The November Selected Writer is Justin Guleserian

You can email Justin at: justinguleserian@yahoo.com

DARKNESS FOLLOWS
by Justin Guleserian

One night, a fever took Jonah to a place that he never wished to see. As the fever burned and chilled him, a singular impression dawned on his mind: That everything in the world, even the ugly things, shone with an inner light. Cruelly, Jonah saw the luminosity of all things only as he watched their light fade into darkness.

Jonah could see the objects in his bedroom. But the true light, the inner-light, had vanished from everything, and he feared that he could never be happy, or feel at ease, or connect with another soul again. To be shut off from that light was to be shut off from life, with all its beautiful imperfections, and to be left utterly behind.

Through his fever, Jonah sensed too that he wasn’t alone. Another presence stood nearby, one that made Jonah feel more isolated and unreachable than he could have felt had he been truly alone. It was the bringer of darkness, and it loomed, perching on talons, grinning madly from the corner of the bedroom.

The fever burned for three days. When it passed, Jonah no longer felt the dark presence he had sensed, and he dismissed it as illness. Yet he couldn’t escape the feeling that, for him, the light had forever gone out of all things. So, when his cousin Bobby called a week later with a proposal, Jonah took it for a godsend. The offer was for Jonah to move to Pasadena, to the house their grandmother’s old house, and help take care of Annette, Jonah’s aunt.

“She can be a real handful,” Bob said.

“She’s ninety years old,” Jonah laughed. “How bad could she be?”

“Well, she’s stubborn. And loud. She’s like a kid who doesn’t want to do what’s good for her. She’s diabetic. Did you know? She won’t let me take her to her doctor appointments. She always wants to eat the things that are the worst for her. I tell her, ‘You could lose a leg! You could go blind!’ She doesn’t listen.”

“Sounds pretty typical of an old person.”

“I don’t know…maybe you can get her to see reason. I can only make the trip every couple of months. Someone needs to be there. I wouldn’t ask you, only I know you just lost your job and things haven’t been going so well for you out there.”

“Bob, you don’t know how right you are. There’s nothing at all keeping me here now. I’d like to see Pasadena again. And I’d like to try and help Annette. It might be the best thing for both of us.”

To see Pasadena again. Inwardly, a tiny hope appeared for Jonah. Pasadena had always been a place of wonder. As a child, when he arrived at his grandmother’s house for Christmas each year, he jumped out of the car, and stretched, and took deep breaths of the sweetest air he had ever tasted. He would look around and recognize the neighborhood streets, lined with proud oaks. The ivy, which covered everything. Lush lawns and white picket fences. The low, broad houses built in the 40s and 50s. Cheery windows, giving a view to warmly-lit living rooms and Christmas trees. To some adults, it would look like a place frozen in time; a simpler time. To Jonah, it looked like magic.

He couldn’t leave soon enough. A voice inside him whispered promises, that if he could rediscover the light in any place in the world, it would be in Pasadena. Within a week, he pulled into the driveway of what was now his aunt’s house and knocked on the door.

It felt a little strange, having his aunt greet him at the door instead of his beloved grandmother, but the hug felt good. Jonah took a deep breath and entered the house. And the air inside smelled mustier than it had been on previous visits. The house would have to be cleaned and aired. The yard would probably need a good deal of work too.

Yet much was the same. Jonah was pleasantly surprised to find that most of his grandmother’s possessions were still around. The same quaint neo-baroque décor filled every room: Porcelain lamps with finely-painted cherubs, Louis XIV reproduction chairs and couches, oriental rugs, and crude paintings of colorful fops with 18th century ladies-in-waiting. This was the same house where Jonah’s family had been raised. There were enough happy ghosts here to give any man a sense of peace.

The first few days passed easily as Jonah settled in. He reveled in a fresh start and had no intention of giving himself time to feel lost. In the evening, Jonah went for walks around the neighborhood, occasionally noticing little changes to the houses on his aunt’s block. He had always dreamed of meeting someone special in this neighborhood. Even as a boy, as he strolled around the block, he imagined a silken-haired beauty walking out her parents’ front door and asking if he was new to the neighborhood. Now, the fantasy burned more hotly in his chest than ever. Jonah watched every door, and glanced in every window.

Annette’s first doctor’s appointment was scheduled. Her vision had become blurry and she needed treatment if the condition were to be arrested, but she refused to go.

