Onus 05

I traced my fingers over the top cover of the bed. The fabric was heavy and richly woven. Warm. I plucked a short blonde hair from the pillow. I tied it around the tip of my little finger on my left hand.

The chair was a swivel office chair, with gel pads in the back.

I sat down in the chair and picked up the framed photograph.

It was old. Taken from a film camera. A little blonde boy with a fierce gap-toothed grin, with his left arm over an aging black lab. The dog had white around it's eyes, ears and muzzle, but was gamely wagging it's tail.

A woman had her arm over the little boy. She had long blonde hair, and a big crooked smile. She looked like the happiest woman in the world.

I carefully put the picture back on the desk, in the same position it was.

When I passed the bed again, I couldn't resist.

I carefully pulled back all of the covers from the top right corner. I slipped into Sam's bed. It was warm and dark. I was surrounded by his familiar smell. I buried my face in the pillow and inhaled.

I felt very relaxed.

I rested there for maybe ten minutes. When I was exploring, my fear and grief had seemed further away. But now. Resting. All of my anxieties and fears came back.

I forced myself to get up. I pushed the covers back down.

I wandered out of the room, closing it. And I walked to the stairwell.

-

The second story of the mansion (there really was no other word for it) was a little smaller, a little duller. Ten rooms along the spine, and two wings. Most of the doorways were covered with sheets of plastic.

The bathroom where I had taken my first bath was still open, but the bookended bathroom six doors down was closed. Six of the bedrooms were closed.

I was surprised when I looked into the room that had been above the laundry room. The centerpiece of the room was a huge glass aquarium without any water. The cage had some wood chips across the bottom, a few twisted logs and stumps. Some flat stones under a heat lamp.

Laying on the flat stones like a big shiny coil of rope, was a python. It was coiled up, but the fattest part of the coil was easily as thick as one of my thighs. It had a wide flat head, rounded black eyes and a soft-shaped mouth with a little flickering tongue that came in and out.

It hadn't moved at all since I opened the door. I crept inside, closing the door behind me. The heat lamp was the only light. The room was hothouse-warm compared to the rest of the house, probably because it was right above the laundry and the boiler.

Which was why the python was here.

I felt slowly towards the tank. The floor was softly carpeted, and a large cushy couch was near the tank in the darkness. I sat down on the cushy couch and felt drowsy almost right away.

I shook myself awake, annoyed with myself. I had slept for almost an entire day. I had been trapped in a single room for four years of my life. I couldn't waste what might be one of my last days.

I carefully sniffed the air above the snake's tank. The damp wood chips and hot smell of water and reptile. It was a new and slightly sour smell. A somehow warm smell.

Then I left the darkened room. The python didn't move once.

The only other open rooms were the one bathroom and another room filled with storage. I dug through the storage a little. I was puzzled. At first I thought that the supplies in the boxes had been bought for me, in case of an emergency. After all, it was saline IV solution, gauze bandages, hydrogen peroxide, and other medical supplies, but they were all in bulk. There were a lot more boxes in this room than in some of the other storage rooms.

I looked through more boxes. I found tape, latex gloves, batteries, lightbulbs, disinfectant, tourniquets, sterile scissors, sponges, insulin, bath towels, flexible bandages, and boxes of bars of soap.

When I opened one of the last boxes I felt something close to an anxiety attack. It was full of dozens of small clear packages full of sterile hypodermic needles. They were all in hard-plastic protective packaging but it still filled every bit of me with raw panic looking down at it.

I left the room feeling shivery about the room. Something felt wrong. Wrong about someone who would have that much surgical equipment in his house. He had also had the resources to give me an illicit surgery in an open hospital. He also lived alone in a massive house really far away from anything or anyone.

That burned the mood, a lot.

I could dimly hear the music from down the stairs.

I went along the hall to the wing at the far end of the house. The end on the opposite side of my little tower. My boots clopped on the wooden floor. The wallpaper on the second floor was a little older, browner, darker.

The door into the wing was bright, dusted, uncovered. The handle was shiny from use.

I opened the door.

The walls were covered in books.

I had to blink to make sure I was seeing correctly. One wall was entirely windows, the wall that faced due east. The walls on all other sides, were covered with ceiling-to-floor shelving. Every shelf was crammed with books. A few cardboard boxes lingered, but a peek inside showed that they were full of even more books. The oversized or undersized books that didn't fit well on the shelves.

The centerpiece of the room was a huge three-sided couch. Built like a square with one side stolen, with seats all on the inside.

