Paranoia

Written on August 10th, 2019   by Anakronizam aka Arijana G.

Harley is scared of people and thinks that someone always follows her. When she starts hearing hiccoughs whose cause she doesn´t know, she becomes even more stressed out.

I.

Harley Tinder was what some people like to call "pretty girl", although she never thought of herself like that. She was well formed, perhaps even too well, her hair was shiny and blond, her eyes big and blue and she had freckles all over her cheeks, but not those irritating freckles, but cute dots a bit darker that the rest of her skin which made her expression always so innocent, kind of childish, but still very attractive. 

 Harley was standing by the road, waiting for the bus to come. There weren´t many people around her and she was glad because of that. Not all girls liked to be surrounded by the mass of people. Harley hated it. Her communicating skills were seriously regressed, her vocabulary although rich in her mind was very poor whenever she spoke. If someone happened to come to her at that moment and ask her something, or even worse, tried to talk to her like people usually do, she´d most certainly break and make a scene. Now was not the time for that, so Harley´s eyes rolled around to see if someone was coming towards her, but luckily noone was. 

 Just an hour earlier, if she said doctor Thompson how she felt, he would tell her that lots of people, especially young girls without someone to protect them, feel like that all the time; scared, restless, always careful while in public. He´d given her some more pills to drink twice a day, in the morning for a good day and before going to bed for tight sleep, as he like´d to describe it, but those medicine never helped her. What she felt wasn´t fear and it wasn´t normal. She wasn´t worried about what would people around her think if she made a stupid mistake in communicating or something like that, she didn´t care about people at all. It was something else, something even her mind vocabulary couldn´t explain to itself and she definitely couldn´t say doctor Thompson what it is.

 Someone hiccoughed. Harley turned to her left from where it seemed the sound had come. There was an old lady with a couple of bags in her hands, a bald man eating a donut and squeezing all the chocolate from it and another man who definitely seemed like someone who just had a hiccough. It was very hot, Harley realised then. Summer was at its worst, or best, depending on how you looked at it. She went on looking around herself hoping that noone would approach her because that would not end well. She just had a meeting with her psychologist like she had every Friday morning. Needless to say that these meeting weren´t leading anyone anywhere. The night before was stressful. Very stressful. 

 Harley was eighteen years old and she lived alone in a small apartment. She left her mother last year. She was an alcoholist who never cared about her child. Her father died when she was much younger, too young to remember him. She guessed that´s when her mom started drinking and it had become a terrible habit which brought them unbearable misery. Harley couldn´t take it anymore and one day she left. Just like that. She didn´t start a life of her own right away. First she went to her father´s mother, her grandmother, with who she was still in touch. Well, until yesterday, that is. Grandma Tinder was a strong and supporting woman who loved her granddaughter and she helped her until she finished that last year of school. Harley was really thankful for her help. Yesterday, right after she got home from her job-cleaning in some hotel near her flat-she got a call from hospital in the town her grandma lived in. They expresed how sorry they were, distracted her mind from the important question what had happened, and told her in the end that her grandmother died. It was a natural death, no pain, no suffocating for days, fast and unexpected. They asked her if they should contact her mother. They weren´t sure because her grandma told her doctor about the family situation and the two of them weren´t real family since Harley´s dad died anyway. Harley told them not to call her mother. She´d do that, she said, but she didn´t. She put the telephone down and stared at wall for a while. Then she started crying and it didn´t seem she´d ever stop. She did, after an hour or so, and went for some hot milk to help her fall asleep, but the fridge was empty. No food and no drink except for two eggs and one tomato. 

 The image of her grandmother in a grave still haunted her. She didn´t intend to go to the funeral. She didn´t think she could stand it, all those people in black around her. Her aunt would deal with that. She should call her father´s sister and tell her how sorry and sad she is because of what happened. She never really talked much to that woman, but as much as she did, she found her friendly. 

 The bus came. Harley´s guard dropped. No one came to her, nobody talked to her and, well, nothing and nobody killed her.