“I’m fine, Jonah,” she said. “I don’t know why Bobby keeps making these appointments for me.”

“He does it because he loves you,” Jonah returned calmly.

“If he loves me, why does he treat me like a child? Not only am I a grown woman, I’m his mother.”

“As a grown woman, you should know how serious your condition is. You could go blind.”

“Oh, you sound just like him—we’re all in God’s hands.”

“Annette, if you won’t let me take care of you, someone else might have to. And they might not be able to come live with you here. You might have to go to a home.”

The look on Annette’s face told Jonah at once that he had said the wrong thing. “You’re not taking me anywhere, Jonah, and neither is Bobby! You can both just go live your own lives and leave me alone. This is my house and you’re a guest—you should remember that the next time you talk about taking me somewhere I don’t want to go.”

He was annoyed with Annette and furious with himself. Getting her to the doctor had been his most important responsibility as her caretaker, and he couldn’t manage it. He called Bob to deliver the bad news.

“She says she won’t go,” Jonah began.

“Dammit.”

“I tried to reason with her. You were right. She’s like a kid. A big, loud kid.”

Bob was silent.

“I’m a little embarrassed,” continued Jonah. “I’m not exactly earning my keep. If I can’t help with her health, I might as well be a French maid.”

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, Jonah. Nobody can make my mom do what she doesn’t want to. Let me talk to her for a minute.”

Jonah delivered the phone to Annette, who resumed yelling almost immediately. Jonah’s blood still simmered, but hearing his aunt respond to Bob the same way she did to him calmed him enough to resume breathing. He would do what good was in his power and forget the rest.

She finally hung up on Bob. The doctor’s appointment would be canceled. Jonah needed to get outside and informed his aunt that he was going for a walk.

As he left, he thought he glimpsed one of the porcelain cherubs move beneath its lamp. He stopped in the doorway to glance back. The cherub’s repose was unchanged. It seemed to look up at him, smiling serenely.

*****

Annette surprised him with lamb stew, a peace offering. They ate together at the kitchen table and Annette talked of better times and growing up with Jonah’s grandparents. After lunch, Jonah returned to working in the yard. Encouraged by Annette’s peace offering and glad to be working in the warm sun and cool shade, he labored happily until his underused muscles were exhausted and the sun sank. The yard looked much better for his efforts and he bore the ache in his lower-back proudly.

Going inside, he found Annette napping on the couch, in front of the television. The dinner-time movie began, Arsenic and Old Lace, starring Cary Grant and Priscilla Lane. He remembered disliking the film but couldn’t remember the reason. As he sat down to watch, he remembered why. It was the scene with Jonathan Brewster threatening his brother Mortimer with an intimate childhood memory, drudged up and displayed to heap insult atop injury.

Mortimer, have you forgotten the things I used to do to you when we were boys? Remember the time you were tied to the bedpost? The needles under your fingernails?

The only thing more hideous than torture was the torturer’s boast, a bully’s brag.

Remember when I used to beat you up in front of the girl you liked? Remember that time in the schoolyard when I had you all to myself. You only wanted to get away, but you couldn’t. And here I am, still grinning about it. And why wouldn’t I? Is there anything you can do about it? 

He grimaced as the scene played out. Dark comedy or no, he wondered how the playwright or the screenwriter or the producers could have imagined that an audience could recover from such a scene to laugh again. Had they never known bullies? Did they imagine that their audience wouldn’t have?

For Jonah, the scene ruined the whole movie. The climax and Jonathan’s humane comeuppance were irrelevant. He switched off the television, leaving Annette to sleep in the dark. His mind was broiling and his back ached terribly. He went to see if his family had left any wine in the house.

He found an old bottle of brandy beneath the kitchen sink and searched the house for the best room to drink. Rather than usurp the master bedroom, Annette had chosen her old room when she moved in. He entered picked his way through his grandmother’s old room by memory and the dim moonlight filtering in through the blinds. He was happy for this darkness, happy to sit on his grandmother’s bed and drink.

He drained the half-empty bottle to a quarter when he noticed the outline of a woman in the corner of the room. His mind had surely twisted the room’s shadows into something familiar, as familiar as the face of his late grandmother.

Was it her? Jonah was surprised that he felt no fear and didn’t panic. He knew he was drunk.

He rubbed his eyes and drank from the bottle again. When he looked back, the corner was empty. “Goodnight, Grandma,” he said to the shadows. “Try not to worry about me.”

