Publicerat
Kategori: Novell

The Rain



The rain, my companion through the years and eternal saviour of my soul, what would I have been without the gently downpour, and the raindrops hammering against my window. the rain makes every sound a
blur and all sharp edges in the world suddenly becomes smooth and hazy. The reality bends and twists, like a rosebud that finally cracks open and shows the wildrose in bloom, just to wither away and
die, the rain always stops.

The dreams had been worse that night, just when the rain had made its escape the nightmares set me awake, bathing in sweat and tangled into my soaked bedcheet. the room I saw was dark, but as I peered
into the gloom I could see all of my furnitures clearly, and even if it had been pitch black in the room I would have known where to find them anyway. After twenty years sleeping and awaking in this room I
would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know that the old clock was right in front of me and to the right my old bookshelf, full of old volymes and little things I had collected over the years. To my left was only, my old armchair and a small tanble to hold the occational whiskey and the candles witch let me read into the small
hours of the night. the heavy curtains were slowly moving to and fro in the breeze that the open old window let in, they were also abit moist after the nights rain.
I put my leg over the edge of the bed and sinked my feets into the gray slippers that stood waiting below my bed, I stretched out my left arm and grabbed the green velvet robe that hanged on the wall.
I made my way through the door and out in to the hallway, I walked past the doors and then went down the stairway into the main hall. I heard the clock in my room strike three times, not that they gave me any idea of what the time might be due to the clocks damaged mechanism, sometimes it went fast sometimes it went slow, but I liked the idea of never knowing what the time was. I even went so far that I tossed all of the other clocks in the house, I didnt even let my servants wear them. They accepted that fact because they had a job and I paid them fairly well. When the sun began to rise, I was wandering through the rooms of my ancestral home, I was hunting for something, something that I had been hunting for the last thirty years. I had no idea what it was but I think the search can be traced to my younger years when this house was and adventure and my fantasy was running amok in my head, now a days the search was just a way to sooth my thoughts and give me somethings to do on sleepless nights.

as my shadow glided through the rooms I noticed that the sun was on the rise and yet not a single member of the servants had arrived, was this some sort of a joke? Well on me, that joke was thrown away. They knew perfectly well that I do not appriciate this kind of things. I made a mental note that they had to be punished for this, sometimes punishment was the only thing those imbecills could understand.
I skipped the breakfast that morning and went to my room to get dressed. On my way up to the stairs I tried to remember last night’s dreadful dream, but as usual that went beyond my perception.
As always my clothes where neatly folded in the drawer in the hallway, not all of my clothes where there though, Yet another reason to punish the servants! I got dressed and slowly moved myself along the corridors of the huge house that I had inherrited more then twenty years ago, not a single spot of this house had escaped my watchfull eyes. Wandring in my own thoughts I suddenly noticed that I had stopped right outside the music room, and by impulse I went in.
When I entered the room I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath, all the old smells where there, the fireplace with its half burnt logs and the sofa made of furrs from some poor animal, the sofa itself looked like a wild animal on the prowl with its lion paws for legs and high back towering over the oak table infront of it. But something smells foul in here today, a sweet smell.
The piano stood in the corner, the only things that broke the ebony surface of the piano was two candles and a book with music notes.
I rang in a bell that where placed on the oaktable, a pure and crystal tone that I knew would bring atleast one of the servants if they had arrived. I waited for a few minutes but not a sound stirred the silence of the house. I resigned and started to place the logs in the fireplace so that I would be able to ignite them, some time later a warming heat spread through the room.
I felt calmed by the raging fire and moved myself to the old piano, and seated myself on the stool. I plucked at the notebook and searched for the moonlight sonata, found it, and started to play. The soft tones of the sonata caresses my thoughts and I am carried away over long distanses across time, until the last tone dies away and I am alone in the music room once again.

