The Novella Life of Illuscia Nester Himawari

Alan stood back and scratched his head. “Bizarre,” he murmured. He’d become fascinated by his new front door soon after Dana had brought it home from an estate sale. Alan had offered to give it a fresh coat of paint, but his wife was adamant. “Oh, no you don’t,” Dana warned him. “It’s beautiful as it is.” She was right, of course. Though weathered, the door was wonderfully sturdy with fancy decorative scrollwork. It gave their house a unique, rustic charm. But shortly after installing it, he’d noticed something odd. Even now, moving to touch it again, he remained fascinated. Sometimes he considered calling the nearby university to see if anyone could explain how, no matter how hard you knocked, the door only issued the faintest muffled thumps. He couldn’t resist trying again. He gave it a good, solid rap. Then another. And another. It sounded like he was knocking on a cushion. Suddenly the door flew open. “Goddammit!” Dana yelled. “What?” he asked. “What’s wrong?” But she o

Dan awoke in a panic before calming down to examine his surroundings. He was in a cramped, empty room; the only noticeable features being two towering doors standing across from each other as if in some sort of stark standoff. Dan couldn’t remember how he had gotten there or why he had fallen asleep, but he had never woken in an area so strange. “Hello? Anyone there?” he questioned. His friendly tone quickly became agitated, “OK, I don’t know who’s behind all this, but I am not a willing participant!” His voice was now noticeably angry, “Look man, this is bullshit! I’ll sue! Do you know who I am? I know a lot of people you do NOT want to meet and I’ll call them right now if I have to!” he reached for his pants, only to realize that his phone was not in his left pocket. He began frantically feeling and searching his various pockets but was unsuccessful. “OK…I’ve about had enough of this shit.” His voice hit the surrounding walls and died, as if he had never said anything

Sleep. That's all I wanted. Drift off into a world full of impossibilities. A place where all the troubles of the world drift away. Not tonight, though. Tonight, an unwanted visitor knocks on my front door. He knocks repeatedly with the same sounds: Dun, dun, duh, dun, dun... dun, dun   Over and over again. Why is it here? What does it want? Does it know I want to sleep? It must be one of those local hooligans. I wish I could just take my shotgun and shoot their brains out. Slowly wash their blood off my body. Dun ,dun, duh ,dun, dun... dun, dun   Damnit! So close! God, why must I be condemned to this? If I want him to leave, I guess I'm gonna have to go tell him. Why is it so persistent to be let into my home? I have nothing worth taking. The objects in my home have sentimental value, or none at all. Dun, dun, duh, dun, dun... dun, dun   Damnit, it doesn't matter! I just want to sleep and dream peaceful dreams. I get out of my bed, and open my bedroom door. The th

There’s this painting my wife loves, called  “Death and Life” , by Klimt. I don’t know what she finds so fascinating about it. I made all the right noises when she showed me her beloved framed print when we were first dating, oohing and ahhing and making up some bullshit about warm and cold color schemes and the specific choice of angles and line. She was an artist, our first few dates involved long walks through museums, starting in Picasso’s blue period and ending in heavy petting and blue balls. I took an art history course as an elective when I was finishing up my doctorate, I remembered enough of the lingo to charm my fantastically gorgeous future wife and lure her back to my stupidly filthy apartment. We’re talking me as the foul bachelor frog, sitting on a lillypad made of empty take out containers surrounded by pond of enough unwashed clothes to keep a laundromat in business for a cool 6 months. I remember scrambling to find 2 of any sort of cup-like container for

Floaters, swimmers, squigglys, everyone sees them in their periphery. I always tried to study them when I was bored. A useless endeavor thats taught me more than I assumed it ever could. My obsession with them started out as many do, with innocent youthful observation. I quickly discovered that moving your gaze to them scares them back to the edges of your vision. This is where most people give up. I had a plan, though. I would stare at a fixed point and try to observe as many things without averting my gaze to them. My technique slowly improved, and I saw that the little things were a little like the planarians from my high school biology lab. For the longest time they never did much more than what most people see. One day during a class which I had no interest in, one suddenly developed what I can only assume was an eye spot. I assume it was an eye of sorts because now it would speed across my field of view and slam into other unsuspecting swimmers. I named him Raging

I used to live in a weird little village. A couple thousand people lived there supposedly, but it was a commuter village, so their lives were elsewhere aside from the farmer’s market during the summer, a general store, and an unsettling little pet food store, but that’s a different story. I didn’t go to the local school and I’d been excommunicated so I didn’t really know anyone aside from the guy across the street and his bigoted landlord. Every so often, a guy would come over to the house to check the gas meters. He never really bothered us aside from occasionally looking in the windows for a little too long before walking away. It was odd, but seemed harmless. As the year went on, he started coming over more than once a month. My mom figured it was because of the snow and they needed to make sure the meters were still working. That seemed plausible, and, being a kid at the time, I didn’t want to think anything else. Fast forward a couple months. My house had two storie

