[Start of recording.]
THIS THING STILL WORKS OH MY COD.
I don’t know how, but I’ve been turning off all the lights since, I think, this morning.

I’m house-sitting at my parents’ house. Alone. I rarely have dreams. Last night was a nightmare. Dreamed of rain. No sounds outside after I woke up.

There’s a nightlight that my parents kept plugged in in my bedroom that has not gone out. So I know there hasn’t been a power outage going on.

I got up to go to the bathroom. There’s two lights in the front bathroom, the front light and the back light. I turned the front light on, then it fizzled and shut off. The light switch was still flicked on, but there was no light. Then the same thing happened with the back light when I touched that.

After that, I was in the… hallway. Light in there. Turned it on and it fried. Walked down the hallway to the kitchen. Kitchen light didn’t work. I got a strudel from the cabinet and went to heat it up in the toaster oven. I could turn all the dials but it didn’t light up or heat up.

One of the kitchen lights that I tried to turn on flickered for a second and then quit. The bulbs are good. The wiring is good. What’s going on?

I went back to my room, and that light still works and the nightlight is still on. So either lots of different appliances in the kitchen all break at the same time for no reason. Or I am turning them off somehow.

I don’t know how to turn this family mode thing off what the shell-
[End of recording.]

[Start of recording.]
Phone still works, but there’s no signal. Tried calling Mom. Doesn’t work.
[End of recording.]

Garage door isn’t opening.

Car isn’t turning on, either. Guess I’m not going anywhere soon.

I think I mentioned earlier about the security system my parents have for the house that is usually in “yell only at weird noises at night” mode. Tried taking some empty cans out to the garbage. But the alarm is designed so it can’t be turned off, it can only be reset to “yell at every open door you see” mode. So long story short, not going outside at all unless I absolutely need to.

I’m keeping the laptop open and near me in case I need it. For some reason, it’s the only thing I can keep using that won’t turn off.

Don’t know why this thing is still working. Note to self: don’t touch the alarm clocks in the bedrooms. I touched the lamp in the living room. I didn’t feel anything. Nothing changed. But the clocks jumped ahead a few minutes. And my laptop was a little on the fritz when I walked back towards the lamp. It’s a funny-looking lamp. All black with a round, bright white shade. If I wasn’t looking at it close, just seeing it out of the corner of my eye, I’d think it was a person standing there. Except people have faces, not lamp shades.

Heating up lasagna in the toaster oven.

Nope, never mind. You already touched the toaster oven, dummy! I’ll have to figure something else out.

[Start of recording.]
Okay, so I can tell that when I touch basically anything with an on switch, it turns off and bricks. So what do I not want to touch? The fridge– or else all the food will rot. We have soups and other canned food. I can’t believe I have to ration in my own house like I’m back in college. But the can opener is not electric. We have cereals and chips and nuts. We have popcorn… that I can’t microwave or make with the stove. We have rices and noodles that I can’t cook. We have a bag of potatoes in the garage – but I have to cook them. We have a garden with onions and garlic and tomatoes – as long as I don’t let them freeze overnight, I should be able to eat some of those.
 
So do I have access to most of the food I’d like to eat? No. Am I going to starve? Also no.
 
The water does not turn off when I touch it. Showers are fine. Toilets are fine. Most importantly: sinks are fine. I have clean drinking water.
 
As long as I don’t touch the thermostat, I won’t freeze at night.
[End of recording.]

How is it raining? There was no rain in the forecast for this weekend. Hard to see anything outside.

Eyes are playing tricks on me. Thought I saw someone standing outside in the dark. Just the lamp reflection on the window. Stupid thing.

I thought i saw someone walking across the street but now I doNt see them anymore

The living room was carpeted and then replaced with wood when I was too old to seriously hurt by crashing down from the couch. I still clean the floors. Feels like it takes a long time, lifting corners of the couch at a time, then the big chair, then the ottoman. Sometimes replacing the floors doesn't do everything you want it to do.

Thermostat says 73. Why is it freezing in here? (Did not touch it! lol)

[Start of recording.]
Did the lamp in the living room just forking move?
[End of recording.]

It is! It is this Lamp thing, so bright and white like a person without a face. I see it, and everything in the air around me is cold, but I look and everything is. Warm. Deep in my head. Like rushing blood. Every muscle stretches taut under my skin. There’s no room in my lungs for air no room in my chest for lungs no room in my stomach for anything no room in my brain for anything but light

I walk and walk for ten minutes and get to the dining room. The china, from Paris, out for guests. Fancy (tacky) placemats. At least a chandelier I can’t reach stretching down from the ceiling. A person-shaped shadow in a blink. And then a chandelier back in place again.

