"Figments" - Second in the five-part series 'Unseen' - Mixed media on plywood. My 122nd painting.

 

Figments

Evelyn is jarred awake on the bed. She sits up, looks around, everything appears to be normal. She calls out to Tom, her voice soaked in desperation. In seconds - he’s standing in the doorway. 

She fires a frantic litany of questions at him, he walks over and sits on the bed. He allows her to finish, wild-eyed with messy hair.

“We’re alright. The house is fine. Sounds like you’ve just had a bad dream.”

Her demeanor switches from displaced to livid. 

“There’s no way in Hell that was a dream!” she barks, leaping from the bed.

Evelyn bolts into the hallway, then the living room, Tom following. Her eyes dart around, witnessing the impossible. It was just as he said - everything was fine - them, the house, the furniture. She breaks and tears run down her face. 

“This can’t be! I know what I saw, what WE saw! I’m not crazy!” 

Tom places his arms around her.  

“Of course not. You’ve been under a lot of stress. We both have. My retirement, leaving Iowa, moving across the country. It’s a lot of adjustments.”

Her emotion gradually relents. Tom offers to make some tea and they head to the kitchen. Passing the bookcase in the hallway, Evelyn spots the small navy blue vase on the top shelf. Her mind spirals.

“What’s this? Where did it come from?”

“The vase? We’ve had that for years. Your mother gave it to you.”

“NO! I mean how is it back on the shelf? It fell and shattered yesterday as I was dusting! I swept it up and put it in the trash!”

Tom is at a loss. 

“Why don’t you go lay down, I’ll get the tea started.”

Tom proceeds to the kitchen - Evelyn remains in the hall.

LATER THAT NIGHT

Evelyn has trouble getting to sleep - tossing and turning. She finally gives in and gets out of bed, leaving Tom in dreamland.

She staggers to the kitchen, gets a glass of water and makes a beeline to her recliner. Perhaps a little reading will help. 

She takes a drink, sets the glass down and grabs her book - a tepid, peer-reviewed collection of notes on human consciousness. Praised by critics but Evelyn was finding it to be a bit dry and on the boring side of academic. It did however lull her senses into compliance. 

Several minutes in and she was easing into that comfortable drowsy warmth. Eyelids heavy, breathing slowed to a crawl.

The book drops closed onto her lap - she’s succumbed to the nod. The dim yellow light from the desk lamp on the table beside her flickers. And again. She’s none the wiser. 

Rising from the dead quiet - a clicking sound - much like a metronome. It is soon accompanied by a deep bellow of dissonance - the tone of a morose, detuned cello. 

The clicking evolves into a vicious, cutting static while the bellow grows louder, angrier. Evelyn begins levitating from the chair. 

The cacophony of noise reaches full detriment - Evelyn now hovers several feet in the air. The sound is roaring, other objects in the room lose hold of gravity - slipping into the same otherworldly space that Evelyn currently occupies. 

Then a break - silence re-establishes - Evelyn drops like an anvil onto the chair. She’s instantly awakened. Heart racing, eyes wide. 

“You do not belong here.”

She looks around, attempting to locate the source of those foreboding words.

“Wh… who are you?”

A low rumble answers back, vibrating the windows. 

Evelyn springs from the chair.

“You shouldn’t be here!”

The rumble returns, shaking the floor. Evelyn stumbles back to her chair. Then a bright flash - the entire room has been sealed in some form of translucent resin.

“Tom! Tom!!” she screams.

“Submit.” snarled the voice.

Evelyn, in tears, falls onto her hands and knees.

“What are you?” she begs.

“God!” booms the discarnate entity.

Her sobbing is louder, harder but is drowned out by a gallery of maniacal laughter that echoes - shrill and seething. 

“SUBMIT!” the voice repeats. 

Evelyn sits up, tries to gather herself.

“What do you want?”

“Kill him.”

“Kill who?”

“The man.”

Her whimpering ceases. She wipes her face - those words slowly sink in.

