The only thing that spoiled his perfect image was a small scar under his left eye. He was wearing a pair of black boxer briefs and a T-shirt, and a skater performed a circle in front. He stood in front of me, motionless. I didn't move, he bit his lower lip lightly, tilted his head, squinted his eyes, and stared at me nervously. The "sense of practicality" he exudes made me feel as if I underestimated his age.
At the end of the staring contest, his mother jumped up the stairs, her arms full of groceries from the nearest 4/7 store. "Philip, what are you doing outside in your pajamas? Go back to the house," she said. He turned around, walked back, looked at me from behind his shoulder, and gave me an expression that made me think he looked a little familiar.
"I'm sorry if he disturbed you, miss," she said. "He shouldn't come out when I'm not at home. He usually locks the door before I come back. By the way, my name is Karen. I'm glad to finally see you." She reached out as much as possible.
"Please let me help you move these in. This is Kelly." I proposed to buy a bag.
"Oh, no, I can handle it, really." She walked to her door and began to enter. Soon, she let me know that I will not be invited in now. "It's nice to meet you, and I'm sorry about Philip. He is my adopted son. He has special needs. I will try to talk to him about your privacy. Have a nice evening." The door closed, three The locks are all locked.
I heard Mu himself whimpering and scratching the door, so I inserted the key into the lock and turned it. When I opened the door, she sniffed anxiously behind me. However, once her eyes met mine, she scrutinized and immediately glared at me, rejecting my attempt to kiss. She turned her head, walked to the cupboard where she was entertained, sat down, and stared out the window. I laughed, and she snarled a vicious roar. How can I not give her a big sorry hug and her favorite treat
I was about to go to bed, crawling tenaciously under my comfortable quilt, resisting the frequent push of a happier Kimoto, and joining her in the game. Finally she gave up and snorted loudly beside my bed. I put my hand on her and she licked it gently.
As I gradually fell asleep, my thoughts kept drifting towards Philip, and he stared at me judgingly, as if he was trying to judge what crime I had committed. This makes me very disturbed. However, I still entered a deep rapid eye movement state, and then the dream began.
Standing by the lake, Philip was muddy, wearing black boxer shorts and a skating shirt, constantly turning into several different people: people I have never met, people who seem a bit familiar, and some of my life People, including my childhood friends who forgot their names. He exudes an air of confusion.
Bu sat at an elegant table, eating rotten cantaloupe with a rusty fork, and Amber and Russell were playing with a huge beach ball shaped like an embryo. Gunthreon played chess with herself, and my mother was standing in the middle of the board, crying. I tried to run towards her, but her hands pulled me back—the hands of hundreds of disfigured and non-human beings. They struggle, pull, hurt. I watched my mother slowly melt to the ground, and the untouchable pain made me scream. All that was left were her eyes and the top of her head, when she returned to me, her eyes widened because she recognized me. Her grief suddenly resembled an arrow to my heart.
I suddenly let go of my hands and lay upright, breathing in the air, and the burning images in my head made me feel sick. Sweat soaked my pajamas, and when I got up to go to the bathroom, I felt a pain in my arm—a terrible pain in my muscles. I lifted my pajamas arm, and then I saw a bruise - a deep purple, finger-shaped bruise.
Mu Ben sat at the front door, sniffing the front door, and wagging his tail. I ran over and poked my head out of my eye hole, and saw Philip's door shut quickly and quietly.
I will call my mother right away. The phone rang only once, and she replied, "Hello?" There was no sleepiness in her voice.
"Mom, how are you?" I said.
"Yes, my dear, I'm fine," she said. "You must have had a nightmare. Go to sleep." I don't know. I'm always online. These rìzi, I can't believe that any madness or pain I imagine is just a dream. It seems that there is reality in every strange place in my life.
"I'm scared, mother," I groaned, holding back tears.
"Do you need me to come over?" she hurriedly said anxiously.
I stopped and reached for the silver ring on the bedside table. I said, "No. No. I'll get better," I tossed over and over again.
"I will call you tomorrow before you go to work. Go to bed, Kelly," my mother said.
I hung up the phone, walked to the refrigerator, grabbed a bag of frozen peas, and tried to heal some serious bruises. I put the bag on my arm and fell asleep.
"Mom, we have to talk. Will you go home tonight?"
When I was chatting on the phone, I was also changing the wet and smelly sheets.
"I will go home on Friday. I have to go to Frankie in Aurora to find someone to help me pick the new face on the wall. Would you like to come over and I will cook?" she said.
"Can I make a request?" Thinking of this, my saliva began to flow on my tongue. Food makes me so excited, and I can't help it.
"You don't need to do this. Diane's steak and honey mustard potato rind, that's it."
"Yes! Thank you mom. You are amazing!" I can almost see the smile on her face. For a while, I even forgot the purpose of Friday night.
Before I went to work, my next phone call was to Gunthreon and he told me that he slept well last night. There was a pitiful noise in the background of Gunthreon, as if someone was cutting their lungs.