 She got in the bus, sat down on a chair and heard that strange hiccoughing sound again. She turned and saw that man sitting behind her. Perhaps she shouldn´t have relaxed so quickly. She still wasn´t home, so she still wasn´t really safe. The sound his throat made scared her a bit, perhaps just because it was a surprise, but perhaps also because it sounded like it followed her. Nobody else seemed to be bothered with it. That made her even more alarmed. She kept squeezing her bag and keeping herself as far away from people as possible until it was time to get of the bus. When her foot touched the ground, she looked left and then right and started running to her flat, hoping its tricked safety would make her feel better.

 When she came to the door of her apartment, she quickly put her bag down carefully looking around the hallway for any intruders. She couldn´t find her keys in the pocket. Panic had risen inside of her, but before it reached its maximum, she searched for them in another pocked. She breathed a sigh of relief when she felt metal in her hands. She took the keys and opened the door. She entered her apartment, her home. She was safe. And there was nobody going after her, nobody wanting to hurt her.

II.

 Midnight passed. Harley was still awake, holding bed sheets tightly in her hands. She left the window in her room open. It was to damn hot to close it. She looked through it. The sky was clean, no clouds at all, and the stars were beautiful. Her grandma used to tell her that if she tried really hard, she could reach the sky and bring all the stars down someday. When Harley was much younger, she believed those words were completely true. Now she realised what her grandma meant for real, but she didn´t think she was able to get the stars come down for her. Someone else might do it, but not her, she was to weak for that.

  She couldn´t stop thinking about her grandma. The old lady was her best friend, her supporter, the only person she could talk to freely and who she could count on at any time. Now she was gone. Lost in the endless univers of the death. Forever. 

 The image of her grandma left in the coffin and put into the groun came to her mind uninvited and it seemed that she could not send it away. That was enough, Harley though, what happened, happened, and she doesn´t have the power to change it, in fact, noone has, so what does it matter anymore? She has to continue with her life and she has to do it exactly because her grandma would want that. She was strong and would want her granddaughter to be strong, too. 

 Harley sat up on her bed and looked at the floor. She heard mosquito flying somewhere near to her. She hated those small blood-sucking cretaures. She always thought that they were very similar to people. They drank blood to survive. In a way, humans did the same thing and in a way humans buzzed and drove each other crazy. Actually, when she thought about it a bit more, she saw that all creatures were the same blood-sucking fuckers and she had no right to hate mosquitos because of their way of surviving, even if it was disgusting and the marks they left on your skin after bloody feast itched like hell.

 Someone hiccoughed.

 Harley jumped from her bed and lay down on the floor. Her senses sharpened, her eyes wide open looked around as if seeking for something that fell on to the floor. Her breath got louder and deeper although she tried to make it more silent. The sound she heard just a moment ago was clear and she was sure it was real, imagined sounds can not sound like that. All of a sudden, instead of her dead grandmother, Harley had thousands of other pictures in her head. She remembered the man from the bus station, the one she thought was coughing while she waited for the bus. Could he have followed her? She didn´t see anyone around her flat before coming in, but maybe he came earlier. How did he enter? She imagined him hidding below her bed or in her small bathroom. Why would he follow her? Maybe he entered just a few minutes ago, the window was opened the whole time and it was dark, but it was the third floor, so how the hell could he came up and why? He wants to kill you, someone will hurt you, someone is watching you now, then and always. But it didn´t make any sence. She always felt like she had to be very careful because someone followed her or watched her, but somewhere deep inside herself she knew it was all nonsense. However, never until now had she experienced actually noticing something weird in her apartment.

 Then again, maybe she had imagined it. She was tired and she had enough of those scary-dead-grandma thoughts run through her head already. She took a deep breath and got up to her legs. – Calm down now, Harley – she whispered to herself – you´re starting to really imagine things. You´re going mad. – The possibility of actually going mad seemed somehow funny to her so she laughed a bit and then got back to bed.

III.

 She slept the rest of the night with the window opened, so she woke up very early because the sunset bothered her. She put her hands on the face and cursed the morning through them. It was another day. Nobody killed you, but they might today. Singing of the birds didn´t seem charming to her at all, but more than ever annoying. She got up to close the window and then went back to her bed. Before she even got to pull the blankets, someone hiccoughed. Instinctively, she let go of the blankets and let out a sigh of surprise. The same sound she heard during the night. Then she heard it again and her hands started to shake. She looked at them, completely freaked out, but she couldn´t make them stop. She didn´t even notice that her mouth were slightly opened. She didn´t find the strenght to close them. She waited a few minutes during which she heard nothing but silent town sounds coming from the outside. Something was inside, someone was here. Slowly she bend down to see uder her bed. Nothing was there except for a spider and his web. Still scared to hell, she got up and walked to the door. At first, she didn´t want to open them. What if someone was hiding behind them, waiting with an ax or something to kill her, rip her body and cut it on little pieces? She blinked a few times, her hands were in the same position, still shaking. She closed her eyes, bite her tongue and opened the door.

