888

“888,” I said in a matter of fact tone as bits of my burger shot out of my mouth. I swallowed my bite and pulled a string of my long auburn hair out of my mouth. It’s always wiggling its way in there while I eat. 

“What?” My friend said from across from me as she licked the ketchup off her fingers. We’d just gotten off of our shifts at the very burger shop we sat in now. Dressed in matching striped orange and white uniforms.

“On the door, look,” I pointed over to it. The glass push door had the letters 888 on the wall above it. 

“I see, what about it?” She spoke this time with a fry actively tossing around her mouth. Our manners seem to dissipate at the end of a shift. Disintegrated by the toxic flow of exhaustion. Pris already thinks I’m a bit of a kook, I don’t want to overstep it.

“Well I just see 888 everywhere, and it's odd to me that I hadn’t noticed this one till the time of my life that I’m noticing all of them.” She cocked her neck at me. I pushed my hand into my pocket and pulled out my phone. As I opened the camera my greasy fingers left visible trails on every part of the smooth screen that they touched. I pointed the camera towards the numbers and snapped a picture.

“Why take a picture of it?” Pris didn’t seem to actually care. That didn’t bother me. She was tired and I was too. If she were to take an odd obsession to a group of numbers at that moment I don’t think I would’ve cared much either. I answered either way, wiping my fingers onto a napkin and brushing my hair behind my shoulders. 

“I don’t know. Seems right. Once I started noticing it I took pictures of all of them.” I flipped the screen towards her and I shuffled through the 888 pictures. An address number on a mailbox, that obviously held one extra 8. A screenshot of a spam number that called me with the nagging set of numbers right in the middle. I showed a few more before she started glancing away and I took that as a sign to give it up. “Anyway, it’s just weird to me.”

“I get it. There was a time where I saw dead birds on the road a lot.” I looked at her slightly. What?

“It was probably just a disease going around Pris. That’s not that weird.” She’s frustratingly ditsy sometimes. We lived in a very bird populated place. Yet she said it like she’d seen a dead guy walking the streets.

“Oh, okay,” she stuffed the last fry into her yapper, “home time for me.” 

“Me too.”

We gave each other hugs and threw our trash on the way out. It was late and cold. I clasped my hands together, shuffling my way to my car and swinging the door open. Closing it behind me I jammed the keys into the ignition and cranked the air to warm. My headlights blinked on with it. A strange loneliness washed over me. I put my music on. That seemed to drain the loneliness from the car, but I still felt it seeping through the cracks in the doors. Through the clear gloss of the windows.

It’s something about it being dark out, plenty of things in my life have been as dark as this recently. It only makes them more scary when the world itself reflects that. The tunnel vision of being able to see nothing but what’s in my headlights. 

Which at that moment was the inside of the restaurant joint. I felt bad that I had the lights blaring inside there. Probably blinding the customers and my co-workers. I drove out of the lot. Tall trees lined the road that I drove home. They seemed to curve in at the top, suffocating my tunnel vision further than it already was, then straighten out at every street lamp. Before curving back in when the light passed. I tried to keep the loneliness away and grasp onto the protruding light of those street lamps at every chance I got. 

I saw the next lamp ahead and began to take it in. From the pole that had a reflective silver, catching the highlights of the bulb, to the hazy yellow light that laid with soft circular edges on the floor beyond me. Though my favorite part is the bulb itself. The giver of the light. I strive to be the bulb. The gleam in the darkness. 

Recently my mom has been the darkness. It floats in the air of the house and tries to infect me. It’s not truly contagious though. You can fight it with whatever means necessary, processing, talking through it, suppressing. That’s what I do. Pris has been telling me that suppressing my feelings will only make them worse and at some point, they’ll burst. When she speaks like that it’s the smartest I’ve ever heard her sound. Still, I ignore her, suppression keeps the lights on. It lets me be the bulb.

The next lamp came into view. I peered at the light on the asphalt and it wasn’t whole like the rest. There were little black dots darting all around it. I looked up to the bulb to see what could be blocking it. Birds? I checked my rear view mirror and saw no headlights behind me, allowing myself to slowly press on the breaks. I caught a better look, birds. Eight of them. Stark black crows flapping their wings methodically in front of the bulb. Walls of darkness in front of the light giver. It irked me a bit and I pressed back on the gas. The light passed.