The same walking eventually back into the kitchen. Smell of fresh baked bread, and basil from the garden on the counter to dry. Bread machine is noisy most of the time. Not now. Made a pot of coffee. Will need more of it tonight. The coffee maker is slower than usual, chugging to a stop.  I like my coffee like I like my jokes: lukewarm. I won’t eat a whole loaf or drink a whole pot or even chop a whole sprig. Big, overindulgent house. Quiet house. Big house in the suburbs meant you were at a certain height. Good food in the kitchen could summon a neighborhood, no matter whose house. The one-pot dinners for myself don't do the same trick. But there are plants to water, a pool to clean. Windows to open and close with the sun.

I thought I saw someone standing across the street but now I don’t see them anymore.

Close the door and for the blink of an eye, there is someone standing in the doorway. As you close the door on them, they are gone. Daylight goes with lamp.

You’re in the dark, that slow, foggy space between awake and asleep, resting in a feeling of weightlessness. And then a lamp crashes down onto your head. And it’s a lamp and The Lamp and it drags you further and deeper into the darkness and the weight sinks heavier and stronger, crushing you. No no no stay on don’t leave me here in the dark again- And then you wake up and The Lamp is just a lamp.

Huddled up in blankets, trying to sleep or anything to not look at the Lamp when I know it’s looking at me from the window door closet ceiling anywhere it wants. Afraid that if I do too much on the computer besides talk to it that it will brick, too.

I know every bit of every room but when the lights aren’t on, the ceiling is tall as the sky. None of the furniture moves. And the couch is not where it was. The walls pop and crack. Scrapes and scratches on the wall as my hand begs for a light switch that will already make all its mechanical motions except producing light. The Lamp stands, bright, inviting death. I can feel it looking at me.

And then it’s gone. I can’t find it. Somewhere near.

I can tell the asshole is in the room somewhere. I see there’s light in the room. But the light is flickering across the walls. Blank lampshade. Blank face. Watching shining light in the dark. Gentle lure for the kill. I can’t tell where it’s coming from. I can’t let the lamp touch me.

[Start of recording.]

I look up at the Lamp. My body turns warm and numb. I can’t move my arms as the Lamp stretches through the darkness. My legs won’t bend to leave. Where could I leave now? The face with no face looks into my brain. A soft glow that soothes my heart and dulls my fall from the food and back onto the living room floor.

I am in the darkness. I am in the

Bathtub. Neck first. Lamp takes me where it wants.

[End of recording.]

Hard to move now.

[Start of recording.]

Don’t look don’t look don’t look don’t look don’t look don’t look don’t look it follows me

[End of recording.]

[Media: Picture
Tag: Anglerfish]

I was stupid. I stared at the lamp and was the first between us to blink. I can't look away. When I opened my eyes, I was at the bottom of the pool. Shoes and clothes heavy with water. I dragged myself back to the surface and still couldn’t breathe. Cold, wet, stupid. The garage door still unlocks because I remembered where the key is. Still trying to get warm and dry.

​

Sorry, Mom. But everything in the garden is dead.

​

Phone is on ice. Scared to even check if it turns on. I think I know the answer. Damn it.

​

Typing from an old tablet that’s losing battery with every touch. Keeping it close.

​

Can’t go near the lamp.

Electric fireplace click-click-clicks but doesn’t light.

​I never knew there was an extra light in the coat closet here. It stayed on for a few seconds, enough for me to catch my breath. Then out like all the rest.

I can’t stay where the lights go out.

That’s not a reflection in the window across to the kitchen. The Lamp is in the kitchen. I blink and the Lamp is back in the spare bedroom.

Water drips from the faucet. Sounds like someone knocking at the door. No one’s at the door.

I wake up and the Lamp is there, inches from my face and then I blink and the Lamp is gone or not gone but somewhere else in the house waiting.

I know I should throw out the Lamp but how can I. I can’t touch it. Even if I could, such a bright, painless light.

My brain doesn’t sleep but my limbs do and the Lamp can see. I must have breathed but I wouldn’t know it. A painless bliss, sorrow in the dark.

[Start of recording.]

OH CHEESY RICE THE LAMP IS RIGHT HERE-

…

I see it. Lamp. So bright, so warm. It hurts to look and I can’t look away. Big anglerfish, close to my unstoppable fingers as I reach towards it. Warm static fills my brain. I would run away if I could. I think I stopped breathing for a little bit. 

…

What was I doing just now?

…

And then I know my head hit a wall. I don’t know what happened after that. I fell over. I just needed to lay there for a while not moving. After that, I’m not sure. I was able to crawl over and up to the couch. There’s some blood coming from my forehead. My arms just can’t move enough to patch it up.

[End of recording.]

Cold coffee at 7PM. I should be going to bed soon, winding down, relaxing, taking my mind off the long day. But no. The night, the mug, the coffee is cold. I was going to touch the coffee maker at some point. Bitter with some sugar and no creamer, still trying to stay away from the fridge as long as I can help it.

