Short Stories

The Man Upstairs

                                                                                    The Man Upstairs

    The noises never stopped, I couldn’t get the voices to be quiet. I have learned to live with them but lately they were getting worse; the voices started when I was a child, first I figured they were my imagination but as I grew the voices only got louder. When I was 12, I was admitted into my first mental hospital. They would drug me on so much medication that I forgot who I was, then they declared me sane and sent me on my way.

    Instantly after my release the voices came back, but now they mocked me, laughing at the thought that I could get rid of them. When I got home they would keep me up at night, these dumb voices snow compelling me to participate in devious acts against the people I encountered. It first started with random strangers I would see, the voices would yell and command me to follow them. I nearly was arrested on countless occasions, but when the voices started demanding I harm my family I broke. The night I fought my mother and nearly stabbed her was the night I ran away to protect her, I couldn’t let myself stay in her life and harm her anymore.

    She looked for me for years, but I stayed hidden in the darkest places doing anything I needed to survive. By the time I turned 25 I had become good at sneaking around that finding places to live was easy, this time I had convinced a mother and her son that I had just moved into the upstairs apartment and had forgotten my key for the building, they let me in and I got into the empty apartment room. When night hit I began setting up the place, making it livable for as long as I could. It didn't take long for the voices to start, I tried arguing with them the best I could and even drank alcohol that I had stolen earlier that day to make me pass out.

    This continued for two more nights until I lost the argument to the voices, they wanted me to watch the woman's son sleep, so I crept down and into the yard where his door into the back garden was located. He lied there sleeping and I gently slid open his glass door. I walked quietly over to his bed with the floorboards creaking silently under my feet. I fought the voices telling me to reach out and touch the kid, we compromised and I stole some of his belongings. The next night played out the same way, and for a week this continued. 

    Eventually I began reaching out to touch the child's hair, brushing my hands across it while he slept, but suddenly he moved, his eyes opened and he screamed. I froze until I heard his mom and then I ran as fast as I could, I got out of there. I watched silently from a good distance away, hoping to get in there and retrieve my belongings, but the cops were called. I waited until morning until a man arrived and let himself into the apartment I was staying in, the voices told me to run as far as I could away and for the first time without any argument I listened.