The crows remind me of my mother. She’s always blocking me from spreading the light. Pris might be right. I can feel everyday that the loneliness becomes more powerful in my home than the hope I try to emulate. My mom likes her grieving. She likes her sorrow. It’s all she’s known for a bit now and she’s fallen in love with it. She wants to sit with it. Do the crows? Do the crows block the light because they want to? No. No, I don't think so. They aren’t like my mother. They’re not blocking the lights because they want to, it just happens that they do. 

The next light came into view. I looked at the light on the ground, afraid to see something like the last. I did. It was even more covered this time. I did the same ritual, check my mirror, slow down, look closer. Eight crows, black, wings flapping methodically. Only closer to the bulb this time. They casted starker, larger shadows into the light. I shuddered harder at this one than the last. The light didn’t deserve to be covered. Why is it then? I pressed the gas harder than before. 

The crows begin to remind me more of my father. He is the darkness, but he doesn’t mean to be. He doesn’t have a choice anymore. The darkness he emits only seems to grow, like he’s getting closer to the bulb. I want him to move away from it. I want the idea and thought of him to cease to exist. It only makes things harder. Maybe his darkness would leave if it was acknowledged.

The next light. There’s even bigger shadows in the light it casts. Another eight birds, nearly hitting the bulb every time their wings flapped. I didn’t even check the mirror that time. I slammed on the breaks and flung open my door. My feet hit the ground heavy with every single step. I looked up to the birds and yelled. Stomped my feet. Threw my arms to my side.

“I see you! Will you go now? Leave! I see you!”

The birds flapped away, leaving me basking in the light. I realized then I should’ve taken a picture of each murder. Eight at each light, All in a row. 888.

I stumbled back to my car relieved that the darkness left with a push of acknowledgement. Maybe Pris is right about something. I then headed the rest of the way home. I swung the front door open. Our front hall is weird. There’s a mantle straight ahead and halls to its left and right. Kitchen and other rooms to the left, bedrooms to the right. A picture of my dad glared at me from the center of the mantle. It’s him on a trip he took years ago, a flock of some kind of birds fluttering above him. The picture used to be in color but for some reason when the stuff that happens to dad happens, all the photos turn black and white. The date ‘September 16th 1979’ is spaced by a dash from the date ‘August 8th 2008,’ it was only October 9th, 2008. 

I headed down the hall to my bedroom. I should tell mom hi, I thought. I stopped at my door and listened to the noise behind hers at the end of the hall. Cries came from it. The black loneliness seeped from the gap under the door and the creases on all of the sides. Her darkness is just a byproduct of the one dad makes, I wondered if it needs acknowledgement too. I wondered if my darkness, the one I “supress” with the will to be a bulb, also needs acknowledgement. Maybe it’d leave like the crows did. Maybe. 

“Hi mom. I’m home. I love you.” The words slipped from me weakly, but still heavy. It may just have been my eyes deceiving me but I think the darkness seeping from her room stopped for a moment as I spoke. I hoped my words scared it. I really hoped so. I stepped into my room. Everything was as I left it. No darkness in here. My candle warmer left a scent and a glow near my bed. The lamp on my dresser shined pleasantly. I never let the darkness in here. I found three sources of light worked pretty well. The other is a lamp in my closet. I pushed my shirt over my shoulders and head, frizzing up my hair. It was the end of the day, I didn’t mind. Tossing the rest of my belongings on the dresser top I opened a drawer and got out a pajama shirt. I threw it over my head and my vision was blocked for a moment. My head popped out the other side and I froze.

The candle warmer was off, the dresser lamp was off, a faint blinding white glow came from behind me. I turned and my closet was gone. What’s left was a door with luminescent numbers on the front of it, 888. My chest closed up and tears began to welt in my eyes. I hadn’t cried since the day dad died. I hadn’t been this surrounded by darkness since the day dad died. I told myself I never would be again. I wouldn’t let it happen. No matter the means. Suppression. 