He left the room for his own and fell asleep in minutes.

*****

Cleaning never came easily to Jonah. His apartments at home had the mark of a confirmed bachelor. But living in his grandmother’s house, for him a hallowed place, gave him new diligence. As usual, Annette hovered just out of sight to make certain that everything remained in its proper place.

He moved to the living room and set about dusting the chairs and coffee table when he heard a nearby sound, as of rough stone scraping against glass. An instant later, one of the cherub lamps toppled from the glass top of its stand and broke on the floor.

Annette gasped. “Heaven’s sake! What did you do, Jonah?”

“I don’t think I did anything, Annette. I didn’t hit the stand.”

“Well you must’ve hit the stand. Look at the lamp—that was my mother’s and I loved that lamp!”

“I’m sorry about the lamp, Annette, but I don’t see how I could’ve done it.”

“Well of course you broke it. Who else could’ve broken it?”

“Well, I don’t know—”

“You don’t know much, I guess.”

Jonah looked up at his aunt in shock. Annette was often impatient, stubborn, and even ungrateful, but she wasn’t known for cruelty. He dropped his gaze to the serene smile of the decapitated cherub before hastily gathering the pieces into a pile.

“I can glue it,” he said.

“What is Bobby paying you for, anyway? Are you some sort of charity case? Is this how you lost your job in Arizona, because you’re clumsy and negligent? I’m not surprised.”

“Now look, Aunt Annette—”

“Oh, never mind. Go ahead and glue it.”

*****

Jonah paced furiously around the block. He sucked the afternoon air too fiercely to smell its fragrance. His ankles ached from his stiff gait, but he ignored the pain and strode on, moving so quickly that he almost didn’t notice the front door open from the house just behind him.

He glanced over his shoulder just in time to see his childhood fantasy realized.

A beautiful young woman appeared on the front porch. Her skirt billowed about her legs and calf-high boots as she came down her front steps and made for the mailbox at the end of her driveway.

He approached her and saw her hand. She wore no ring. The moment had come, and he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Hello? And then what? He watched helplessly as she retrieved her mail and turned back to the house, not noticing Jonah. It wasn’t too late to say something. Nice day? She opened the door and disappeared beneath the lintel. The door shut. Jonah realized he’d been holding his breath the entire time, exhaled and panted.

Well done, he thought to himself. He started home, too disappointed to remember his anger at Annette. He told himself to be happy. The dream was real. She was real. There would be other days—other walks and other chances. But the consolation fell flat inside him. The green of the street seemed lackluster now.

He thought of the familiar red mountains of home, the way they lit up at sunset. Their strength and stability. Their familiarity. He wished for home and the desert for the first time since his arrival. The Christmas mornings and feeling of wonder he’d felt here as a child seemed like something from another life, another person’s memories. The neighborhood may not have changed much. But Jonah had. That woman wasn’t here for him. None of this was for him. He didn’t belong here.

*****

“I’m going shopping, Annette,” said Jonah the next morning. “Do you need anything?”

“I want lasagna for lunch,” said Annette from the next room.

“You know you can’t eat that.”

“Why not? Why can’t I have what I want to eat once in a while?”

Jonah sensed a fight brewing. If he didn’t tread carefully, he could spend the rest of the morning shouting with Annette across rooms. “Look, I’m just following your doctor’s orders. If you can get the doc to say lasagna is fine, then it’s fine. When we go to the doctors—”

“Will you stop talking about doctors? Jesus, that’s all you ever talk about. You’re obsessed with doctors and diet, doctors and diet. Your Uncle Saul did what the doctors told him and died anyway. If you weren’t such a loser and had gotten married, you’d know there’s more to life than what the doctors tell you. Why can’t I just enjoy myself for once?”

“The doctor says you could lose a leg. You could lose your feet. I’d have to wheel you around in grandma’s wheelchair for the rest of your years.”

“The doctor says. Can’t you think for yourself once in a while? That’s probably why you never got married. You’re weak in the head. No woman would want you.”

“Annette,” said Jonah quietly. “Look at me.”

Annette didn’t look up.

He stepped away and called Bobby with shaking hands. He told himself that anger made him tremble, but he knew something else unnerved him. “Bobby, something’s wrong with Annette.”

“What do mean?”

“She’s saying things I didn’t think she would say.”

“Like what?”

“Nasty stuff. Did she ever say anything like that to you?”