It faced the window. The ceiling lights were new, built into the ceiling, letting out bright soft light that filled the entire room. The clock was set on the wall above the door, and it let out small soft ticks. Ticking away time.

I sat down on the couch and looked out the window for a while. It was partially cloudy. Snow piled on the trees. I could see a little geography, a slight valley behind the house that ran down to a frozen river, and some rocky formations around the river, banks and bluffs. All covered with tall wedges of snow. I could see a train of snowplows down the one long road that went by this house. Clearing away slush and putting down salt.

If I wanted to, it would be perfectly physically possible of me to walk out the front door of the house, walk the half-mile or so out to that road, and hitch a ride.

Not many people would pick up a hitch-hiking Onus.

Sam had to know that I could run away. The doors were unlocked, he had given me free roaming power around the house. Why did he trust me?

I wanted to see some of the books, but my feet were starting to twinge painfully. I decided to check out the other wing, and the top level of the house. It had been darker on the third floor, emptier. I figured it wouldn't take me as long.

I clomped over to the other wing and opened it. It wasn't nearly as fun, exciting, or even aesthetically pleasing as the library.

I couldn't figure out what you would call a room like this. It had three windows, but all of them were covered up and muffled by heavy velvet drapes, smothered in dust. When I flicked on the light, a few fixtures lit up on the ceiling, but they were out of date, and three of them didn't even spark. One flickered unevenly.

The most beautiful thing in the room was still there. A gigantic grand piano. The wood was deep cherry-red, and the color looked like it would be beautiful under the dust. The keys were covered. The seat was cushioned in oxblood leather.

The ceiling was dominated by a cloth-covered chandelier. Parts of the floor were carpeted, but a wide oval space was bare wooden floor. Boxes cluttered the floor. I opened them, and found pictures taken down. Broken and outdated statuettes, covered in dust. I found a single loose photograph, but this one didn't excite me the way the one in Sam's room had.

It was faded, yellowed and curled at the corners. It was a picture of a portly older man, with an elegant pointed little beard. He was sitting at the piano, and at one corner of the picture I could see a woman looking away. She wasn't supposed to be in the picture. I could see her bare shoulders rising above a small black dress. I could see her cheek and her big elegant twist of braids gathered at the nape of her neck. She was holding a flute of champagne.

Her lips matched the oxblood piano seat.

This room seemed like a place that had gathered the brunt of the junk left in this old house.

It felt a little sad, when I closed the door behind me. The photo had shown an elegant place. A place where parties had happened. Where men and women had danced.

I had a feeling that no one had danced in there for a very long time.

-

One floor left to me. My room had been on one side, and all the doors along the spine were closed and plasticked off. I only felt relieved. My extended walking and standing was starting to hurt my back and legs and feet, and even set a stitch of pain in my kidneys.

All the doors were closed, except for the mini-staircase that led up to the small tower. The round room that I had woken up in.

And a heavy door with small windows near the other end. I poked my head into my room first, just to see if anything had changed.

My stuff wasn't in here anymore, except for the soft black robe.

The room seemed smaller. I rested on the sill to the wide bay window. The window faced the road. I watched two cars pass far away. Neither of them turned onto the long twisty driveway. The only reason I could see the road was because the trees were skeletal with winter.

I used the bathroom while I was up here. Some blood. The holes in my groin were starting to close. They all looked drier, smaller, less colorful.

One more wing to check. I was feeling tired.

I clopped over in my walking boots. I realized as I got up close that the last set of doors led outside.

I peeked out the small windows, but they were both of cut glass, so the view was distorted and too small.

I gritted my teeth, and clutched the handle.

I pulled it open and shivered as a wall of cold hit me. I started closing the door right away, after getting a quick peek.

It was a balcony. A balcony on the opposite side of the small stumpy tower. Several snowy humps of outdoor furniture and a grill.

I closed the door and shivered. I kicked at some of the snow that had fallen inside, and was melting into little puddles on the hardwood floor.

-

I ended up going back to the python room.

I felt more tired, and I knew that I was going to sleep no matter where I went. The python room was dark and warm. Being above the boiler and laundry meant that there was this low-grade humming in the walls. It was better than the odd silence in most parts of the house.

I lay myself out on the cushy couch. The python had moved a little since I last checked, but was frozen again.

-

"Shiloh? ... Shiloh! ... Shiloh!"

When I first heard it, I realized that he had already been calling my name. I didn't know how long.

I heard his footsteps thumping up the first set of stairs. He was flinging doors open. I could hear the dramatic loud way each door creaked as he threw it open.