 She was alone. Encouraged, but still careful, she looked around her flat. She was definitely the only person in there. So maybe she was going mad and imagined all those hiccoughing sounds. To her it seemed like an better option than that there was someone here wanting to hurt her. 

 She made some coffee and sat on the couch to drink it. She wanted to concentrate on her daily routine and plan what she´ll do today, but she couldn´t stop thinking about the hiccough. She might have imagined it. She was tired. Maybe she had mistaken the sound of the car or something coming from her neighbors for the sound she heard at the bus station. It might have been real there and then and it was creepy, so she might have memorized it and now hear it whenever a similar sound was made. It surely was something her histeric mind would do. 

 After going through all of that, she looked at the clock and realized she was late to work. She dressed herself up and ran to get to the bus. Nothing weird happened while she was driving and she watched carefully for anyone or anything that isn´t as it should be. Everything was just fine and casual. People, cars, road, houses, other buildings-everything as it should be. Yet she felt someone watching her again. She was scared to turn around to check if someone was really starring at her. In the same time she was feeling fear, but also a completely new feeling of shame. Always so careful, so paranoid, so untouchable. It was ridiculous. No one ever hurt her. Why would anyone do it now?

 Why not?

 Her day at work was fine, exhausting as always, then she went to have lunch at an Asian snack-bar close by, went for a walk through a park she liked very much because it was calm and pretty much always empty except for the ducks in a pool. Perhaps even subconsciously she waited to hear a hiccough. Her ears listened every shushing sound the trees made, every word a rare person who passed by her said, every cat meowing, but that was really all they heard. A feeling of disappointment passed through her, but was fast replaced by relief. She was glad she had imagined it all.

 She came home late, looking around her for intruders as always, but not finding any and that was good because it was normal, it was all part of her every day routine. She locked the door. For some reason, she always locked it twice. If she could, she´d probably do it three, four, even five times, but two times was limit of the lock. She put the keys where she always put them-in old sneaker she never wears anymore, but is still here just as a place to hide keys. She warmed up a glass of milk and took some cookies she bought before coming home. When she sat to eat, she remembered she ought to call her aunt. It was late. She will do it tomorrow. 

 After eating, she took the glass to put it in the dishwasher. Suddenly, her telephone rang. She turned and without thinking left the glass out of her hand so it fell on the floor and broke into thousand little scraps. She jumped away from the glass and looked at it with confusion. After a second, her mind understood what happened. She sighed. The phone was still ringing. She went to answer it, but before she got there, it stopped. 

-Damn it.

 She cleaned the mess and threw it away. She guessed she had enough for today and it was time to sleep. Then someone hiccoughed.

 Harley jumped as if someone pinched her. She hugged her body and starred around her, her eyes histerically seeking for where the sound came from. Then she heard it again and maybe she imagined it, but it seemed closer than before. When she heard it for the third time, she let out a scream. And run to the door. She stopped before opening them. Where would she go? Was someone really here with her? She heard it again. Then she opened the door and got out. 

 She stood in the hallway without knowing what to do. She couldn´t remember any option. Her mind froze while her whole body was shaking. Intruder, killer, robber, hurt you, kill you, cut you, blood-sucking creature, rape you, shoot you...

 She couldn´t stay here. She wasn´t imagining the sound, that was sure now, so someone had to be inside of her apartment. She should go to the police and report the intruder. The police would solve everything.

 Hiccough. Again. In the hallway.

 Frightened, Harley began to run. She ran down the hallway without target. Hiccoughing followed her down the stairs, it was becoming faster and faster until it melted into one long, incommodious sound that kept creeping her out. For the first time in her life instead of sharpening her senses, she covered her ears with her hands hoping that the hiccoughing will stop following her like an uninvited ghost. She narrowed her eyes hoping to wake up from this nightmare, but nothing happened, the salvation didn´t come.