About four years ago my husband and I began restoring a home in an up and coming historical district. Vaulted ceilings, detailed mouldings, hand carved handrails and mantle. They were all painted over, but fortunately the paint came off to reveal beautiful old wood. Under the old, trampled carpets were gorgeous wood floors. We were ecstatic with our purchase. The trouble began a year or two into the renovation. My son, 10 or 11 at the time, wouldn’t look at the mantle. He wouldn’t say a word to me about it, but I saw him changing his gate and turning to avoid even a short glimpse of it. Finally, I sat him down and asked him about it. “Matt, what’s wrong with the mantle?” His shoulders heaved and his gaze swept across the floor, “I don’t know, did dad scrape it up when he was taking the paint off?” I squinted at him and tensed my lips, “You know what I mean. Why won’t you even look at it?” “Don’t you see the face, mom?” “What face?” “It’s on the corner, by the dining room side

I used to live somewhere with a lot of trails that were more like footpaths the locals knew about than anything marked and they definitely didn’t show up on any maps. There was weak phone service, but only in random spots and not on any of the trails. Once I decided to go left where I’d usually turn right. I went up these hills with little holes in the ground and it sounded like there were crickets everywhere. I thought they were rattlesnakes but my mom insisted they weren’t because it was too cold for them to survive. We didn’t realize I’d been right until we were surrounded by hundreds. We couldn’t see any because it was dusk but running home was memorable. There was a trail that was only accessed if you went through a hole in a fence, across a dead field, then up a steep hill with trees so big and thick that if you didn’t know it was there you probably wouldn’t find it. I only knew it was there because I saw the neighbor’s kids go up there with their bikes. Looking ba

Hours have gone by, with nothing. I’ve typed the same shit over and over, which is getting me nowhere. It’s time to get something done… Smith, before I go further with this, I want to establish how much I hate you. Although, in a sense, I’m proud of you. This trap is rather elaborate, and even uses my own idea against me. You’ve thought around every corner to ensure my suicidal demise in the end, and for that, I commend you. How long you’ll go on is lost to me. I’m not sure how, but perhaps this log will be recovered, and someone else will want to dent your face in. You may have gone years without being caught, but you won’t continue much longer, not like this. I’ll try to be sure of it. Now, with my personal message out of the way, I’m not sure where to begin. I have what feels to be all the time in the world, yet that’s not something I can be sure of. For some time, I’ve been oblivious to the loss of blood from my wrist. It wasn’t apparent until the pain began to set i

I always hated visiting my grandpa’s old cabin. That might make me seem spoiled or ungrateful. What kid doesn’t enjoy seeing her grandpa? Especially considering he was the only grandparent I had ever known. Both of my mom’s parents were killed in a car accident before I was born, and my dad’s mom walked out on him when he was very young. He still doesn’t know where she is or if she’s even alive. So that only leaves my paternal grandfather. My parents desperately wanted me to have a good relationship with him. My dad insisted that, although Grandpa was stern and quiet, he really did love me. He just didn’t know how to express it. I figured that was probably true, but it didn’t change the fact that trips to his house were filled with idle hours watching television and reading while he worked during the day, followed by awkwardly silent dinners in the evenings. I rarely saw him, and he seldom spoke in any loving way. He just kept a wary eye on me, like he was waiting for me

Hello. I am Mr. Welldone. I watched the copulation which conceived you and I screamed in horror. I saw you birthed like a hatched parasite, hairless and gagging, and I grit my teeth in hatred, sliding them over each other again and again and again and again and again until they were flat and smooth. I will watch you wither and grow old, as your body congeals and the weight of your years pulls your flesh from your body and I will grin and snicker, laugh and laugh. I will see your desiccated corpse pumped full of superficial chemicals, interred into the dirt to feed the eyeless, subterranean creatures of the earth and I will howl because I know where you are going. I know where you are going. I know the secrets of this earth, as I knew the secrets of the one before it. I will bring about the End, and you cannot stop me. You read these tales and you do not know that with each you read, with each you create and recreate, with each you retell, with each you claim ownership of

Everything I am about to tell you is absolutely 100% true... I used to live in Boston, Massachusetts with my roommate John. I am a night person but he isn't. He is asleep by 9 P.M., and in the apartment complex we live in, they shut of most power at 11. Therefore, its not like I can jump on any video game of any sorts. On most days, I just chill out and play Angry Birds, Minecraft, or Slender on my Kindle Fire. But since it's been stolen I just head outside for a walk around the city. John asks me why I do so, and what I see. I simply feed him lies about police chasing criminals and fires around town. But, usually the city is dead by 10:30. There are few cars and people. It is usually peaceful so I can think for a while. I enjoy the walks, they help me clear my head of all anger and sadness, and think of the better things. All of it is peaceful, except for one night. I was on my way back to the Apartments, when I saw a man standing at the end of the sidewalk. I pe

I still can’t get what happened last week out of my head. I mean, it doesn’t fit together at all. I haven’t been able to get any rest for the past few days just thinking about it, so I figured I’d just write it down here and see if you guys had any better luck explaining it. I work in daycare. It’s a pretty established place in a big city on the coast. That’s about all I can say. I still work there and I don’t want someone linking this post back to my employer. I’m not supposed to talk about anything that happens to the kids online. We mostly cater to the professional crowd. Busy people in finance and internet startups, who don’t use the office daycare. Or don’t have any office daycare. It’s a common sight to see someone in a business suit drop of a baby with a large cup of Starbucks in the other hand. People who can afford to blow twenty five bucks a week on coffee. Go figure. One of the attractions was that we offered daycare for infants as well. A Godsend for the jet