How it all ties up

‘Kay, stirred up quite an amount of shit recently, so might have to clear things up a bit.

Don’t know how to get this across gently, so… well, it all started a few months ago. Have I said anything about my parents? No?

So – Dad was combing the house for some stuff he kept a few decades back for a college reunion. Maybe a shirtless pic or a letter from then-girlfriends or an autographed band t-shirt or something. We all thought that we’d had enough of him being a nostalgic freak – all of the things he’d said about those times sort of went over our heads every time – so we ignored him.

Didn’t do much good. He managed to forget about the thing for some time, but well… you can probably guess how it went. Turned out that he couldn’t remember anything about himself from before graduating college, and neither could Mum, in fact, except that they met after finishing Liberal Arts (yes, I know. Shut up. >_>) Tried to go to a therapist, I think – my own recollection of events has been quite blurry – and was pretty much ignored and forgotten after one meeting. Why? Same reason the dozens of bloggers being dragged into the darkness by eldritch beings out there haven’t attracted much attention, I suppose.

Also saw him scribbling stuff from time to time on this little block note, the sort with a pretty little picture on the cover that kids with the Down Syndrome would paint for a charity organisation. Not in any way wrong by itself, I know, but it was sort of, well, obsessive. Especially for someone who didn’t like writing much in the first place. Would look down and maybe write a few words or draw a freaky picture and then suddenly slip it back into his pocket in the kitchen or the nearby park or sometimes the car late at night. Snuck into his room one night, when he was off to the town for some drink and Mum was away with some friends. It was maybe five minutes after he left, and the traffic was scarcely moving, so I snatched it from the drawer where he’d keep little things and flipped the pages around. Saw writings. “ARCHANGEL”. “BLACK DOG”. “CONVOVOCATION” (sic), and maybe a few other things. Heard footsteps running outside, so I put everything back to their places and hurried back to the kitchen to pretend I was watching the TV. Dad burst into the house, face red and panting, ran into the room, came back out a minute later and left without another word. I tried to pretend it’d never happened afterwards.

Would’ve been nice to end it there, but nooo, we couldn’t have such great and lofty things. My parents were moving between jobs and the place Dad was working at turned out to have quite conveniently lost just the copies of documents that would tell anything regarding him before he graduated, which as you might have correctly guessed is a massively fortunate and useful course of development, as he’d lost exactly all of the same sort of documents back home. This is probably where the rest of the family would’ve gotten called out on falling into horror movie clichés, I think: we simply wouldn’t give a flying fuck. None of us. Just went on with our lives, ignoring whatever he had in mind. And this was before I found out about the blogs.

So, to sum up… me, my sister and Mum got dragged into the living room a couple of weeks or so before I tried to start the blog. And… well, am I boring you yet? Getting suddenly yelled at for not helping and letting him fall prey or something and beaten black and blue was probably more interesting firsthand, I have to say. Locked us up in my parents’ bedroom afterwards. We didn’t know what to do, too scared and confused to talk, just curled up in the corner in the dark. Heard his steps echoing outside, tap, tap, tap… two hours of complete dark, then a sigh, then the click of the bedroom door. He apologised. Then locked us in again.

We stayed still through the night, not a word spoken out, listened to him dragging himself through the rooms, to the chairs and tables turned over like leaves, to our whole lives more or less being torn down around our quiet little corner. Mum was dead scared, my sister every bit as much, and yes, so was I. >_<

(I don’t have a shotgun like Jeanette does, so shut up)

Come morning, Mum decided to risk it and crept to the backyard through the window. He wasn’t there. Just gone. Asked the neighbours – none of them saw him. Not that anyone cared much, anyway, at least not as much as anyone would in regards to a missing man, or for a better comparison, a missing milk carton. Also called the cops, had them check the rooms and the front street for possible trails, and they said they’d look further into it. Liars. Tried to show them the notebook, but they wouldn’t so much as look at it, no. Didn’t see them being very concerned either, and we did call them back. Surprise, nothing about your family in our records. Utter wanksticks. (EDIT: that probably sounds a bit less polite than I’d intended)


We also checked his laptop and phone. Some things on otherworldly beings, and nothing on reunions.

So… well, yeah. We’ve tried to go on and pretend it’s all normal and amiable since. Yes, I’ve been keeping the notebook; lots of interesting stuff, for which you may take my words and my inclination towards exposing the personal belongings of a missing family member for the amusement of people on the Internet. Yes, we’ve asked some of his co-workers if they’d seen an old man in sunglasses following him around, which would’ve helped if, you know, no one we’ve met would give the slightest trace of a damn about the whole thing. And yes, I do have friends. Well, formerly – the less delicate aspects of life may prove quite a repellent as knowledge.

As it has since turned out, however, we all have our fears.

Will probably have to model my writing after the BBC site, though – would probably get tales of lives torn apart more serious treatment next time. Thank you.

Thoughts?