 The whole world seemed to stop together with her heartbeat when she exited the building. The sound was gone, she was alone. It was dark. The moon was almost full. Harley looked around herself, suddenly aware of the space which surrounded her. Just a moment ago she wanted to go to the police, but now she wasn´t so sure anymore. What would she tell the policemen? A sound followed her. It wasn´t a person. It couldn´t have been her imagination. She imagined many things in her life, but she knew this had to be real. No, police would not help her, but she had to find someone to help her. There was only was person in the whole world she could remember of.

 She waited for the bus in her pajamas. When it arrived, she entered without money to pay for the card. The driver looked at her with confusion and worry. She probably looked terrible; her hair unkempt, her pajamas, her scared face, shaking hands. 

-It´s an emergency – she whispered, swallowed and tried to continue more calm. – I must see someone urgently, but I have no money with me.

-Gorl, sre you alright?

 The worry in fat man´s eyes was touching, but she had no time for this.

-I will be – she said – please let me in.

 After few undescribably long seconds during which the driver was studying her with father like care, he finally noded and she was inside. She drove for about twenty minutes and then got out on a station near the city. She walked a few minutes until she found herself in fron of the door. She´d been here yesterday and should have come the next Friday. It was to soon to be here, she felt it was wrong, but not more wrong than what was happening to her. She knocked and waited, but there was no answer, so she tried again and again until she saw the ligh turning on. Before doctor Thompson opened the door she heard the sound of the keyhold while he was using the key to unlock it and thought how calming that sound worked on her weakened nerves at this moment. Doctor Thompson was astonished when he saw her.

-Harley? What... Do you know what hour it is? Wait, did something happen?

-Doctor Thompson, I´m scared – it was all she could say and then she started crying.

 She felt stupid and childish, but she could not calm herself down. What she had experienced in the last two days shocked and scared her so much and now she was here and all of that fell right on her heart and she realized the greatness of her fear was such she could not bear, so she broke. He invited her inside, telling her that everything will be okay, that she needs to be more silent because she´ll wake up everybody... But it was to late. Mrs. Thompson was already awake, she was looking at them from the stairs, her hair in curlers, cigarette in her hand already.

-What is it?

 Her voice was sleepy, annoyed, but filled with true desire to help. They sent Harley to the living room. She stoped crying. She waited there for a couple of minutes while the two of them talked in the kitchen. She looked at the photos exposed on the little wooden desk in front of her. She recognized Doctor and his wife and between them was a young girl with brown hair and green eyes. The photo showed the girl in her solemn clothes and graduation diploma. She guessed the girl was their daughter. She was probably on college now. Harley never went to college and she never planed to. What her mother thought about it, she did not care. She wondered what her grandma really wanted for her. Would she have been happier if Harley ried harder at school and continued her education? Maybe, but it was too late to aks her now.

 Doctor Thompson entered the room holding a cup of warm tea in his hands. His wife looked at her from the door. She smiled and waved with her hand. Then she walked away leaving the two of them alone.

-Harley, tell me what happened.

 She drank a bit of tea. She put the cup down afterwards and looked at it, thinking what might she say, what was the most convincing thing she could say.

-Someone is following me. Or something.

-What do you mean? Have you taken your pills?

-It has nothing to do with pills, doctor. I don´t know what it it, but it seems it can´t be a human.

-Harley, are you sure? You don´t sound like you understand yourself.

-Perhaps I don´t – she was getting frustrated again – but listen to me anyway. For the last two day I have been followed by something really unusual and it followed me to my home and out of it. I didn´t know who to go to, so I came here...

-How do you know someone is following you? And why?

 She took a deep breath. – Hiccough.

 Doctor looked at her completely confused. – What?

-I Hear hiccoughing. All the time. I heard it on the bus station the first time and thought it was a man who stood there, but then I hard it during the night in my bedroom, several times. I thought I imagined it, but I didn´t. I heard it again and again and today I heard it all the way down the hallway and...

-Harley – doctor stopped her – calm down. Did you see anyone?

 She thought a bit. The man on the bus station. But no one in her room.

-Did you even speak to anyone? Does anybody else see of hear what you do? No? Well, then, Harley, it was your im...

