Every October, after the national Hajj to our closest apple orchard, we Americans love to trick ourselves into believing vampires, werewolves, mothmen, chupacabras and candy corn are the monsters we should be worrying about but in fact the true monster is life itself. The former monsters provide sweet, merciful release while you provide them an organic meal, the latter revels in lingchi, death by a thousand cuts. Let us take a journey through a genuine house of horrors:
There are no scary decorations. The entrance lobby is the gutted remains of a Chucky Queso with a weathered 80s checkered rug that should have been replaced before the fall of the Berlin Wall. A broken pinball machine sits in the corner yet to be taken to the dump for fear of dumping fees. A man in a wrinkled blue golf shirt with droopy bags under his eyes who sighs before every sentence says, “Sigh. Welcome to the world’s first true haunted house. Sigh. I was the valedictorian of my class.” With effort, he opens the windowless metal door that drags on the floor installed improperly.
You enter.
You walk into shadow. The room is bare, the back half is a wooden stage one step higher than where you stand. The stage lights turn on. Your long-term girlfriend sits on the lone stool. What’s she doing here? She didn’t tell you she was getting a second job. Through tousled hair she looks at you with bloodshot eyes partially hidden behind the strands that fall over her face. Not currently crying, it’s clear she hasn’t slept, the channels down here cheeks are still moist. Her hands fidget holding a crumpled used tissue. You approach, confused, concerned, cautious. You step onto the stage, out of the darkness, into the spotlights. Then stage left, a man walks onto the stage not ten feet in front of you. He holds a manilla folder. It’s Maury. Pity in his eyes. He doesn’t have to say it, you already know what he’s going to say but every coffin needs that last nail. “You are not the father.”
Lights turn off, it’s pitch black. A dangly light bulb to your right turns on, swaying above a door. You enter.
The new room is lit with clinically white light. Too many drop ceiling tiles have the brown remnants of past leaks. On the far side of the room behind a desk, a man in a cheap suit and glasses that don’t go well with his round smug face says, “you’re late. Have a seat.” The soft swoosh of your pants cuts through the deathly silence. You sit down in the foldable metal chair. Without any small talk, smug man gets right to the interview. “What do you consider your greatest strength?” he asks. You answer. He follows up with, “what is your greatest weakness?” You tell him you love too much. He tsks, shaking his head, taking notes. “Look,” he says. “We decided to go with a more qualified candidate.”
Lights turn off, it’s pitch black. A dangly light bulb to your right turns on, swaying above a door. You enter.
This new room is cramped, you duck down. Is this a seat? You shimmy a few feet. The door behind you closes. There’s a small door in front of you but it won’t open. Wait, what’s that you feel on your right? Is that a steering wheel? You sit properly. Lights turn on. You’re in standstill traffic in summer heat, the AC isn’t working, you try the horn, it’s feeble honk no more authoritative than an old dying goose’s death throes. In the glove compartment are four protein bars. You have to ration them over the course of the next two days.
Lights turn off, it’s pitch black. The driver side door finally opens. You exit.
The new room is barren. Four pristine white walls. No furniture. Wait, is that a smudge on the far wall? You walk over, halfway across the floor you realize its writing. Approaching the wall, you read it: a room full of everyone whom reached out worried while you were stuck in traffic for two days.
The next door opens and then the door after that and the one after that. Over and over until you can no longer decipher what is simulacra and simulation.
You order coffee with almond milk; they use whole milk dooming your lactose intolerant system.
Streaming services refuse to let you cancel subscriptions by asking are you sure? For eternity.
Your boss that gave you a mediocre six-month review is hitting on you at company happy hour.
You try goat yoga and the goat kicks you in the nose, breaking it.
You order avocado toast but have to refinance your mortgage to afford it.
TSA is a little too handsy making sure you aren’t carrying a WMD. The worst part, at this point you’re so callused it doesn’t even affect you.
You start siding with a lot more villains in the movies you watch. Who would name their son Scar?
At the gas station you wait for subjective hours while the person in front of you carefully picks their losing lotto numbers.
Your ex married someone who looks like a better version of you.
Strangers on the internet nibble at you like piranhas with inane comments.
Every time you vent to your friends they explain how your problems are due to your zodiac sign.
Your raises fall behind inflation.
After a great first date she ignores all your texts.
Your knee aches every time it rains.
You lose one month every year to meetings that could have been emails.
You drown in motivational quotes that might as well be wet logs incapable of catching fire. You wonder if maybe a cattle prod would be the most effective way to get you moving, cattle in a cube farm.
God dang kids are always skateboarding on the sidewalk.
Are you the only monster here? A ghost of who you used to be?
Finally you exit, changed, you see across the way is a traditional haunted house full of fake blood, cobwebs, and spookiness. Inside you hear screams and laughter, equally balanced. A vampire on break smokes a cigarette leaning on the side of the brick building. You rush over throwing your arms around the vampire, holding back tears, you gently say, “I missed you. I missed you, monster.”
The vampire understanding you just came from the other haunted house wraps his arms around you, returning the hug. “There there,” he says. “Life can be pretty harsh huh? All I ask for is a little bit of your blood. A pittance in comparison.”