The Table

The table. Always in the corner of the room, watching, waiting. Every move you make, the table remembers; That step you took just a second ago? It remembers. That necklace that you threw away in the other room? It knows. No, it does not have eyes or a brain, but it has a consciousness. The marks and carvings on the wooden top, they have been there for ages. Some images depicting happiness, most most fear. I don’t know what to do with it; I can’t keep it, the table keeps me awake at night. I can’t get rid of it, the voices it plants in my head won’t allow me to. Ever watchful, the table sits patiently in the corner or the room, doing nothing. Taunting me is more like it. I feel it’s gaze when I am around it,when I try to leave the house, to get away from it, the table won’t let me. When people visit, they don’t notice it, or at least they pretend not to. Why does it affect me so much? What does it want? I’ve tried moving it to the street, and even tried breaking it. I can move it all I want, but every time I do the voices in my head scream until I can’t take it. I tried breaking it, slamming a hammer down on it’s brittle wood. The impact would make dents, but the table would just heal itself, almost as if nothing happened. I don’t know what it wants from me, but sooner or later the voices will become too strong. Every night, they get louder, like the voices are screaming for help. More people, wanting to get out of the trap. My friends have stopped coming over; Sometimes I think I hear them in the jumble of voices. They want to be free of the table, just like all the others. The old, wooden, scratched up table that sits in the corner of the room. No drawers or handles, just a plank of wood on four legs. Forged from the trees in Hell and not letting loose any emotions but screams and terror. The happy images on the tabletop have faded, and have been replaced with images of horror. Gruesome images of people being crushed or speared. The voices are screaming now, yelling inside my head and wanting to get out. The table is a prison, that no one can escape. I had gotten the table from the previous owner of the house. He disappeared a long time ago, to this day no one knows why. The table doesn’t have a history, or at least no known history. The walls of my house have changed to a brownish-black color, but I don’t remember painting them. The floorboards as well have changed to that shade, and last night I was robbed of all of my furniture, even the table! I was so happy that day, the voices stopped and I was finally free. I wanted to go outside to finally get a breathe of fresh air, but I couldn’t seem to find the front door. I remember, it was right here at the front of the room, but it isn’t there now. Actually, it was just a wall. I looked around and noticed all the other walls were blank as well, but they were just four walls. No hallways, no doors. That’s when it hit me. That’s when I realized what the table had done to me. Then the voices returned, oh no. Not from inside my head, but from all around me.