“No, I can’t say I’ve ever heard her speak like that. Please don’t take it personally. She’s old. Her mind is going.”

“Her memory seems okay to me.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, cousin.”

“Bob…I hate to say this, but I’m thinking maybe this isn’t a good fit, you know?”

“Aww, don’t take it to heart so much. I need you there, Jonah. You’re doing a good job, better than I could. Give it some time.”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m counting on you, man. If you could just hang in there for a little while….”

Jonah stayed out all day. He dawdled at the market and made excuses to drive around. He needed wine from Old Town. He needed bread from the Armenian bakery, twenty miles away. He read books in the local bookstore until the clerks eyed him. He stayed out until he knew Annette would be asleep.

When he returned, he made straight for the shower. The showerhead pummeled his neck until his muscles relaxed. What he needed was a night out. He dressed, grabbed his wallet and keys, and made for the front door.

Jonah paused to glance back in the direction of Annette’s bedroom. He could see light under her door but no sound from within.

He switched off the living room lamp, and almost fell back in shock. A few feet away, he could see the outline of his grandmother in the room’s darkness, again lit by the moon filtering through venetian blinds. He could see her face.

The reserved expression of sadness she previously wore was replaced by a look of sheer terror. Her face contorted in a silent scream, and just as she raised a hand to point over Jonah’s shoulder, he heard the bedroom door open. Turning to look, Jonah saw Annette, her face half-hidden by the door frame.

“Jonah,” his aunt said, “you’re never going to see the red mountains of Arizona ever again.”

Jonah glanced back to where his grandmother’s ghost had stood and found her gone. He screeched in fright, and hurried for the front door, slamming it behind him, his hands trembling uncontrollably. He didn’t want to stop moving long enough to get in his car and instead bustled down the block, almost tripping over cracks in the sidewalk.

The silence of the neighborhood stunned him. How could the world be calm, when there were ghosts in it? The windows of houses still gave a view to warm living rooms, but Jonah couldn’t see a single soul in any of them. The ivy seemed to strangle the life out of the trees it climbed.

He wasn’t aware of the direction he took until he realized that he was heading toward the house of the beauty he had seen just a few days before. It seemed insane, he knew, but didn’t care. If by some miracle she came outside, he would talk to her. He might even knock on her door, without the slightest pretense. He needed to find some good; some warmth and beauty to offset the darkness in his aunt’s house. A child’s fantasy had become a man’s dire emergency.

Jonah turned the corner of her block. The sidewalk sloped downward and would have carried his hurried steps even faster. He forced himself to slow down and calm his breathing. When he was just two doors down from her house, he stopped.

At the far end of the block, a wheelchair rounded the corner. Jonah’s breath caught in his throat. It was clearly not electric, and there was no one to push it, yet it rolled steadily uphill.

When the wheelchair and its passenger passed under a streetlamp, Jonah gasped in terror. Annette rolled toward him. He saw her hair, her bathrobe, and her hands resting in her lap. But some witchery had wrought hellish changes upon her. Her feet were gone, and silk stockings covered the stumps of her ankles. She stared blindly upward through milky cataracts. Her mouth resembled a wound, a gash through which teeth and tongue might utter obscenities.

Jonah lost control of his bladder and stood freezing in his own urine as the chair rolled up to within arm’s reach of him. Annette looked up at him with her blind eyes and parted the ragged edges of her mouth-gash to speak.

“Do you remember when you couldn’t see the light?”

Jonah saw a car’s headlights coming from behind him.

“Do you remember that, Jonah? Remember when you couldn’t see the light?” 

Jonah knew then that the darkness had bound itself to him. There would be no place on earth where he could ever see the light. The dream of coming to Pasadena, of finding the light, of finding his love, was dead.

As the car approached, Jonah turned and saw a woman’s head above the headlights. He nearly sobbed at the sight of his auburn-haired young beauty behind the steering wheel. Some part of him offered up a desperate prayer, that this was the reason he had found her, that she would see the aberration on the sidewalk and stop just long enough to let him in.

But he knew if she could see what he saw, she would floor the accelerator and never look back, just as anyone would. If she isn’t here to love me, he thought, maybe she came to release me.

He dove, and hurled himself beneath the car’s front tires. The car screeched to a halt. Jonah would see neither light nor darkness ever again.

Justin Guleserian is a freelance speculative fiction writer and illustrator. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona, where he is busy compiling a history of the Island of Misfit Toys.

You can learn more about Justin HERE