Those Morrison Days

2. The Malignancy

In the unforgiving chills of winter, I trudged to my former parent's home. My unfeeling hand dug for the key to the door and grabbed what seemed small and slim. With it, I turned the lock and stepped inside.

Indoors became a refuge from the groaning winds that pierce the soul. Instead, the cold seemed tamer and settled around halls and rooms.

I shimmied my boots off by the door with socks as my protection. No doubt my parents were watching and I feared they would haunt me for breaking their rules even in their passing. If they followed me through the memories I came to collect, I'd at least prefer it being pleasant.

Down the hall, pictures from my and my sibling's toddler years hang on the wall. The toddler bearing my once-contagious smile nearly cracked ice within me that has been freezing over my life. If only I could be there to warn him of what was to come.

Sharing room with vase knick-knacks and fake plants were the elementary photos. My brother and sister smiled brightly for their photos, adding color to the room. The slight smile across me seemed to be more of a dimming light bulb compared to the rest of the antiques.

The next place I looked into was my old room. A place I grew up in from infancy to adulthood, it was a domain where I was safe. A place of solace from the turbulent world. A simple bed draped with gray sheets and pillows sits next to my dusty nightstand with a lamp on top. Across my dresser were photos of my high school days.

A small crack in the glass streaks across my forced smile in the photo of my first day at Moridian High School. It was a day I dreaded, knowing many of my friends from middle school went elsewhere.

Next to it was a scratched up group collage of my old church group at a summer camp. My face, in particular, was etched with a black mark that traced with the scratches. Despite the sun's unrelenting heat, it was a time I grew the coldest. During one night, I saw joy and laughter yet I was the only one who stood outside. They all were too busy looking within to even see me on the outside. It seemed I was more of a body to add to their numbers than part of their circle. If only they could hear my silent pleas.

Next to that was another image depicting me and my date for prom. Both of our faces were etched out with a circular black ink. She seemed hesitant when I asked her to join me but she said yes. She joined me on the trip to the school but left my side to join her more familiar friends during the event. Once again, outside another circle, as she sent me to the punch bowl repeatedly. When she was ready to go home, I splashed a cup of punch at her in response. Tossing the cup aside, I then walked back home in the frigid night.

The final frame was of an unusual tree within the nearby woods. It was thick and bloated near the stump and got thinner as it neared some of the branches fused with other limbs of itself. The image was dark with a foggy atmosphere and seeming grayscale. I could hear it faintly beckoning to me with the most subtle voice: Foreboding and with a hint of attraction.

I was quick to throw it back. The tree's call has beckoned to me before and I resisted it no matter how tempting it was. Many locals in town know of the superstition that if you submit yourself to its call, there is no turning back. It will always call for those who are fighting back against one's own monstrosity of the self. The only chance you have of escaping it is to keep ignoring it no matter what promises it spouts.

I had to step into the hallway and breathe a breath of life again. The dark memories of the past were beginning to lay a crushing weight upon me. Stepping out seemed to help lift it aside.

Heading down the basement steps, there sat a box with three pictures within it.

The first I picked up was of a genuine smile when I went camping with friends I met during my senior year. In the cool of the forest breeze, we laughed many times as one of them splashed into the nearby lake, drenching themselves. We were sure to let him have the closest seat to the fire to dry off else he would have frozen.

Next was of my first dog when I was a kid. A boxer mixed with a golden retriever. It astonishes me today how many times he came to my side when I was in my darkest times and yet, there were few moments that I brushed him aside. I still wonder if he saved me from the tree's temptations or from choking on the horrific things I'd say to myself. If only he were still here and not buried in the backyard.

The last photo depicted my smiling mug in a conical hat with silly shades. A time I felt the most comfortable to be a silly fool and let loose the tensions that plagued me. The only issue with the photo was of the black streaks and circular inky patterns and markings on my friends. After graduation, they left me behind for greater pursuits.

"Why do you still hold on?" an agitated voice calls from behind me.

I gasped as I turned around.

Standing at the bottom of the stairways was a humanoid figure in my likeness. Its head was spiraled with an inky pattern and sporadic black etchings across the same gray jacket I wear.

"I thought I got rid of you and yet you still haunt me!" I shout.

"You have tried to erase so many things and yet I have always been there even in your brightest moments to remind you that we are one. Do not think escaping me is possible, for I will always be waiting for you to fall and I will be the one to pick you up."

I rose to my feet with the few photos from the box in hand then stormed past the malignancy that has haunted me. Fighting it here would be a mistake, as it's stronger within these walls. The wretched thing knows what haunts me the most.

Having rushed up the stairs, I quickly stuffed my feet into my boots by the door and left that old house. The winter's piercing winds greeted me with a thick puff of that icy sting.

When I looked back while at the sidewalk, the malignancy simply stood there behind the family room window, peering outside. It placed its slender hand on the window as if to taunt what my fate would be.

I knew full well that abhorrent lurker would never leave me. I have seen it stand behind my wife during our marriage, it was there at my parents' funerals as it stood beside me at the pulpit, it placed its claws on my newborn son's head, and even still, I have no doubt it is following me to this day. Only on my deathbed, that is when I will be free from its influence. If I passed on from my own doing, it would win, and that I can never allow.

I live to spite that wretched thing.