When I had closed the door to the music room I heard the familiar drumming on the windows, the rain had come back to me, I was joyous! I walked in a fast pace to the backdoor and out in the garden where the statues stared at me with their hollow stone gaze. I spread my arms and invited the rain to caress my whole beeing, I was slowly walking towards a bench that has been standing there for as long as I can remember. I sat down, arms still spread, and with a broad smile upon my face. If I could have seen the sun, it would have been at the top of its cycle accross the sky, but in this weather though, the sun did not matter much, the only real light was the lamps that stood on the side of the path around the old house. I heard thunder in the distans, a low threatfull sound, almost like an old battlefield with its cannons roaring.
When I came into the house again, the thunder broke loose on the house, rain hammered fiercly on the roof sending shivers down my spine, the lightning made the shadows come to life, dancing at the smallest hint of the sharp, blue electricity. I was still soaked and needed to get into some dry clothes, I was feeling strangly intoxicated, could it be the storm that where playing with my mind? I went into the bathroom on the second floor, just ouside my bedroom. It was a small room with just the space for a toilet bowl, a zink and a small bronze bathtub. I decided to get rid of the wet clothes even though I liked the feeling they gave my skin. It was quite dark in bathroom even though a lamp hung in the roof, so I set the two candles, one at each side of the mirror alight. I saw my face in the flickering shadows from the candles. I looked away and started to get undressed tossing the clothes over the shoulder and into the bath. Suddenly! The lamp in the room started flickering fiercly for a second, just to compleatly go dark, the candles gave away a smooth yellow light, not enough to see clearly but it had to do for now. I reached for a towel that hung on the wall over the bronze tub, when I gripped the smooth towel it felt like gripping an eel, cold as it was and slippery wet I dropped it into the tub with a wet thump. I looked at my left hand that had gripped the towel and saw something crimson red, slowly running down my hand, dripping on the floor, I mechanichly moved my hand towards my mouth and tasted the red liquid on my fingers. First the only taste I could make out was iron, and then my mind made the right identification, Blood! I went numb, I could not think, not move.
When the light came back I looked once again on my fingers, nothing. Only my long and milky white fingers and smooth palm, was I dreaming? I went out from the bathroom and noticed that the last daylight had disappeared.
I flipped the swich to the electrical lamps I had resently had installed, in notime the hallway was flooded with white light. I now remembered that I was naked, so I walked to the drawer and got into warm and dry clothes once again. I needed to get my thoughts together, I moved like in a trance to the tower stairs. I grasped a lantern that was hanging on the wall. in the light from the lantern the narrow stairway upwards, I got a feeling that something was not right here either. The scent I had caught in the music room struck me like a jackhammer. It seemed to come from the trapdoor that led to the tower. The smell became overwhelming for me and I ran in a panic downstairs. I had the smell in my nostrils, I felt contaminated by it. Then, I heard the sonata from the the piano in the musicroom.

I stood listening, I found myself swaying to the music. Letting the smooth tones soothe my haunted soul, I slowly walked towards the music and halfway to the room the sound slowly faded away when I turned the doorknob, the music was gone. I looked around the room but there where nothing that i did not had seen before. The only difference from my previous visit where that the fire what no longer burning.
I sat down on the piano stool and burried my face in my hands, was I loosing my sanity?
I was in a grave need of a drink, I walked slowly to my room and sat down in my armchair. Wearily I poured a double scotch and let out a deep sigh, leaning back, I drank the fiery liquid, it ran smoothly down my dry throat. I poured another drink and sat staring out in the darkness outside the window.
I lay down on my bed, the sheets where cold, but as the minuted went they grew warmer and my eyelids grew heavier as the heat increased. I fell asleep.
The only things I remember from the dream where whispers and flickering images of faces. They faces looked horrified and I think that they tried to warn me, of what I did not understand.
When I woke up, the night was still holding its grasp on the world, the room where cold. I looked around me and noticed the window were open wide, letting the freezing cold inside my bedchamber. Whispers came to my attention, none of the words I heard where of a nature I could comprehend. I tried to return to my blissfull sleep but as I tried, the whispers grew in strength and they seemed to refuse me the sleep I so desperatly wanted. I walked to and fro in my chamber, thinking of what all this could meen. I looked out the window and noticed the rain where no longer pouring down.
When I went out from my chamber, I was enraged! I was angry because I did not knew the thing that haunted me, because I seemed helpless before it. The anger filled me until I could not see past my own thoughts, and as I strode along the corridors, the whispers followed me.
The voices of the unknown, they sounded like the ripping of paper, thick old paper. They spoke of death and decay, they spoke words I never heard. And they spoke my name as if they hated me. I ran down the stair and opend the huge oak-door wide opend, and ran out in the driveway. Aftter running blindly for what seemed eons, I fell into a heap. Shivering, I lay still. The wind grew in strength with it the voices became weaker.
I silently cursed myself for being such a coward, and I think it was then I decided that whatever happend, I would find out what lay behind this. If I had to lay my ancestral home in ruins to do so, I would!