-No.

-Harley, it´s okay. Did you really take your pills? They do help, you know, so you should take them.

-It was real.

-Drink the tea, Harley, and then you should get some sleep. You can stay tonight, but you must go home in the morning.

-No – she got up – I´m not staying. You don´t believe me and therefore I have no reason to stay with you. I shall seek for help elsewhere.

 She didn´t wait for him to say anything more, but rushed out of the house right away. When she got out, someone hiccoughed.

-Damn it.

 She ran and ran, doctor Thompson was calling for her, but she ignored him. She was moving as fast as she could. She felt like crying again, but tears wouldn´t come out. She cried everything she had and now she was dry with tears and with emotions. No more excitement, not even fear. She was empty, alone and lost. 

 And someone hiccoughed.

IV.

 She was walking for some time, distant to the world around her, seeing everything around her in a dim way like she was dreaming. The town wasn´t very crowded. A car would pass by her side every few minutes, its lights would surprise her, so she would try to repel them by waving her hand. There weren´t many people and yet everything was loud. Maybe because she was sleepy, maybe because the fear inside of her escalated so much it made her that way, or maybe because of those unarticulated sounds all around her, Harley fell into unconscious state which moved her without any sense or intention. Hiccoughing was resounding in her ears, making deep beats that hurt her hearing. 

 She walked into a loud and shiny club. Inside, bodies were shaking, some people already so drunk they started taking of their clothes, some just lay on the couches. Harley felt caution, she knew this was not the place for her to be in. Some people looked at her with confusion. She probably looked like she came straight out of hell, and in a way, that was far away from truth. A man stopped her, took her hand and pulled her away from the dancing spot.

-Who are you? – he asked without care in his voice.

 Harley looked at him, but couldn´t really see him. His face was escaping her eyes, turning into bubbles in weird shapes like in a cartoon. She blinked trying to see through the fog in her eyes, but it didn´t help. Suddenly, she felt pain in her belly. She bended down holding her abdomen with her hands and started to breath heavily. Now the man seemed more concerned.

-Are you okay? What is it?

-Toilet! Where.... is...

 He waved with his hand in a direction and Harley hurried towards it without saying anything else to him.

 She entered fancy lavatory with walls covered with pink false fur and red leather couches opposite of huge mirrors. Two girls in shorts and shirts that barely covered their breasts were standing fixing their make-ups in front of the mirrors, the third one was lying on the red couch. They looked at Harley with confusion and disgust.

-Hey, girl – one of them said – you look like some horror movie whore or something. You okay?

 Harley didn´t even looked at her. She continued to the toilet and when she got to one, she knelt on her knees and after a second vomited all the food that has been left in her body. Then she bended backwards, blankly looking at white ceiling.

 Hiccough.

 She quickly exited. The three girls were still there, now all of them standing. They looked at her little scared.

-Did any of you just hiccough?

 She came closer to them, her voice sounded like devil´s and pointed at them with her finger causing them to shiver from fear.

-What do you want? – one of them asked, obviously freaked out.

-Did you hiccough?

 Harley raised her voice. She could see them just fine now, their torn lace tights, red lipstick and long nails. She could smell their perfumes that couldn´t cover stinking smell of bear. 

-No... – the black haired girl who was sitting when Harley came said – None of us... coughed or anything...

-Was there anyone else in here? Did you see somebody?

 They shook their heads. Harley put her hand down and looked at them like she was going to cry. She passed them by and they moved away like they didn´t even want to touch her. Outside the lavatory, people were still moving in the rhythm of techno music, sweating and laughing and Harley hated them all. They were mad, all of them, wasting their time like this, drinking and eating junk, risking their lives every night because she knew even to well that any of these people could be her follower, any of these men and women could haunt her and want to kill her, so she got to get away. With closed eyes, Harley was breaking through the mass of people, feeling their sweat dripping on her and hating them even more because of that.

 She finally got away from people and exited the club. Fresh air surprised her, but she was happy she was finally able to breath normally. Then she heard a hiccough again. This time, she wasn´t scared like before. She was hearing this sound for a while now and although she knew it must have been real, she somehow felt that noone was chasing her. If there really was a person following her, she´d see him until now, but she didn´t, so there couldn´t have been anyone seeable. 

