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22 March 2008
32. Questions Questions Questions
“What was this house before?”
“Uh. Some kind of commune, I think. These kind of ‘back to nature’ types had the lease, but then it expired and the owner didn’t renew it. Actually I think the guy who owns it now bought it quite recently and waited until the lease expired. Something like that.”
“Some kind of commune? So you don’t really know.”
“I suppose not.”
“Hm. And why do these three rooms of your's have a lock on them? Why are they self-contained? All the rest of the house seems like individual rooms, but this one is more of a suite, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“So, there’s a cellar that’s locked – the only locked room in the house – then there’s an attic that, you say, you’re too scared to go into. Although that’s not locked.”
“Yep. That’s about it.”
“Why is that? And what is a ghost anyway?”
“Oh. Good question, I suppose. I guess I don’t really know. The impression of something dead retained in the place where it lived? And died? Something like that.”
“If that’s right, how can an astronaut in a space-suit haunt land that doesn’t require a space-suit?”
“Ah, now that question I have asked myself! Although I don’t know the answer.”
“How many astronauts have died in space? How many have died on the ground? I take it Scotland doesn’t have a programme of space exploration, so it’s unlikely that an astronaut could have died here!”
“No, no space programme. As for the number that have died in space – or on the ground – I really couldn’t say. Could that be a clue?”
“Keep looking for the key! You’re no good at asking questions.”
“Right. Right.”
“This song, ‘Catch a Falling Star’ – why is that relevant to this house?”
“Nope. I don’t know the answer to that either.”
“When was the last time you had cock in your cock-hole?”
“Don’t call it a cock-hole! That’s so horrible!”
“Okay, when was the last time you had cock in your ‘lady cupboard’?”
“I don’t know!”
“Why do they say ‘Not Yet’ all the time, in that neighbouring town of yours? Not yet. Not yet. No, not yet!”
“What? I don’t know. What relevance has that got?”
“I’m asking the questions – you’ve obviously asked yourself no questions, so dinnae you start asking the questions now.”
“Oh, well! Thank you!”
“When was the last time you did some Spring cleaning in your lady cupboard?”
“Enough! That’ll do. Okay?”
“You dinnae know! You dinnae know! You dinnae know much, Stephanie Fey!”
“I’m here because I asked questions, remember.”
“Oh, that! Is that what you think? That you left because you were asking questions? About the kind of world you were living in. What’s that mark on your face, Stephanie Fey? Where did you get that? I don’t ever hear you mentioning that.”
“You know where I got it. Now shut up, or I may have to resort to kicking you in your blasted lady cupboard, okay!”
Silence, for a change. Kidman looking haughty and me grimacing in my tight-faced way. I was rummaging around in a cupboard at the time that she started this incessant questioning. No, not a lady one! Plain, ordinary cupboard. But it was something of an impossible task to find this key – the house was huge, so many rooms, so much junk, so many possibilities. I continued looking even as Kidman started again.
We ended up looking in arbitrary places, and not looking systematically. After all, we couldn’t exactly pull apart an already pulled-apart house; there would be some places more likely to hold the key than others. Well, a strategy was required and that was what we came up with - although, it did still appear pretty arbitrary when we actually came to do it! This conversation – one of many that had centred on Kidman giving me a hard time and me taking it – occurred in a room that looked like one of the house’s standard bedrooms, almost like a hotel room for down-and-outs. We had looked through many of these, and this just looked like another one of many. Old bed, old chest of drawers, old wardrobe, old cupboard built into the wall. Old, old, old!
“You are a typical product of your time, but you think you’re not, you think you’re here to get away from a society that you no longer understand, but you understand nothing. And you ask yourself nothing. You get haunted, terrorised, and all you do is try to survive it. You don’t ask what you’re trying to survive, your place in it all…”
“Kidman! Look at this.” I waved something up in front of her face.
“…You call everything a metaphor and then you hide away inside of it. Hide away, trying to breathe, trying to stay alive in a pointless life …”
“Hello. Kidman! See this!” And I dangled it again.
“… Who cares that it’s pointless. Unless you care, unless you start looking for the answers, then you are what’s pointless …”
“Kidman!”
“… You are what the universe disnae need. You are the problem. And not it.”
“Kidman!”
“Oh, what! Can’t you see I’m ranting, can’t you leave a bod alone when it’s ranting!”
Again, more insistently, I dangled the key I’d found in the cupboard, right under her eyebrows, right in front of her nose, and right above her puppies.
“That’s not a key. That’s a widget.”
“Widget? It’s not a widget! What’s a widget? This is a key!”
“It’s a widget. For a tractor. It helps to keep the wheels on. Looks a bit like a key, granted.”
“It’s a freakin’ key, Kidman! And I found it! So quit ranting!”
She quit ranting. I turned away and started to head for the cellar. It was a key. But no guarantee it was the right key. Not that I was going to tell Kidman that!
“Where are you going?”
“More questions. Where do you think, O Great Questioner?”
Of course she followed me. She wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to find an answer to at least one of the questions.
But she couldn’t resist a last shot:
“I don’t know why you’re bothering. You don’t own a tractor!”
Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.
18:10 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal
Comments
"doctor doctor! i think i'm turning into a pig!"
"then apply this oink-ment twice daily."
ha ha ha!
oh yeah, i got it, i got it, you know i freekin got it!
Posted by: igotit_igotit | 10 June 2008
honestly. if you were a tit you'd be the one that's slightly bigger.
you got nuhin!
Steph Fey
Posted by: Steph Fey | 10 June 2008