Wild Memories of Mud

My first attempt at surrealist horror. If its even a bit successful I might make more similar stories. This one deals with Writers Block.

A Surrealist Horror by Jeffrey J. Dotson

Plock Plock Plock

Dripping. Never-ending insufferable dripping, a consequence brought upon the floor for the fault of some thrown debris or broken branch upon the leaking. So insufferable it has effectively halted my thoughts. My floor was submerged from one corner to another with this mind-numbingly distracting liquid, the hundreds of crumpled notebook paper did little to keep the floor dry, proof that their use is little before or after my pen touched the paper.

Plock Plock

The ideas in my head continue to crash with a sudden rhythmic drip, blocked time and time again by The ceaseless never ending weep of The ceiling fussing in nerveless agony! Twelve days. Has the Hurricane not passed yet? I've been too fearful; The papers float upon the foot deep pond, bloated and soaked, all once used to conjure ideas with no real sense of direction. Useless thin slabs of tree trunk gone to waste all for the sake of an fleeting idea that went nowhere, they now litter the room like Lilly pads do a pond. Some hold the audacity to try and aid in helping the sandbags laying at the foot of my door. Even then they serve no use. 

Plock Plock

That damned water drips with nary a care for my patience! An unintentional rudeness that has halted my hand and thought for the last time! I would at this moment prefer to risk the storm then to suffer this mundane thought-retardant fate worse then even death itself! Barefoot I take the plunge into my personal pond, trying in vain to use one of the many soggy pieces of paper lifelessly floating like Lilly pads. It parts for my foot. Useless! No, part from me now tension. The water is lukewarm, and simple enough to shuffle through, right up to the sandbags and the dozens of white crumpled up 'helpers'. I pay them no mind and toss aside the bags. My pond rushes to escape from under the door, and with a quick moment of mental preparation, what little the dastardly water droplets will allow me, I grip the handle and ready myself to do the same.

Plock Plock Plock

The door bursts open as though impatient to bestow upon me my long prayed for freedom. My pond makes haste to escape the choking claustrophobic room, with the chunks of bloated white flotsam making their attempt to escape over the sandbags, which remain adamant in their stand and remain immoving. Some of the long since wasted paper managed to flee the room, others are caught and stopped by the bags. Outside...

...Outside... What happened?

Outside where my once lovely neighborhood once stood bustling with activity, where my father's home existed just across the street, there was a wash of grey. It made no sense to my senses. Color seemed to escape from here, evacuating much like many of the occupants with the storm. A sludge of nothingness covered the roofs of the buildings dripped down the sides, threatening to envelope them all in lifelessness. Its as though an eraser had been brought to them. The skies were a grey themselves, darker. Blackish rain lightly drizzled upon the swallowed roofing and the life sapped ground. There wasn't a sign of fauna and the flora was all but withered. 

This was impossible. No hurricane or tropical storm could produce such a banal and cold image as this, this was not the work of such natural anger. Was this insanity? Had my isolation robbed me of my sanity? The drizzle lightened even more, nearing a nonexistence itself as if to give me room to think, and a thought did come. This vision before me, perverted by unfinished grey back-dropped beyond a merciless grey sky; this was a reality I had lived for the past several weeks. Every time I had made an attempt to pass time and draw or write my mind would blank, commonly awaiting until I was nearing a halfway point. Indeed the harder I studied the draining scenery that stood before my vision the more I noticed how akin it truly was to my many unfinished failures.

Perhaps I'm asleep, or comatose. I tried to wrap my mind around this crisis any way I could to justify it. I certainly didn't want to leave my room and humor this world's existence. My room. I had to double check. I couldn't help but sigh in empty relief, it remained unchanged. It remained the one stronghold for life and color in this dreary hell. My zone of safety, so to speak, but then there's the dripping... The maddening dripping. Its still loud in the back of my head. The reason I'd even considered to open the door to this unique wasteland. But perhaps it wouldn't be an issue now that the room had drained, much like a busted dam-

Plock

I promptly slammed the door behind me and groaned loud impatience. I was not enthused to adventure into this brand new half finished world, but this was a cut of heaven compared to the never-ending ceaseless torture of that vile mind-numbing dripping.  I took my first step off my porch- 

My porch! Much like the roofs of the buildings there was a wet blankness blanketing my grey faded porch. The sole of my shoe had landed upon one of these puddles. Had I put force upon it my leg would have slipped through. No sense of force met with the bottom of my sole. I moved my foot back and placed it on the solid grey not too far from it. I feel the ground on my foot... Curious. I immediately investigated; the bottom of my shoe had been removed clean, as if erased, and a bit of my sock too now had a small hole on it, a clean hole. I knew immediately what would happened if I had not stop my foot even an inch short. If I'm going to move around this terrain I would do well to be careful. Maybe I ought to retreat back to the comfort of my room.

I immediately bury the thought. Its not as though this odd amalgamation of my psyche was bringing a curiosity to me; I truly had no will to explore, but I refuse to be trapped in that room any longer. I hadn't the bravery to even open the door anymore in fear of catching once again that dreaded 'plock' within my ears. 

I reluctantly looked upon the porch for any 'safe' spots. There were a good handful leading up to the mostly untainted road. I made my way carefully without another incident, in spite of this damnable shoe. I was better off without it on now that it threw off my balance, so I promptly removed it and the other one. Out of curiosity I threw the 'damaged' show into one of the pools of white and it vanished into it. Evaporated down as though a rock thrown into a pond. I was tempted to do likewise with the other but decided against it and kept it in my hand. 

