Reegan – Phantasmagoria

There was a six am call today. Some middle aged woman with a smuggled plasma TV. She said her son was fooling around and cracked the screen. When we got to there the front half of the house was choking under a thin cover of vine’s working their skinny arms up the shingles. Wisteria. It gave off a peculiar rotting honey smell, but it was ethereal. A burst of purple silk flowers blanketing the front lawn, crawling up the brick in snake like-rivulets. It’s strange how much of a mirage plants can provide. When I was heading up the cobblestone drive way I saw skinny arms. Taffy appendages waving in cartoonish glee. But when I had gotten close enough to see the specks of grime in the bricks they were snakes. Curled and twisted in vain awareness.

When I touched it a curling wave of purple and green dust rolled off and seemed to spread along the ground. A kind of mist maybe? It seemed to be made up of granules too. Like specially dyed sand made to look like mist when clumped together.

It was some kind of fantastical phenomenon at work. I’ve seen otherworldly vegetation before, but this seemed more pleasant. A kind of soothing balm in comparison to more toxic apparitions. I don’t understand why the woman was freaking out. If anything it should have signaled to her that she had nothing to worry about.

Emma of course thought the vines at the front half of the house were concerning. But she thinks everything involving TV repair calls are concerning. It’s part of the training, you act like you care enough, showcase an utter and unabashed fervor to the practical part of the task and the people who do the hiring are smitten. It’s like enlistment. You need to have the kind of blind, dutiful “I will do anything for this cause.” kind of demeanor. I don’t think Emma’s ever been faking it.

When we got inside the house the wall paper had taken on a gaudy sickly green glow. Like neon lights in a jazz bar. It’s hypnotizing, and when I stare at the wash of light my pules quickens in a kind of purposeful rhythm. These are always the best parts. Not knowing if you should be freaked out, allured or both. Emma calls it masochistic, and I’ve never refuted her.

The woman’s panicking because she’s never had a TV problem before. Her eyes are green rimmed from the glow and she keeps rubbing them as if it’ll make the trick of light crumble off like makeup. I tell her the nature won’t hurt her.

“It’s not nature,” Emma snaps at me. A well oiled spring of tenacity.

Then she assure’s the woman she is alright as long as she kept interaction with the “Thing” from her TV as limited as possible.

“Where is it?”

“In the living room. I wanted to lock it in the guest room or something but I didn’t want to touch it.”

“No that’s right. You did fine by leaving it alone.”

The woman’s twelve year old son peaks out from behind his mom’s ivy tinged dress, which he’s been using to shield his obviously tear stained face.

“Do you wanna show us what you found? I promise it’ll be alright. Is it an animal?” I ask gently.

The boys eyes widen and I can tell Emma is getting all uptight behind me.

“How did you know?” He asks.

“This stuff around your house is from some pristine wilderness. Very mystical. So I wouldn’t be surprised-“

“Ma’m can you please show us the room.” Emma’s voice sounds strained. I know she’s wishing she brought a gas mask or something.

The boy starts to cry again.

“I d-din’t mean too break it- I don’t want you to die in there.”

His mom squeezes his shoulder and Emma sucks in breath as if the space around her is starting to run out of oxygen.

“I don’t usually let him play around the TV but-” The woman starts in flustered and I swear she’s going to start balling too.

“Ma’am please show us where the thing is. It doesn’t matter who’s at fault.” Emma repeats firmly, the lines fed to her when the people requesting our service’s get too emotional.

The boy shoulders still shake and I bend down to look at him, the strobing light from the wall paper leaking across his face and forming ribbons across his cheeks.

“I promise were not going to die. None of us are. I know what this is. Based on what you told me it’s like nature. Just like the plants you have outside in your front yard. Harmless. Your very brave for calling us.”

I give my slight smile, the one which doesn’t show all my teeth. I use it on all the kids. They just need someone to reassure them is all.

Emma is probably pissed about me calling this whole thing nature, pissed that I talked to the boy like an unwavering idiot. But she isn’t going to chew me out about it now.

The mother lifts her son up and Emma takes the lead, turning right into the living room per the mother’s directions.

The living room is squat and sparse. Faux leather upholstery couches take up most of the space. The shag carpet is stained and emitting more of the rotting honey smell. Lavender spills from the cracks forming by the stand holding up their TV. The family picture’s hanging on the wall possessed under the gauze of light, seeming more like off kiltered impostors than the boy’s and his mother’s relative’s.

But I couldn’t care less about any of that. The burgeoning details leading to the climax. Crouched by the front of the mad static dancing across the infuriated screen is the creature. It’s reminiscent of Bambi is irrefutable. But as a ghostly doppelganger. The sheer reminder make’s me sick with unnecessary nostalgia. A gunmetal day, the other kids outside, but I’m still in my ripped pajamas, the salt of chips coating my six year old fingers like a second skin. The technicolor melting my brain under it’s lush wave of flowers, Thumper’s animated squeaking, Bambi’s stick legged movements.