Drinking cold coffee to keep me awake. Doesn’t help seeing shadows out of the corner of my eye. It’s staring at me outside my window. I can’t see it but I know it’s there glowing with no light.

​

It can’t be the time the computer says it is. That’s…

My bedroom and the guest bedroom are in total darkness. I don’t want to go in either of those unless I absolutely have to. The lamp could show up in there. The lamp could show up anywhere, but at least then I don’t have to deal with it in the dark.

My mom is not here and her phone is not here but sometimes every few hours I hear the ringtone from her phone. Someone who is not me is opening the garage door when I know I locked it after I got here. I look for them and they are gone. Headache isn't going away.

The Lamp is there in the corner. I can turn off the lights, but that makes the darkness even worse, stretching, eating the house. So what can I do to keep it away? Except hide? I can’t stay awake forever. I am going to die in this house. It will be all my fault. I turned off the lights. Whatever I have to do so I don't look at it. The monster waiting in the dark.

In a bright room, the Lamp is hidden. When there is no light, the Lamp is the only light. Easier to see, harder to look away from, harder to run from. More lights off. More ways to keep the Lamp somewhere else.

I keep feeling like there should be people visiting in these bedrooms, in the warm house for wintertime. Always a surprise when the rooms are empty. A worse surprise when they’re not and I fall to the floor. I can’t stop the Lamp but I can clean.

It’s so hard to even know what I need to do next. Dusting the walls just to think about anything else.

​

Pictures of people on the walls. I know I’ve met them. I know who they are. I see their faces. My parents, before they ever met each other. Brother and cousins, before I was born. Uncles who died before I was an adult. Some turned-off lights don’t make me feel sad. Or anything else.

​

Lamp is in the room even though I locked the door. Got out of there, into the kitchen again. Safe for now.

​

It’s raining outside. I have a mug of apple cider powder and hot water, freshly boiled from the kettle on the stove. At least that still works. When the sun is out, it’s okay. But after the sun sets, it gets brutally cold in the house. My fingers hurt as I write. My hands feel the cold the worst. And my feet. I try to keep the kitchen clean, washing the counters with a rag from the garage. I have socks on. Some water from the rag falls onto my socks, soaks through them. Even the brutal rain and darkness and cold is okay if it means I don’t have to look at the light. Horrible, splitting headache.

Stomach curls in on itself. Can’t think except GET AWAY. I don't even see the Lamp this time, but the blinding light knocks me into the wall. I taste blood in my mouth. I feel it in my brain.

Have to get the blood out of my mouth. There’s a mostly full bottle of Jack Daniels in the cupboard. About to be less. Cheers, huh? To strangers with keys to the house? Cleaner. Darker. Safer. The sun will be here. I hope. I have to get this Lamp away or it is going to kill me.

The only thing I do in my parents' bedroom is sweep for dust. The Lamp does all the up to the ceiling in that room. Air conditioning feels like wind pushing down on all the blankets on the bed. When I look at the Lamp, I feel a great pressure like I am between the thin side of a door and its doorframe. Can I tell you something horrible? Even a sleeping, crashing, displacing Lamp is better than an empty house. The longer I look at Lamp, the harder it is to look away.

​

Please just let me go

Mom wanted me to clean the whole house, didn't she...?

[Media: Picture

Tag: Handwritten note. LUKE, WHILE YOU’RE HERE CAN YOU CLEAN THE HOUSE? ONCE YOU FINISH, ANYTHING ELSE YOU DO AND ANY FOOD IS FREE GAME. LOVE YOU, MOM]

[Media: Picture

Tag: Handwritten note, reverse side.

DON’T LOOK AT THE LAMP. 

​

If you’re reading this when I think you’ll be reading this, you’ll be happy I wrote it on a piece of paper instead of text or email. I’m also assuming we’re already on vacation, so service is probably bad even if your cellphone is still working. It does not make sense to try talking to you about this again. Because you’ve seen that the Lamp is not always a lamp.

I’ve told you this story before. The Lamp in our house means we don’t always get a say in which stories we remember, though. Your dad and I thought we were sleepwalking, wandering around the house at night without realizing it. Kept awake by the monster we saw out of the corners of our eyes as kids. Always looking for the big, tall light in the living room. Or finding without looking. 

You know our family was the first in this neighborhood. We felt a pride in that. Roots in place. I thought I grew out of seeing a boogeyman in the corners of a dark room before bedtime. But I brought the boogeyman into our home. I cannot keep you safe from it.

It was so quiet for so long. No people, no visitors, no need to fear. It does not need to kill us to bring us into the light. Turn off all the lights.

Lamp is home.

]