My instinct of repetition led me to cross the street to my fathers abode. I knew he wasn't here. Along with most in this area he evacuated the premises when they declared the hurricane a cat five. I still remember the big argument we had over my insistence in staying put. There was no room in neither his truck nor my friends Jeep; both were packed tighter then morning traffic and I wasn't about to ride with some stranger.  I'm regretting that decision now. I hate to think that Ive died. I hate to think that this maybe my own personal hell and that my father may find me dead under some tree that fell through my roof or the house just collapsed on me. That is if this isn't just some grand insane delusion.

I brushed my hand on the surface of the grey tinted glass on the window of my dads home, making an extra effort to not be near any of the blank white drips bleeding down. It has the feel of glass, but there's something vaguely off aside from the lack of color. I wanted to enter the house but there was only a third of a door where there once was before. Most of it had been enveloped by that white mass of emptiness. There was something I needed to know, to know for sure if what I was feeling deep down inside was true. I took the shoe in my hand and slammed it against the window. As glass would it shattered, but along the frame there was the strain as though it was on the verge of ripping. Perhaps that is just my imagination.

Perhaps all of this is just my imagination.

I used the bottom of my shoe to scrape the shards of glass along the bottom of the frame and climbed through only when I was sure I wouldn't get caught by a stray chunk. I looked down on to the floor before hopping down; it would be pathetic if I were to just aimlessly jump into a white void. Thankfully there wasn't much of that aside from the door not too far from the window I broke through, but the interior of this all too familiar home was a shade of grey. I wasn't surprised to find that it was darker inside, but I was sufficiently surprised that I could still clearly see. There were no lights on. At the very least the lack of power seemed to be grounded to this new reality, but the home wasn't any dimmer then the outside. It was simply shaded darker.

I sighed. It was a relief that my memory hadn't betrayed me, as I was beginning to think it had. Just in case, I wanted to check something out. I wanted to see how intact my old room was. I knew exactly how it looked since I often used it for the sake of storage, and even had a nigh abandoned work desk not too far from the window. Navigating the hallway was no issue. No white spots. I was all too ready to open my door and look upon my old desk nostalgically, perhaps a bit unnerved by the lack of color but by now I had grown apathetic and use to the dull nature of this world. I swung open the door almost gleefully.

Oh god. I- What in gods name is this?!

My eyes betrayed me. I must be dead or in a horrid fever dream. This was- this was- What in the hell am I even looking at?! My mind felt like it was collapsing at the sight of my room f- flapping. At the upper right corner it was as though it was torn from corner to center. Beyond that rip lay nothingness. It- it wasn't a 'color' or 'shade of grey' I could comprehend, it wasn't like the white-out bleeding from the skies and onto the roofs or seeping from my porch or enveloping the outside door to this house; beyond that tear in the room there was nothing. Just looking into it made me feel like I was going to collapse and die! My desk was torn from the side corner and warped alongside the tear. Oh god the tear!

I slammed the door closed and turned my head from the room. It feels like my brain is wavering, trying to make sense of what Ive seen and the more I did the more my skull screamed. The only thing I could be certain of is only bad things could come from my remaining in that room. I don't get it; if this was death's dream would I even feel like this? I felt very much alive, and I had to do everything in my power not to cover the floor with the contents of my last meal. The last thing I need to see is a sludgy mound of grey escape my mouth. I don't want to be in here anymore. I need to get out of here now. I ran through the hall and made my way quickly through the window I had entered through. 

I was quick to distance myself from that ungodly hellhole. The light drizzle from before had died entirely. The black 'rain' had made the ground damp, almost to the point where I was worried about ripping through the street. Thankfully the ground does not seem to be of the same fortitude of paper itself, but I still wanted to be careful. As frightening as the eradicating white was, I get the impression that falling into the vast inconceivable infinity of absolute nothingness would certainly be a fate far worse. I had contemplated retiring back to my home; my room. Looking toward my porch from where I sat I recognized the sheer white had spread enough to make crossing to my door considerably more difficult. 

I get the impression that my leaving my home had damned its interior to the same colorless fate of the rest of this neighborhood, and I'm not so sure I'd be willing to risk the ever so dangerous pool of white that was slowly eradicating my porch. Perhaps it was for the better, if not to avoid that ever so persistent drip that drove me to risk this venture in the first place. But what do I do now? I will never go into what was once my fathers home again, not after witnessing that, but what do I do now?

My mind was a muddle. Maybe I should go west toward the park and see what's become of it.

West.

Was the park West? Maybe it was East...

I don't remember. The white is bleeding past the porch and the white that was enveloping my fa-

My friends house? Whatever was the case that place feels like I should stay away. It was half erased from the white pooling liquid on the roof. 

I'm going west. The park is there for sure. I'm not ten feet from where I stood until I noted the vast emptiness that stood before me. I could see from a mile on this road and past the dark grey road was a vast sea of emptiness. The same white that had devoured the house of my neighbor that lived across the street from me.

Wait, why am I not wearing my shoes? My left is in my hand but my right...

...my right...

For the life of me I can't remember what happened to it. I look upward and see the clouds growing restless. There's a storm coming. Something's wrong with the sky, and the waterfall of pure white behind the clouds look like their waving back and forth like a sheet of paper.

Something's wrong. My mind feel's like mud. Its as if I'm suffering writers block or something, but that's not right, right? I can hear a dripping in the back of my head.

I look back up at the waterfall of white behind the clouds. The sky tears open behind the clouds. 

Author's Note

Also posted on Reddit under my account name bridgetocross