“The Death of Appearance”
by T.A.Domick

Even in the city the night is a cacophony of sound: the piccolo of insects chirping in the garden, strays with their lamenting call and answer barking, and my cat's purring a rumbling bass as he sleeps on my lap while I read. In all its glory. a majestic, nocturne symphony. But that night was a quiet night and much like Troy to Cassandra, I gave it no heed and turned a deaf ear to its notes.

Unfortunately in this city, the politicians can't keep the streetlights on, the lamps that remain lit have a flicking tick bred of insecurity and worrisome ethics, which makes the night hang as if a mourning shroud over lost dreams, forevermore. But that night, I remember, was darker than usual: an inky, achromatic abyss whose gaze I ignored.

I should have seen the signs, tasted it in the air and on my tongue, as if something wicked this way comes; I should have understood, a soft and stygian city, like a quiet child, is generally up to no good.

I was alone that night. My two roommates enjoying an evening out and were by that time, three sheets in a downtown bar and well into belting the second verse of Whiskey in the Jar, Being the social butterfly that I am, I came home early to read my favorite tome of forgotten rhyme, when, like a thunderclap it came: a pounding, a pecking, a petulant pinging piercing through my oblivious perception. 

“Huh ...” I thought, my book falling to the floor as I jolted awake from my slumber. “Who the... what the... why the @#$% is someone knocking at my chamber door?!? Seriously, its one in the morning!” Shaking the cobwebs and the Poe out of my head, I crept cat-like towards my front door. Patiently peering through drawn curtains of my windowed door, I saw nothing, except between some houses: a sign along Dort Highway, which read,“Pay full prices for tires, nevermore.”

“Must have been a dream,” I mumbled, believing I was meeting an old friend: hypnagogia, who likes to bang and whisper as I sleep. I thought to return to my room, but it wasn't till I heard a light rasping and clawing and scratching on the door that I realized...

“Help...Me....” a dry, struggling voice whispered from outside.

I spun on my heal in a twist and unlocked the deadbolt and doorknob. Carefully, I creaked the door open, inch by delicate inch until I reached the extent of the chain bolt. “Hello?” I spoke softly. Nothing and no one answered.

“This isn't funny! Steve...Daph?” I replied in ire, calling my roommates names. “I will make you seriously rue if you're messing with me you drunks!” Continuing my rant, I stopped, terrified, when a sharp thwack against the door hinges interrupted me.

It was at this moment that I briefly contemplated, for a whole second, what danger I would be in if the pounding and pinging, the thumping and thwacking, the swishing and scratching were the work of some malevolence, like a vampire, or a murderer, or some sort of weird night-owl traveling salesmen. Worst case, a vampire salesman; I figured the most successful undead would benefit from a high powered wet/dry vacuum to clean up the bloodstains in their lair. In my youthful frivolity, I took my chances. 

So wearing my obliviousness and naivety like a cloak, my fear threatening to burst like an overflowed damn, I unlocked the chain bolt and opened the door fully. It was then I saw it, a pale hand reaching from the bushes, wielding a knobby stick that barely reached the frame of my door. Rushing over, I found neither undead fiend nor murderous door to door menace.

Instead, it was my neighbor, Dave.

Now, I would never claim to know my neighbors well, but I knew Dave kept up the appearance of urbane wholesomeness. His home was well kept; his lawn manicured. He was the very model of a modern middle-class Michigader. never to esteem too poorly nor to be known to philander.

I was particularly envious of his back yard, in which he had fit an in-ground swimming pool and hot tub, surrounded by a posh tiled patio; an impressive feat of urban engineering on such a small city lot. So, I didn't figure Dave would be lying gasping and incoherent in the shrubbery save for a legit reason. Reaching down to grasp his arm I found him bruised and bloodied, his clothes stained and odorous.

After some quick first aid and an emergency call, I got the full story from him. For all his appearance. Dave was really a drug dealer who had run afoul of some other dealers in a disagreement at a liquor store in our neighborhood. His rival dealers had followed him home that afternoon, ransacked his home, and beat him to a unconscious pulp.

He awoke and stumbled out into the night, collapsing into the bushes, hurt, bleeding, and alone. At his darkest, direst moment, he said he prayed. Fortunately, there is mercy for our foolishness sometimes.

Dave went to the hospital by ambulance that night, recovered from his ordeal, and moved from the neighborhood not long after. His empty home stood empty, a ghoulish, haunted edifice; just another statistic, which seem to grow like weeds in this city. But much like Dave, statistics and appearances can be deceiving.