From Where The Monsters Came

A Comprehensive Guide On How To Never Be Called On Your Landline

5:09 pm 3 days before

I wake up late and cold and alone. My landline phone rings, loud and shrill. It's a jarring alarm to wake up to.

I stumble from under the covers and into the hall, not answering immediately, instead staring at the receiver with caution. The landline phone has sat untouched for years, I was unsure it even worked anymore. Faded beige plastic set on the wall, a long twisted cord, the key pad yellow and dust covered. It keeps ringing. I pick up.

"Liv?" Through the layers of static, I know it is Kiera. "Liv?" she repeats.

"Hi."

"You haven't been picking up."

I've blocked you, I think. I've blocked you and I've blocked Leo. Please don't call again, I think.

There's something sticky and black on the receiver that I didn't notice. It smears on my hand.

"Sorry," I say. "What do you need?"

"What do I need? Liv, are you okay?"

It's not a question, is it. When have we ever been okay? When, in any of the past several years, have we been fine?

We were fine, maybe, when Leo could sight read Mozart. We were fine when Kiera and Leo used to look similar, the same hair curling into their eyes, same twin grins. We were fine when I had my red jumper to hide beneath, when I knew how to talk to her about anything but monsters, these monsters that have slipped into our lives without thinking. We were fine when ever interaction, every breath, every nights sleep did not revolve around the things that crawled out of out heads.

These monsters have swallowed me whole.

"I'm okay."

Keira says something else but I can't make it out – not between the distortion of the phone line and the Elvis lyrics looping in my head as though the track is still playing a few flats below me.

I think at some point, being around Keira became less helpful and it started hurting more. She used to be a friend.

These days, Keira lives on loop inside my head, the only words coming out of her mouth being: move out. She remains tired and dishevelled, she remains insisting she knows how to beat this.

Leo exists beside her, telling me over and over again: oh, Liv. He used to be a friend too. He is now floating through life trying to make as little noise as possible – no more slamming doors or piano recitals. It's been so painful to watch Leo become nothing much.

I'm sure at some point, it was nice to know other people. To talk to them over the phone, to have them care about you. It's not anymore.

"I have to go, Keira."

"Liv, please-"

"Sorry."

I'm sure that in some ways, Keira does believe she knows how to beat this. I'm sure that it works for Keira, to burn all her monsters one by one as they spring from her head. It must feel good or else she wouldn't do it, but she's still tired and I am still tired. I'm sure that it works for Leo to be as silent as possible, to try and trick them into believing he is not there so that they just go away, but he's left just a bit empty. Just a bit muted.

"Liv?"

We've been doing this for a very long time, it feels like. Passing each other drawings through the mail, through each other. Burning the pictures in the sink, sending them through office shredders, cutting them into pieces with scissors. It has staved the worst off so far.

We have tried every trick, acted on every hunch, to find the thing that has caused it. Each of our rituals and our rules and our superstitions envelop us – Leo only eats fresh produce, he doesn't touch musical instruments; Keira stays awake all night every night so she doesn't even get the chance to dream them up; I stay locked up in my apartment, I throw out my red clothes, I clear my cupboards of food.

I put the phone down on Keira, the receiver clicking back into place. After a moment it starts ringing again. I go to the kitchen and get a very big pair of kitchen scissors and, without having to think about it much, cut the cord. The flat goes silent. There is a sticky residue all over my hands, now transferred to the kitchen scissors, and the handle of the kitchen draw. I find more of the liquid on the counter and a pool of it on the floor, quietly congealing in the corner.

I wash it off my hands, scrubbing them red and hope that I didn't get any in my mouth or my eyes. I look at last night's drawing and I think of the Twins – destroying each monster as it comes and going nowhere – and I think of June – telling me that I cannot move on from this – but I can't bring myself to do it.

I rip it to shreds.

-

7:20 pm

I'm back in bed. It feels like I hardly left. From beneath the bed, it remains quiet. I reach down, with one of my clean hands. It sniffs at it and whines.

"I know." I feel dizzy. "I know."

Something dark flickers just out of my field of sight, I turn my head to see it, but it moves too quickly. It stays floating in my periphery, a little shy.

"Good night."

A warble, a wink, a wave, a grin, a flicker. I close my eyes.

-

3:10 am

This monster is twisted, uncomfortable, melting into itself. Skin and flesh runs and moulds like soft wax. It looks close to collapsing in on itself.

I can feel something changing, shifting.

I cannot do this forever.