The Scene Of A Crime

An invitation to someone’s home is not what it seems.

Ducks swam in the baby blue walls that surrounded me. Paint was on the floor beneath the large wooden letters that spelled a name. The folds on the Spiderman bed sheets were sharp and crisp. A brown and furry teddy bear looked at me with small beady eyes and the one button that was left looked as if it was hanging on for dear life.

I sat down making sure the creases on the bed did not get messed up and got a little scared when I heard the screeching metal respond to my movement. A mirror was directly across from the bed and large streaks made it hard to see my reflection. When the wooden door flung open, hitting the wall, I watched as baby blue chips coated the floor.

He looked at me and asked if I wanted a drink. I nodded yes and out he went. Since the mirror was no consolation to my appearance, I sat still forcing myself not to shake. The baby reaching for the ball in the photo became my new fixation. A yellow frame stopped the child from ever reaching the ball, but his twinkling eyes showed determination. The baby evolved from crawling to running after a dog in the next frame, then standing reaching for a football that looked bigger than his face in the last frame. This baby was always so close to what he desired.

A glass of water suddenly entered my vision as he sat down on the desk. The desk was a rainbow of fading blues. Starting with navy blue, I presumed, which later cascaded into a powder blue. And with every change in color there was a marker or a crayon that signaled a child’s presence in this room. When the blue started to camouflage with his jeans, I looked elsewhere.

“Why did you invite me over?” I asked.

He began to pace the room. With every step, the floor beneath him seemed as if it inhaled sharply, then exhaled when he moved his foot. The more he paced, the more I began to feel like the floor, just breathing in and out waiting for his next move.

When he stopped, the floorboard popped up, and its jagged edges came poking out. The edges looked as if it had a wicked smile and in order to not scare myself, I had to look at him. He was staring at me and the mirror across from us displayed him as larger than me. I looked like a mouse, waiting for my opportunity to flee.

In that instance the room felt cold and as I looked down at my goosebumps, I heard movement. But by the time I looked up, the room was suddenly dark. He was no longer in front of me, but all I could see was his blurred figure near me.

As he approached, the baby blue walls became inappropriate for the person inhabiting the room. All the ducks that were swimming before seemed to stop and look at me. The baby, who was once my haven, appeared to stop reaching for the ball and look at me. I looked at the baby pleading for help. He took off his shoes; that baby no longer existed. Metal hit the ground and I watched the shiny belt buckle fall next to the popped floorboard.

“Just let it happen.” He said.

Despite my efforts, the Spiderman bed sheets got crumpled.

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