Charade

Vic

When I was young, I heard about psychopaths – living, breathing people who spent their whole lives never feeling a thing. Never loving anything or longing for anything; never being torn up inside. And of course I realized that there were things that they missed out on – real joy and love and happiness, the very things that make us human – and yet I envied them so much. I wanted to be like them so badly – not evil or dangerous, just... numb.

That's when I started pushing it down.

All those emotions that my twelve year old brain couldn't handle were pushed deep down and instead I filled the void with distractions. Bury yourself in homework, chores, or a job, but don't you dare think of those things just beneath the surface. Don't you dare allow yourself to feel.

The attitude made me practical. I was patient, productive, intelligent, but also horribly crippled when it came to emotions. My moto came to be 'just push it down, down, down, until you can spend an hour not thinking about her. Then push it down further, so you don't think of her for a day. Then even further, if you can manage, to not think about her for a week'.

But it always came back, and it always got the best of me.

For the twenty minute to drive to Eddie's house, I buried the anger boiling inside me. Months of hard work to save Lily, all washed away by one man's mission to destroy me. I suppose that was my fault, too. I should've been smarter to begin with.

The car pulled up in an alley beside Eddie's house at around four a.m. The sun would be up soon enough and we had a lot of work to do. Benjamin, sat in the driver's seat, gulped and dared a look my way.

"How're you doing, Vic?" He asked in a small voice.

I paused.

"Great," I said, handing him a pair of white rubber gloves. "Let's go."

I pushed open the car door and emerged into the shadows of the alleyway. I stared up at the dull grey fence boarding Eddie's yard and let my eyes fall on Eddie's set of yellow and red bins sitting by the fence. Carefully, I heaved myself up onto the bins, cursing every movement, and peered over at a children's play set directly below me. I frowned. As far as my research told me, Eddie didn't have children.

I stepped over the sharp-edged fence and onto the top of the monkey bars, feeling them tremble beneath my weight. Slowly, I climbed over and found myself squatted on them, then jumped into the yard.

And it infuriated me.

Three stories and white as marble, glistening in the moonlight. Windows like excited shiny eyes, peering out into a seascape view. A garden that looked like it was from a fairy tale, with trimmed green grass and blood red roses and delicate little daisies. He had everything – everything – a man could dream of and yet he still had to take from me.

Benjamin, eyeing me curiously, followed my lead as we slinked onto the back porch. He automatically began working on the lock while I kept my sharp eyes on Eddie's back garden. Minutes later, the lock clicked open easily and Benjamin stepped inside. He reached up to flick on the lights, but I grabbed his arm.

"What?" He asked.

"Nobody can know we're here. Somebody might ask questions if the lights go on at four a.m. when the owner isn't even home."

"Nobody is watching, Vic. You're being paranoid."

"I'm being cautious," I corrected. "And if you're going to do something wrong, do it right. Take precautions. Don't get caught. You of all people should know."

Benjamin almost rolled his eyes.

"Hence the gloves," he said, snapping it against his wrist.

"Hence the gloves," I agreed. "Now stay down here and look for the money. If you find anything incriminating against us, put it in here," I said, handing him a bag. "I'm going upstairs."

I handed Benjamin a torch and pulled mine out of my pocket. I walked past Eddie's five star kitchen, gleaming in the white torchlight, and into the lounge room. Everything was beige – the carpet, the curtains, the couch, all one massive beige blur. I walked the flight of steps and entered a dark hallway. Down one end, three bedrooms lay undisturbed. Down the other were a bathroom and a sitting room. How could one man need so much space?

I started in the bedrooms. The first one was painted pink, with a small child-size bed covered with a perfectly laid out Tinkerbell doona. There were white shelves jam-packed with stuffed animals – teddy bears, giraffes, dolphins, monkeys, fish, lions and more – and a small bookshelf stacked with picture books. I frowned. Eddie was supposed to live alone, with no wife or kids. Why did this room exist?

The next room was different again.

A boy lived here. Assuming from his belongings, he was around twelve or thirteen. He had a large TV and Xbox, with hundreds of games neatly aligned in the cabinet below. His bed was only slightly bigger than the girl's but came with a blue doona rather than purple. When I looked in his closet, I saw he was only a skinny thing, and I even found some dirty magazines under his mattress.

The whole situation confused me. I'd never found a record of anybody living here except Eddie, and I'd gone at least five years back. Not to mention the fact that those rooms were impeccably clean, except the gathering dust, and I vividly remembered just how dirty Lily's room was when she was younger. As far as I was concerned, no little girl has a clean room.

The last bedroom was Eddie's.

Beige and bland and lifeless, yet it wasn't sterile – it was lonely.

A king sized bed was placed firmly in the middle of the room with a set of built-in wardrobes opposite. The mirror, clean and well-kept like everything else, had an eerie feel in this dark and silent house. Of course, it wasn't the mirror that frightened me; it was what was in it. I stared at my ghostly reflection, as if seeing myself for the first time. My lifeless, hollowed out eyes. All my sleepless nights presented as dark circles under those eyes. My grey skin, sunken cheeks, thinning muscle from the meals I skipped. For the first time, I saw on the outside what had previously only been on the inside. Now, I wore my pain.

I couldn't look at myself for long before I wanted to turn away. Instead, I slid open the wardrobe doors and peered inside. My isolated spotlight shone on a collection of clothes, all smooshed together in some kind of order, with half a dozen sets of shined shoes kept together beneath them. Silently, I reached into the closet and parted the various shirts and jackets. What I saw ran a chill through my veins, starting in my gut, and then exploding.

© A.G. Travers 2015