It’s a deer. But it’s not. It’s coat is slick with moss, it’s hooves a solid opaque emerald, digging into the cheap hardwood floor. It’s muzzle is spotted with yellow fungi and it’s soft head turns to regard me with liquid pools for sight. It’s got two heads. The other is a rabbit, half molded to it’s shoulder blade, ears perked, eyes intensely scared. Their both in shock.

“Jesus…”

Emma motions for the boy and her mother to stand back and places her black repair kit on the ground, not taking her eyes off the frozen creature.

“Take a report.” Emma then orders. She snaps a cord into place on a thick black box. It’s several red and blue buttons gleam their electrical prowess in the light.

“What were you watching?” I almost whisper, my heart beating fast under the doe’s gaze, the rabbits egg shell white void.

“I wasn’t actually watching this. It was on this channel when Ben smashed it. Some kind of weird fantasy show. I don’t know.”

The boy points at the rabbit and his mother pulls his hand back.

“What happened? Is that because of radiation?” He giggles nervously.

“Uh-What did it do when it came out…” My attempt at a professional question and answer dissolving, compressing under the folds of luminescence, waves lapping behind a fiery pupil.

“Nothing. It sat there and took in it’s surroundings. I can’t stand the eyes though. The way it looks at me.”

Emma then snaps the last cord into place and sets the black box down spreading each one out like an artificial starfish.

“Finish the report later, ” Emma orders me and I go to stand by her side.

The mom backs up and pulls the boy who has fallen into curiosity and leaning precariously from her grasp roughly back.

“Don’t worry Ma’am. It’s like a flash. It’ll deal only with this thing.”

Emma hands me my miniature chandelier. It’s basically just a bunch of glass, strung together in a crystalline box with a wood frame. I turn the handle and the glass shards start up into their wind chime imitation frenzy. The green light seems to collapse on itself and the glass shards I can tell capture, beckon the creature’s eyes. The animals are usually easier.

Emma’s finger dance across the black box, the same choreographed routine with the red and blue buttons she’s muscle memorized by now.

There is a crackling sound, and the flash comes.

The white light which sends black motes across my vision, condenses the rotting honey and lavender smell, pushes, shoves the green light back…back in a cloying crescendo. At least in my minds eye. I can’t see a thing. But the flash is harmless to us. A strangled gurgling cry shrivels up into the atmosphere.

And then the crackling dies out. The screen blares to life as if it was waiting to shout for joy at it’s renewed state.

The crack is gone. The deer-rabbit is gone.

The boy is rubbing his eyes and the mother is hugging him tight.

“It’s all good now Ma’am. It’s back in there.”

Emma allows a satisfied smile and turns to pack up the black box.

The boy pokes at me and I slowly turn to him, still disoriented.

“Why did it make that horrible sound?”

……………………………………………………..

Emma finishes up her spiel with the woman. Don’t go back to that channel for a while, call us if your still having problems, blah, blah, blah.

I sit out on the porch now wisteria vine free.

This is the routine. Emma wraps up. I ruminate on the porch. She’s fine with it because she thinks I’m day-dreaming over my paper work to come.

The boy’s stupid ear worm question is stuck in my head now.

Why did it make that horrible sound? Why did it make that horrible sound?

They all do though. I know this. Usually it all sounds different. No one character is the same. But animals are not as aware as people. It freaks them out more to go back in.

Emma come’s out and she’s calmer so I ask her my mildly risky question.

“What did you think of it?”

“I don’t know. It’s fucking creepy.”

“But the wisteria looked pretty normal. Minus the magical dust and green stuff.”

Emma shudders. Deflects.

“You shouldn’t have touched it.”

Emma opens the car door for me and I slide in, robotic, casual.

I was summoning up the courage, but it was all a pretense. I’m not going to tell her I thought the wisteria was beautiful. Like something out of a story book.

That I thought the deer-rabbit thing was beautiful. And I don’t like the sound it made. Emma probably doesn’t care. But a small part of her must. You can’t un-hear something like that.

I don’t think anything more though. People who work at prisons can think the convicts look nice, seem charming. That’s all well and good. As long as everything else is kept in it’s place.

One last thing for today. I don’t think the deer-rabbit deserved to be called a thing. Seems a little harsh is all. I don’t care much about the technicalities of what were dealing with, but I figure something which looks carved from god’s hand. Then sepulchered in green dust by mother nature….I just think you should call it what it is.

Beautiful. Ethereal. Alive.