He was scared. I could hear the fear in his voice.

"Shiloh? Where are you?" His voice sounded clipped and distorted.

I flinched as the door to the snake room flew open. I sat up and peeked over the back of the couch. I squinted because the light from the hallway was brighter. It surrounded Sam like a corona.

I saw the outline of his shoulders slump.

"Jesus... Oh Christ, I'm sorry." He was a little out of breath. "I... I just didn't know where you were. I was quiet when I first came in, but after I checked the couch and your room, I started calling out and you didn't answer... And I thought that maybe you had passed out or something."

It was a gush of words, for a man who handed out his words like notes.

I had so many questions. About the house, about the things I had found. It seemed like so much to try and ask about when I still wasn't sure I could form a coherent sentence.

Sam was making a mumbling apology, and getting ready to leave the room, leave me to my thoroughly disturbed nap,

I shook my head.

He stopped closing the door. "You... You don't want me to go?" I shook my head again. I cautiously sat up and made a gesture with two fingers of my hand. I curled them towards my palm twice.

A 'come here' gesture. I felt like the back of the couch was a shield between me and him.

I heard a small scraping sound, and I turned around. The formerly motionless python had extended his triangular head above the ground and was pressing it's nose up against the glass, moving back and forth.

"She's hungry. I was going to feed her today."

Oh. *Her* triangular head.

Sam was standing by the back of the couch. I could feel the cold coming off of him. It was so cold outside that I could feel it on his jacket, when he had only come from the car into the house.

I curled my legs up to the couch so I could hug them. Sam was hovering. Waiting for me to say something, watching me.

I pointed to the snake.

"N-Name?" I whispered.

Sam rubbed his face. If I had rubbed my face in the same way, my fingers would have ruffled through my hair, but he was rubbing the skin under his patch. The patch wrinkled a little as he itched at the skin underneath. I watched, with a morbid fascination.

Trying to catch a glimpse of scars.

"I named her before I found out that she was a girl. She's a twelve-year-old female burmese python, and her name is Hippocrates." He chuckled a little. "Now, I call her Hippo. Sometimes Pocky."

He was cautiously moving around the couch. I looked at Pocky. She was still slithering around the cage, trying to sniff at the weighted wire mesh top.

"So... Did you like napping here?" I nodded. "Did you explore the house?" I nodded.

He cautiously sat down on his side of the couch. An entire cushion was between us. An eternity of space, but we were still seated on the same piece of furniture, so he was moving slowly.

"I thought about having this be your room. I know... I know that Onus are sensitive to the cold. But... But I wanted you to have the view. There's only one small window in here, and I keep it covered to keep out drafts."

I nodded slowly, listening to him. He was starting to get into a rhythm. We had never spoken before. Not more than a question, or trying to see if I was okay. If I was in pain. If I needed help. Now, he was speaking.

And if I couldn't do anything else, at least I was a good listener.

"I didn't want you to wake up after you came here and be sharing the room with Pocky. I thought that that would be scary." He shrugged. "The tower had a bathroom, and more space, and better light." He gave me a look with his one good eye. "You aren't frightened by Pocky, are you?"

I shook my head, and mouthed no.

"What was your favorite room?"

It was the first question he asked me that required an answer. Not a yes or a no, or a nod or a shake, but an answer.

I mouthed the first three words. 'I liked the...' and then I managed to put a little body into my voice. "Library."

He smiled. He just looked happy. Happy that I found the library, happy that I liked it. He had a nice smile. It relaxed the lines on the half of his forehead that I could see. It made him look years younger, less withdrawn.

"When I first came to this house, I slept in a different room every night. I wanted to find a room that I liked the best. The place was really run down. But I needed a place like this. I liked the space."

"The man who made this house wasn't an architect. He just built it how he wanted it to be built, where he wanted to build it. But one thing that he did understand..." He sighed, and leaned back on the couch, spreading out a little, relaxing. "He understood how important light was. My favorite rooms in the house are the ones where he built entire walls of windows, all facing the sun."

I realized that I was wrong. The first time this man had spoken to me for real, it had been two days ago.

When he had showed me the scars on his arms.

"Are you hungry?"

I was.

I had hunger of the body, and hunger of the mind. I was no longer starving. I was no longer captive. I was no longer wracked with pains, or helpless with fear.

I could speak.

And I wanted to learn.

I could have nodded, but I forced myself to say.

"Yes."

And with my fourth word in four years, I spoke the truth.

*Kisses and Spanks,

-Cruel*