemed like homework from the drawings. Fuck, this time the job is well done. It's like he really wanted to obfuscate a possible restoration work. After half an hour I managed to put together some parts. Not the full work (it was like 20-30% of the original), but at least it was something.

"Phosphene Map"

That sense of victory helped me to sleep. My life is not very exciting (movie-exciting I mean), so these moments when I furtively recover my son’s drawings out of the trash are a rush of adrenaline, because I know if he found me doing that he would be very angry. Wow. Ehem.

So, what’s the big deal with this story? Why I decided to register and post it here? (besides because I’ve been an anonymous reader for two years and finally I had something to post).

Well, because today I rubbed my eyes a bit. I swear it was just by accident. But I kept my eyes closed. Just in case.

And then, it happened exactly like I saw in the map.

First, patterns. Stars. Shapes.

And now... I see the door.

Everytime I close my eyes and look at the phosphenes- there’s ONLY that “door”.

I know is stupid, but I’m afraid of it.

Also, I’m afraid of being afraid. What kind of adult am I? How am I supposed to take care of a child if I react like this to what can be simple suggestion, pareidolia or patterns that could really exist and (some say) maybe even inspired prehistoric art?

Maybe what scares me the most is that I know I can easily get through that “door”, just like I went through the “nest”.

I guess I wanted to share the story and ask if someone has experienced something similar.

If so, what’s the deal with the "door"? Why do I find it so frightening?

How’s that in the first place I wasn’t able to see any of this, and then it came of a sudden?

PS. Sorry for my terrible english.

#reddit #nosleep #scary #story

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