The Sunroom

A young woman finds something odd about her duplex. Will the realization be overwhelming, or simply blend in with the rest of the noise?

This was once a military base. Margrave Air Force Base to be exact. You could still tell by the worn-out duplexes which crowded together so aggressively. You could tell by the outdated shutters on each matching side, their droops even sagging in matching corners; their mirrored rooms which fit so effortlessly against each other.

Planes still flew overhead, just as they once did. Now it is simply an aviation school. And this is where I live.

But something is wrong with the sunroom: a room lacking much light at all, contrary to its name.

There are creaks, yes. The hanging light flickers at odd hours (often when I am awake in the night fetching a glass of water). But mostly there are whispers. Some I barely notice, much like the heating or cooling system popping on. Others I hear as clearly as though someone was just in my ear. I often wondered what had happened here before me: who had lived within these walls and what had occurred.

There was always the smell in this room, too. Clean. And perhaps that is better than rancid, but this was too often overpowering; as though someone had been scrubbing something away.

I decided to retrieve the blueprints from the old library just down the block (that, too, a remnant of the old base, lending out books as if they were part of the benefits). All the duplexes were the same, so the blueprints were easy to find and easier to recognize.

Except for just one thing - these blueprints didn't match my own home.

The outside matched fine, the front door - yes. But the entryway was much larger on these blueprints, the kitchen on the opposite end. The bedrooms appeared in the wrong spots entirely. But mostly I noticed there were no sunrooms at all displayed in these blueprints - not even space for such a room.

"Excuse me," I carried the prints back to the librarian. "Are these the blueprints of the duplexes here?"

The librarian was older and though she had been the very one who had handed me the blueprints, graciously took another look if only to humor me.

"Yes, dear, those are them."

"And were there some remodels done? Perhaps on some of them?"

"They updated the appliances and some of the flooring once the base shut down, but no, nothing much more than that."

I didn't bother to ask anything else. I walked back home, to the one with the sunroom. I looked at the walls and peeked into the rooms. The blueprints ingrained in my mind; I found all the things which didn't match.

I found myself yet again in that sunroom - the one that shouldn't exist. And inside the room which shouldn't exist came the whispers which always had - shushing and calling to me, begging and demanding my attention, pushing and shoving their way inside of my ears and the inside of my head. They said things I couldn't understand and things that made no sense at all.

Calm down and sit...

Take this now...

You shouldn't be here...

...to your room.

Not again...

...must be the end.

The whispers twirled and tangled together and closing my eyes only made them get louder. I held on to some of the words: now, here, end and found myself, eyes still closed, running for my front door, clutching my ears.

Walking out at the same time was my neighbor - my duplex neighbor. Our houses are attached; our houses should be the same. And I really shouldn't have, not with my disheveled look and tear-stained cheeks, but part of me had to know and the other part of me -

"May I please see your sunroom?"

She brought me in looking confused but was obviously too friendly to ask herself anything further.

"I don't have a sunroom, but if you mean the living room take a look. I know how hard it is to fix your furniture with these small rooms,"

I felt terror and anger. I shook my head and covered my ears, though the whispers surely couldn't find me here.

The rooms had been mismatched and the hallway had been in the wrong spot. There was no sunroom just as she had said.

I don't remember leaving, but I once again found myself back in my sunroom. My sunroom. My very real sunroom. But when I looked down at my shaking hands, I realized they were covered in blood.

And that's all I could see before the whispers found me and I closed my eyes to simply let them in.

A nurse stood above me, two others just behind her. I could smell bleach and laundered linens. Antiseptic spray wafted through my nostrils and though it was familiar, it terrified me. I was awake but I wasn't really there. They spoke to me but really spoke through me.

"Calm down and try to sit up."

"Take this now, and you'll feel better."

"You shouldn't be here by yourself."

"We need to get you back to your room."

"Not again," another nurse sighed.

I came to but couldn't take it all in. The nurses' nametags read Margrave Psychiatric Hospital just under their bolded names.

But suddenly their hovering stopped, and each nurse turned their attention to the one screaming in the doorway. They looked back at me, some backing away while another held me down.

And just when I was becoming afraid, they returned. As if the rock me back to that familiar room. The whispers.

...roommate just found dead.

Hold her until security...

Doctor on his way...

I let myself back into my little sunroom, all the while whispering to myself, "finally, this must be the end."

Katie Lilljedahl | 2023-06-12