 Hiccough. Hiccough. Hiccough.

 She sat on a bench in front of a coffee shop which was now naturally closed and looked in front of herself like she was expecting some sign to tell her what to do, but she wasn´t really expecting anything. Before she knew it, she started crying and hiccoughing continued and she hated it because it became even more than scary.

-Are you alright?

 She raised her head and faced an old man. He was hunched and had several heavy bags on his back. He had brown linen cap on his head and gray hair under it. His face was covered in gray beard, but it didn´t manage to hide his green eyes. His clothes were disorganized and his shoes were full of holes. He was probably a homeless guy Harley usually saw sleep at the corners of big buildings.

-No – she admitted – no, not really.

-What is it?

 He sounded very concerned and Harley was surprised because she felt unexpected trust towards this man and she usually felt no trust at all towards unknown people, not even those she knew she didn´t trust completely.

-I think someone is chasing me – she said very silently – but I never saw anyone and now I´m confused...

-Someone is chasing you?

-Yes – she nodded her head – and I know it sounds crazy, but I keep on hearing this... hiccough... it was in my flat and it follows me wherever I go and I can´t stand it anymore!

 The man looked at her with curiosity, but without doubt of evilness. He put down his bags and sat in front of her on the floor.

-My doctor doesn´t trust me – she continued – he thinks I´m imagining everything, but I´m not. I want it to stop, whoever it is, to leave me alone.

 He blinked and in that gesture she felt compassion, perhaps even understanding. She felt relief and even when she heard another hiccough she stayed steady and calm.

-There are strange things in the world. When you live in the streets witnessing all the people´s doings when they pass you by without even noticing you, you notice them. You learn to read them, to read everything around you and you understand that some things can not be explained.

-I don´t understand – she said – you read me?

-Perhaps, but that is not my point – he continued in a nice voice that made her feel comfortable – but that people take many things in wrong manner. You keep fighting the voice or sound you hear, but maybe you should not. 

-How do you mean?

-Try to talk to it. Sometimes, talking makes a lot of difference.

 He got up and looked at the watch on his hand. Harley noticed it was broken and didn´t work, yet she said nothing.

-I must go now – he said and smiled – good luck with those who haunt you. Haunting doesn´t necessary have to be a bad thing, you know.

 He left her with those words. She was sitting there for some time, thinking about what the old man said to her. In the beginning, it didn´t make any sense to her. How could she become friends with the one who is hunting her, maybe even wants to hurt her. Kill you, slaughter you and throw you in some abandoned pit in the wood where nobody will ever find your damaged body. 

 She went home. Just like she came to the town, she got on the bus without paying (now she looked like she´s really been through hell and no driver wanted to kick her out of the bus) and drove home. She entered the building and got back to her apartment.

-Alright – she said louder that she intended as soon as she got inside – I will not fight you anymore. I accept you. You can´t be a human or something because you, as much as I managed to observe, do not have a body. So here I am and if you want something from me, say it now. No more hiccoughing, just tell me what do you want from me.

 Silence. Not even the slightest, the most silent hiccough. Nothing.

-Why did you stop now? I finally surrender. Isn´t that what you want?

 Nothing. Confused and tense she went to her bedroom and lay down on her bed. She was tired, but her eyes remained widely opened, impatient and excited. She waited and waited for the response...

V.

 She woke up late that Sunday morning, got up and ate some cookies she bought the other day. She figured she´d have to go to grocery shopping because she was left without any food.

 She came home around four p.m. and remember to call her aunt. They talked for a while and when her aunt asked her how are things , she answered that everything is just as usual and that she is fine. After a long talk, she felt better. She wasn´t the only one who lost someone. Her grandma was loved and everyone who knew her were sad because of her death. She accepted that that´s how things are. You live, you do your best to use your lifetime and enjoy it as much as you can, and then you die. And that´s fine. In the end, her aunt even joked a bit, saying how grandma Tinder always complained that she lived for so long and was so tired, and yet she wanted to stay with them just for the pleasure of annoying them. And Harley remembered that she really used to say that. It was funny then, when she was alive, and now it was little sad, but it remained a dear memory.

 She watched TV, took her pills, washed herself and went to sleep. 

 Nobody hiccoughed.