"This is Bu," Gansreon State. "I think he might have eaten something bad, and he ate raw meat, and he has an iron stomach—"
Gunsleyon, my dream-it has something to do with my dream last night!" I said. I told him about the dream and the scar on my arm.
"Are we alone in the dream?" Gunthreon asked. "Apart from us, do you know anyone else?" I heard an excitement in his usually cold voice.
"Philip is in there too."
"Who is Philip?"
"A new neighbor of mine. He looks like a very strange boy, but he is very beautiful, Gunthreon. I think he has special needs, or at least his adoptive mother Karen said so
"What does Philip look like?"
"He is about eight years old, with golden hair and big brown eyes."
"Is this boy any different?" Gunsleyon said, and he seemed to want some important information from me. "Maybe it's an accent, a birthmark or something?"
"No, wait, he has a scar on his face."
"Under his left eye?"
I didn't know what to say, so I just sat there, dumbfounded. "Yes... ... "
"After so long, he is right under our noses!" Guns Lewon began to laugh. "Kelly, oh, Kelly, you don't know what that means." He smiled harder.
I was suddenly afraid of Gunthreon's interest in this boy, and then I was afraid of this boy. "Should I be afraid of him?"
"Oh, yes, be afraid of him-be very afraid." This time he laughed so badly that I wanted to hang up, because I was afraid of Gunthreon's hysteria going through the phone waves. "Kelly, you must go and talk to him. Don't let him know that you know him. Pretend you are a neighbor."
"Why did you send me out to talk to a dangerous man?" I stammered and prayed that he would stop laughing.
"Trust me. I'll talk to you later," Gunthreon said.
Then he hung up. He is going to drive me crazy.
My next call is to the office, because I will definitely not be able to work today. I will become a mess, Amber will see through me, expecting some logical answers to my strange behavior, and I can't give anyone an answer right now. I need to keep a low profile until I can fully understand what is going on.
Kimoto tried to ignore me this morning, but when I was getting dressed, she peeked at me out of the corner of her eye. She doesn't know what I should do now-since I usually have gone, whether I will go or stay. I walked to her and sat on the floor of my bedroom, rubbing her neck with my head. She licked my face and smiled at me in her doglike way.
After a few minutes, I decided what I had to do. I grabbed my ring and pendulum and threw it into my pocket, then grabbed a cranberry orange muffin that I didn’t like at all, and bought it by accident during a recent groceries expedition (I don’t like going out alone ), and then walked towards the door. For a moment, I wanted to scream because I didn't know what action to take, but I decided that not rehearsing would be the best way to deal with it.
"Go and see what happens, okay?" I said to myself. I walked through the corridor, knowing that it was Monday and Philip was probably at school, but still knocked on the door.
Philip opened the door before I knocked on the third door. I stretched out the muffin and he stood motionless in the door. He stretched out his hand and stroked my skin, and when he stopped to examine it carefully and smell it, a small sigh overflowed from his mouth. I grabbed the hand of the place he had touched, with both hostility, admiration and a desire in my heart. This complex feeling intertwined and formed a feeling of anxiety.
"Cranberry orange—my favorite," he said with a smile. "Want to flatter me? Ha! No pun intended." I stared at him. "Butter, have you bought it?" He said, continuing to stare at me. He left the door open, turned and walked away, without waiting for my answer. I guess he wanted me to follow him, so I walked forward, but for some reason I couldn't walk in. I hit an invisible wall. My trembling strange energy seemed to flow through my skin. I raised my hand and faced the fence. This does not seem threatening, but it is more like a simple obstacle.
"Philip, if you want me to come in, I can't. I think you know this, right?"
He turned and walked back, then took a post-it note from the wall near the door and placed it on a table by the door. "Try it now," he said, and we stared at each other.
"I swear we have never met," I said, "but you look very familiar."
"For God's sake, I live next door. You must have seen me. Maybe you have seen me on the cover of "GQ" magazine-wait, let me be a parenting expert." He said with a smile.
I tried to enter the apartment again, slowly, and sure enough that I could. As soon as I walked in, I saw Sharpie written on the door frame—a set of characters matching the outside balcony. Deleting one of these symbols somehow broke the chain protecting the doorway.
He turned around and walked towards the kitchen. While he was not paying attention, I grabbed the post-it notes on the table for fear of being trapped in this apartment.
He took a cup and some cows, which seemed harmless to me. Then he lit a fire on the stove and put a teapot on it.
The whole apartment is green, not walls and carpets, but plants and flowers, located in every corner of this place. They are lush and vigorous and look like they have just been pulled out of the rain forest.
Then I noticed that there was a little mud on the hair around Philip's neck.
"There is mud on your neck," I said truthfully.
"What can I say? As he said, he put the tea bag into the cup, and then poured hot water on the tea bag. He behaved like a person familiar with the kitchen—a DúLì person.
"Philip, I think if your mother returns home now and finds that I am a stranger, in your apartment, the situation will be very bad, she may shoot at me." (to be continued) (end of this chapter)