I walked the same way back that I had fled just minutes before in terror, and when I same closer to the house that I called home, I thought I heard the whispers again. But they did not frigthten me anymore. Words could not hurt me. As I approached the large building with caution, but made no secret of my return, I wanted them to know I was back.
As I stood in the hall just inside the door, I rememberd a fragment of one of my dreams, it was me, lying on the bottom of a pit looking up. As I looked up I saw someone looking down at me, a face emerged from the misty darkness. It was my own face I looked at, twisted from rage but still my own. I tried to stand up, but both my legs where numb and I could not gain control over them. The next thing I remembered was that I where cowerd with dirt to my neck. I looked up once again and still saw my own face watching me. What had been anger where now utter insanity. More dirt started to cower my face to the point when I could not breathe no more, the panic rose in me like a geiser erupting, choking me.
When I came to my sences again I where down on my knees, drawing deep for breath.
Now the house were silent, almost as if waiting for me to make my move. I knew I had to make my way up to the tower to get this mystery to a solution, but the stairs seemed to be an impossible hill to climb.
I stepped drunkenly up the stair to the second floor, it felt like I was moving through syrup. For the first time in ages I wanted to know what the time was, how many minutes, hours or even days had past since I first woke from that dream? It felt like eons.
I dragged myself to the tower stair and began climbing what could only be described as a mountain that only existed within myself. Slowly I went to the top of the stairs and the stench was once again filling my nostrils. It felt like a layer of filth on the inside of my lungs.
I tried to calm myself, but I could not stop shaking. I grabbed a hold on my cardigan and dried the sweat from my face with it.
It was now or never! I reached for the doorknob and turned it around. The door opend without a whisper of a sound. The sight that filled my vision was hard to comprehend at first. The table in the middle was black from what seemed dried blood, the room smelled like a butchers shop, but it was not dead animals that where slaughtered in this room of vile cruelty! It was humans.
I let my gaze go from the right to the left and then back again, three torsos was hanging on meat hooks on the walls, to male and one seemed to be of female origin, but they where heavely sewerd so it was hard to see. Bones, carved free from most flesh and meat lay scattered on the floor. But the most horrible feature of the room where the three human heads that lay on three different chairs, they where smiling stiffly and the eyes bulged out of their sockets, staring at eachother.
But what caught my eyes was an empty chair that where clean from blood and other filth. When I looked at it felt like the lighting had struck me. It all stood clear to me now, I rememered!
The servants had been late that day, and they had to be punished, I lectured that fool woman in the bathroom, and the others right in here. The voices in my head now seemed more at ease, they had been angry with me because I had not recalled them, they had been my companions for as long as I could remember.
Now there was only two thing that needed to be done. Bury the bodies by the roses with the others, and then put in an ad in the paper, after all I needed new servants...

The rain, gentle yet forceful and unpredictible, had been my guide and lover through my life, we are not that unlike. We give and we take, we soothe and we frighten. I am just a part of life, just like the rain.

The End

Skriven av: Martin Nordberg

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