This story was written for Nyc Midnight's 2022 Rhyming Story challenge
genre: Horror
theme: housebound
Emotion: Impatient
Synopsis:
My captors are near. They like to stay close.
They come twice a day to change my bedclothes.
They smile and nod. Conspire behind doors.
Sedate me with medicine hidden in drawers.
For over a year from this bed I’ve not risen.
I never knew my own house would be my prison.
I remember a life of vibrance. of love.
They painted clouds on the ceiling above
the bed. My small coffin. A taunt. A cruel joke.
I wish they would just let me die. Let me choke.
Instead they feed me through tubes and thin vials.
I remember the days of long grocery aisles.
Oh how I would kill to choose what I ate!
To scrape the last crumb from a silver plate!
To swallow hot soup down into my lungs.
It’s been fifteen months since I last used my tongue.
I lay here always. I wish I could stand.
My captors had commented one day, offhand.
“I doubt he’s still there. His mind must be gone.
The tests have been taken. His blood has been drawn.
The stats are all normal. Yet something persists.
I don’t know what we could have possibly missed!”
You’re wrong. I’m still here. My mind is not gone.
I wish I could cry. Scream. Just simply yawn.
It’s been fifteen months since I’ve last heard my voice.
This wasn’t my doing. This wasn’t my choice.
My captors are strangers. Some used to be friends.
They won’t let me go. They won’t let this end.
I’m rotting so slowly, my muscles are weeping.
I hear the quick brush of a janitor sweeping.
He sits down beside me. I hear the chair bend.
“You poor little bastard. I don’t mean to offend.”
I take no offense. I don’t disagree.
“Are you still in there? Can you even see?”
I cannot blink yes. I cannot blink no.
“Damn. They really just left you here to decompose.
How long have you been here?”
I wish I could answer.
“My grandmother died late last year. She had cancer.”
The janitor continues, he does not pause.
“I came here to see you. I came here because-
My grandmother rotted. I saw her life drain.
My family wanted to see her again.
They kept her alive against what she wanted.
That memory kills me. It keeps me here haunted.
Seeing you gives me the same deja vu.
So I have decided today to kill you.”
The janitor unplugs a cord from the wall.
I wish I could hug him. I wish I could bawl.
“Rest in peace bastard. Be finally free.
Escape this unfortunate reality.”
A monitor beeps. It’s all getting dark.
My spirit is close to its final embark.
I’m almost gone. I hear the bells.
“What are you doing?!”
A captor yells.
NO! NO! NO! NO!
The janitor flees.
PLEASE! NO! PLEASE! NO! PLEASE! PLEASE!
They stabilize my dying body in haste
And put an end to my near complete escape.
A nurse sighs. “Jesus. That could have been bad.”
Another says “What would we have told his Dad?”
The head doctor says “Watch him better next time.”
“This house could have well been the scene of a crime.”
I wish I could scream. I wish I would cry.
But no tears spring forth my paralyzed eyes.
My captors are near. They like to stay close.
They torture me with their own dreams and hopes.
Conspiring to keep me alive and from harm
To artificially keep death away and disarmed.
If they only knew, they’d be horrified.
I’m impatiently waiting
For my day to die.