I knew Pris was right. It never worked forever. I hated this. I wanted to drop to my knees and bawl. The darkness made me shiver and clouded my head. I needed to suppress it. I had to. Suppress. It rang through my head. Suppress. Suppress. Get t- suppress. Get to th- suppress. Get to the li- suppress. Get to the lights! 

I took a ragged breath after holding it for longer than I knew and lunged toward the door. Behind it was a white room. An all white room. So much so that I couldn’t tell the floor from the roof, the left wall from the right, I wasn't sure if there was a floor at all. I stopped for a moment. But it was bright. Brighter than any light I’ve ever used to disperse the darkness. It looked like hope. I took a step inside. My right foot dropped down to what I truly feared was no floor. After a moment it just laid floating there. The momentum of the step carried the rest of my body into the floorless room. I floated in the white domain. I turned to try and get back inside my room, fear taking over my body, but it’s like space. I couldn’t swim through it. The velocity of the first step I took carried me farther into the domain. I faced the direction I was going. Someone was out there. A figure even brighter than the room itself walking towards me. 

He arrived quickly and looked at me. I looked at him. The fear traveled to the outer layers of my body and left through my pores as I saw his face. It leaked out of me in the form of the darkness, more than I knew was there. No, more than I let myself admit was there. It didn’t last in the room, the darkness faded into the surrounding light. I ignored it and turned to the figure with tears rolling down my face. 

“Dad?”

“Hi, love.”

“Dad!” I reached for him, but he was too far away. My momentum had stopped and my arms were too short to graze him. His figure glowed, the light hazed the details of his features, but I still knew it was him. I’ll always know when it’s him.

 “Are you really here? It’s been so bad Dad. Everything has fallen apart since you’ve gone!” Tears splashed down my face and departed from my skin floating into the space around us. 

“I know love,” he spoke calmly, reaching towards me now. His hands wiped my tears off, throwing them tumbling into the white space. His touch was warm and hopeful. It was the happiest thing I’ve ever felt. “Mom is struggling. You’re struggling. Struggling more than you know. Let me ask you something darling, why have you been ignoring me?”

A knot hitched in my throat. 

“Dad, I'm sorry. It hurt so badly not to. I tried to be the bulb Dad, the light maker. To keep away the darkness but bu-”

“Face the darkness to keep it away. Face me, and I’ll help you. I’m here.”

“You’re here…can you stay here? Can you stay Dad? Come back with me. Come through the door with me.” I pointed back to my room looking over my shoulder. Begging him to come, but it looked so far away. So dark. So cold. I didn’t want to go back.

“No. But you will go back. And you’ll go hold mom and tell her I love her. Tell her you love her. Then talk about me. Talk about the pain.”

“No Dad, please. Please come with me.” The air around me felt humid now. My tears were melting away in it. He put his hands on my head and pulled me in. His lips placed a loving kiss on my forehead. As they did, a flash of all the memories I’ve had with him flooded through my mind. Some of them sad, some of them happy. A faint smile crossed my face but I began to cry harder. Dad let go of head and put his hands on my chest.

“It’s time to go now baby.” He pushed and the momentum began to carry me back to the door. I screamed and cried to him. Telling him I loved him. That I needed him. That we needed him. All he did was fade. He got farther away. I looked behind me and the door neared. My body touched it and I fell back into gravity, the door disappeared and my closet showed itself again. I continued crying louder than I ever had. 

Through my weeping I didn’t even hear her door open, but mom came into my room. I looked at her through fogged vision. Tears in her eyes too, her hair a mess, I didn’t know what to say. She didn’t either. She looked at me for just a moment then rushed to my side and wrapped us into a hug. It had been a while since we’ve hugged. It had been a while since we truly talked.

Her arm wrapped around the area where Dad had pushed me out. I could still feel the warmth and hope of his hands. Talk about it, he said. 

“Mom, can we talk about Dad?” I got the words out through viscous sobs. My chest thrusted in and out. She grabbed me tighter and I felt her tears matting my messy hair. 

“Yes baby, please.” At her words my lamps flickered back on. The light in the hall began to work again, it went out about a month ago. And that warmth that Dad left on my skin spread to my mom and I. We cried harder, but we cried together. I felt Dad all around me. Talk and he’ll be here. He’s here now.