“I will NOT!”

“Kill him!” the voice commands.

“Fuck you!” 

The small desk lamp blinks, the bulb pops - Evelyn screeches. The room is bathed in darkness.

“You both will die.” 

Evelyn collapses back onto the floor - alone in the pitch black.

"Static in the Room" - First in the five-part series 'Unseen' - Mixed media on plywood. My 121st painting.

 

Static in the Room

Day 1: 

It is pleasantly cool and overcast - typical of an October autumn in the pacific northwest. Evelyn sits reading in her favorite recliner. A light tapping burrows into her awareness. She glances up from her book, scans the room then leaves the chair to investigate. Out of the living room, through the hall, into the kitchen - then back down the hall into each bedroom. Never getting any closer to the sound, but it continues.

Now a faint, high-pitched noise begins. She storms up the hall and out the front door - nothing. Back inside, she enters the kitchen, looking out the window - again, nothing.

The tapping noise bleeds into the high-pitched sound - weaving together a fabric of fear and question. She moves briskly to and out the back door - the sounds abruptly end.

She returns to her chair, picks up her book and immediately sets it back on the table. Her eyes catch an incongruity - across the room, a mirror hangs crooked.

Day 2: 

Evelyn dusts the generously-sized bookcase in the hall. She turns to enter the kitchen and is frozen by a crashing sound. It was the small navy blue vase, now on the beautifully tiled floor, in pieces. 

The air tweaks with a buzzing current and she notices the large hallway mirror - there’s no reflection. It turns a clouded, sea-green color, warping and pushing itself backward into the wall. She’s paralyzed.

The front door swings open. Her body jolts - she yelps.

“What’s the matter?” Tom queries.

Evelyn’s breathing is quick and shallow, face flushed. She stares at her husband - mouth open, no words.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

She looks back into the mirror, her reflection replaces the hideous morphing. Her breathing normalizes, panic dissolves.

“I’m fine. You gave me a start, is all.”

Tom closes the door and spots the ceramic shards at Evelyn’s feet. He touches her shoulder and they walk into the kitchen. 

Tiny black fissures, like squirming capillaries, form around the edges of the mirror - growing from the frame inward.

Day 3:

Tom and Evelyn return home after a day out. They sit in the car staring at the house, then at one another. 

“What the Hell!?” Tom offers in disbelief.

“I have no idea.” Evelyn replies, equally bemused.

The paint was very badly cracked and peeling, windows covered in filth, litter strewn about - an overall disheveled appearance. Then the lights inside flicker. They exchange looks of concern and quickly exit the vehicle. 

Tom bursts through the front door, hitting the lights - Evelyn close behind. All is quiet. They move into the living room, a feral growling rises from underfoot. It fills the house, growing louder and more monstrous by the tick. 

“What is that? Where is it coming from??” Evelyn shouts.

Tom’s expression is one of muted terror. The beastly sound reaches its apex, then brickwalls into silence. They stand beside each other, still as statues.  

“Why is it so cold in here?” Evelyn mutters quietly, her breath a cloud of frost. 

Exactly three seconds of calm - then the entire house begins shaking violently. Windows shatter, curtains are shredded and torn down, furniture in flames, deep claw marks rake over the hardwood floor, several inches of rusty water pools on the ceiling and cascades down the walls. A sharp, deathly howl shoots through the room… 

The lights go out.

Things are not what they seem...

October 1994 - Winston, Oregon.

Their new home in Oregon was everything they’d always wanted - spacious, well-built, fairly priced and the setting: beautifully rural. It was perfect - for a while. 

Then, those “not quite right” feelings, misplaced objects, noises at all hours - giving way to catastrophic events that could not be explained. The early days of Tom & Evelyn’s golden years. 

They never knew such things were possible.

Unseen

Static in the Room

Figments

They Speak

A Most Violent Turn

We Must Leave Here

A new painting series - piercing the veil, soon...