Something Is Not Right In Here

SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT IN HERE

by Art Smith

“Something's not right in here,” Charlie thought as he entered the small, one-bedroom apartment he had rented only a week before. ‘

Still standing in the doorway, Charlie shifted his gaze around the room. First to his left, toward the blue sofa that sat beneath the lone window in the apartment. The afternoon sun flickered through the glass, casting moving shadows across the couch. “Is that why I have this feeling that something is amiss?” Charlie wondered. Nothing seemed out of place.

His eyes moved to the far wall where his writing desk sat. His laptop computer sat atop the desk, the lid fastened securely down, concealing the keyboard. “I am sure I left the computer open,” the puzzled apartment dweller recalled.  But the thought was quickly dismissed as just another indicator of an aging memory.“I probably closed it,” Charlie mused.

The living room opened directly into the kitchen and dining nook. Closing the apartment door behind him, Charlie peered ahead, wondering if he could detect what was bothering him. The table was clear and all four chairs were neatly tucked under the tabletop. That looked right to him, though he was sure he’d left breakfast dishes on the table before departing for work. Was that another sign of his aging memory? The kitchenette was sparsely furnished in this rental, but he could see nothing that seemed to be different from what he remembered except for the missing dishes.

Charlie could not explain his uneasiness. Still, he felt that something was not right in here.

Next, Charlie peered into the lone bedroom, located just off the kitchenette. The bed was neatly made, clearly made by someone other than Charlie. No clothes lay on the floor. The bedroom closet door was closed, as it should be, and the light was off in the bathroom. (Charlie may have many shortcomings, but it was not one to pay for electricity that did not need to be consumed.)

Charlie moved to the living room sofa and sat down. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he plopped onto the sofa and sank into the soft cushions. His shoes quickly dropped to the floor; his now bare feet found a home on top of the coffee table that sat in front of the sofa.

Just then, his foot touched the corner of a magazine on the table. “I don’t remember that being there,” Charlie exclaimed. He raised up and peered over at the magazine cover. His eyes opened wide when he saw the title: “Mademoiselle.” “What is going on?” Charlie screamed out loud, “Somebody has been in my apartment! I knew something was not right in here.”

Leaping to his feet, Charlie snatched the magazine from the coffee table and began searching for some information that would explain the strange goings-on. His eyes focused on the date of the magazine. When he saw the date, his jaw fell wide open, and the magazine slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor. 

“October 2006,” he said out loud.

“How can that be?” Charlie pondered. “This is October 2026.”

“Surely, it’s an old magazine,” Charlie told himself. He reached into his pocket for his iPhone 17—his gateway to the world’s knowledge – intending to find the current date in order to reassure himself. What came out wasn’t his trusty iPhone, but a much smaller phone, a flip phone emblazoned with a logo from Motorola. He carefully flipped it open and started looking for a keyboard. There was no keyboard, only a dial pad. There was no internet to be searched.

Charlie had only seen a phone like that while surfing the internet; he never owned one and, in fact, was only a preteen when those phones were in vogue. “Didn’t my father have one of those?” he mused.

He looked at the screen on the phone and saw a date: October 9, 2006! Stunned, Charlie threw the phone to the other side of the room where it landed with a thud.

This was all too much for him to take in. Charlie turned away from “his” apartment and grabbed the doorknob, planning to exit this nightmare. The knob resisted his attempt to twist the door open. He tried again, with no better luck.  Worse yet, the knob was searingly hot, burning his hand.

Puzzled and confused, Charlie couldn’t think what to do. So he did the first thing to come to mind: SCREAM.

And scream, he did, hoping someone could free him from his plight. He knew from his rental agent that the apartment walls were insulated to mute sounds from adjacent apartments.  Still, he screamed. He screamed until he was hoarse.

Suddenly, the room went black. Charlie could feel his heart beating in his chest. His hands gripped tightly around something, but in his anxiety, he had no idea what he was feeling.

*  *  *

Out of the blackness came a hand, gripping softly on Charlie’s shoulder. The hand gave his shoulder a shove, gently at first and then a little more vigorously.

“Charlie, wake up,” came a voice in his ear. “You’re screaming.”

Slowly, the darkness disappeared from the room as Charlie opened his eyes.  He looked up and saw an attractive young woman smiling down on him. “You’ve been making quite a racket here with your dreams,” she said. “Are you alright?”

Only then did Charlie realize that it had all been a bad dream. He realized his grip on his blanket and propped himself up in his bed. Charlie turned to his wife and said, “Thank goodness, everything is right in here!”

"Charlie, you have got to stop reading those books about time travel. And it would certainly help you sleep if you didn't have that late-night pizza. Now get up," his wife continued, " get out of bed and get dressed. You have a story to write. If you don't get that done, you will find out what is not right in here."

"I know what to do now, dear," Charlie responded. Reedsy has this wonderful contest. I will turn my dream into a story to submit to the contest."

Charlie reached his hand up to his wife, hoping to get a lift out of bed. As her hand gripped his, he felt a searing pain. Withdrawing from her grip, he examined his hand for the source of the pain. His hand -- the same hand that touched the doorknob in his dream -= was exhibiting signs of a bad burn.

"Something is not right in here," Charlie exclaimed.