I’m writing this because my father can’t. He can’t do anything for himself anymore. But I’m writing this for me, too, because he is my mirror image. I’m hoping that by writing this, I can understand him better, and perhaps you will understand me, too.

I remember when my father was human. I remember walking with him downtown across the railroad tracks and he would joke about getting his foot caught, or when he would take AA batteries and pretend to swallow them. When we lived in a loft above a shady strip club. When he would spoil me, when he cared. When things were good.

My father was many things when I was young, but what sticks with me most were his religious inclinations. He was into neo-hinduism ever since I can remember. He had countless books from all sorts of philosophers or yogis about the nature of realization and enlightenment. He would play recordings of teachers somewhere off in India speaking on the nature of reality. I was always used to this. I can’t say his influence didn’t rub off on me. I can’t say some of my beliefs don’t stem from what he exposed me to. I’m just glad I didn’t go down the same route he did.

You see, my father was a little too obsessed with the idea of enlightenment. He would read his books all day long, almost like a ritualistic act; like if he kept it up, the universe might reward him with eternal bliss. He would tell me when I was little that he had to sit on his zabuton until his bones ached to know he was doing a good job, that a diligent meditation was necessary for his enlightenment. I would be playing games on my PS3 in the corner while my father sat in the middle of the room, legs crossed and eyes closed, still as a rock with an Om in his throat.

It truly grew to the point of obsession. All day he would be sat reading a great teacher in the original sanskrit or listening to one on his radio. Even as a child, I knew something was off when he started talking about meeting a guru.

He told me that there was this guru out in Texas — where he was born — that would be able to help him reach enlightenment, if only he could meet him. That just being in his presence would change you. I didn’t understand why he needed this so bad, but he did.

He began talking to this “guru” on online forums, telling me all about the wonderful conversations they had. He told me it was imperative that he chat with the guru for a while; the man was apparently a recluse. He wouldn’t meet just anyone. He needed to make sure you were deserving, or whatever. So for many months, I would hear occasionally how they talked to one another and the glorious teachings that were bestowed upon my father.

Finally, one day when I was 10, my father came to me with a smile on his face. I was busy playing Skylanders and eating chips, hands covered in dust. I put down the controller as he talked.

“I’m going to meet him.” He said. “Michael wants to see me.”

In that moment I can remember a spark of dread festering in my stomach. He went on to tell me we were going to Houston, that we were going to have such a good time, how this would change our lives.

Being 10 with only a father figure in my life, I had no choice but to travel with him. He couldn’t leave me with some extended family or siblings or even my mother. He was always the black sheep, which drove them all away. There was no one else to watch me while he met his guru, and I had no choice but to come along.

I remember feeling sick to my stomach as we drove south. My body ached with worry and discomfort as I thought about the guru. Michael Wirth was his name. A 40-something man who lived on the outskirts of Houston. I know my father told me once that he used to be a professor. I didn’t know why he wasn’t anymore at that time, but it’s so clear now. His only contact with the outside world seemed to be on private internet forums and Reddit. He would post his teachings in the silent halls of the internet, and the few desperate enough to find him would listen. My father was one of them.

We reached his home late the night we left. It was a 14 hour drive, non-stop but for gas or snacks. My father needed to be there.

It wasn’t what I was expecting. We were poor, but weren’t as poor as Michael. He lived in a trailer in the middle of no-where with no one else around. Through our yellowing headlights, I saw that he had a blue-and-white umbrella put up by his door to shade a beaten-up recliner from the sun. The fabric on it was torn and brown, stained from years of being outside. There were scattered trees around his home, overgrown and sheltering his reclusive nature from the world. Nowadays, I wonder if he was even legally there. It wouldn’t surprise me if he wasn’t. Nothing would surprise me about Michael.

When we arrived and my father shut the car off, the front door to the trailer opened. Out stepped a balding man in a dress shirt and pants. He looked like an office man to me. I’d wondered if he worked in the city.

My father stepped out and ushered me to come with him. I walked slowly behind him, trying to decide if I wanted to stay as far away from Michael as possible or if I wanted to cling to my father’s leg. I ended up keeping close because my father kept turning around to tell me to keep up the pace.

We stood before Michael and he looked peacefully into my father’s eyes. I stared up at him in fear as my father began to ramble to him, to spew his mouth about how glad he was to be here, how he was so excited to be shown the way. Michael said nothing. He just smiled softly. Some might find his presence to be utterly welcoming. I could tell that my body wanted that for me, but it wouldn’t come. I just stared at him with my heart racing, trying to understand why this man would scare me so much. My father wouldn’t shut up. He just kept talking. I wondered whether he would be embarrassed if he could hear himself. I knew he was too lost in himself to realize anything he was saying. He just wanted to please Michael, to know Michael.

When he seemed finished, Michael finally spoke. “Why don’t you come inside? We will talk.”

He looked happy then. He’d looked happy ever since we left Iowa, and even happier now that we were in his guru’s presence. He turned his jolly face to me and bent to my height.

“You can wait out here, Georgia Being.” That was his nickname for me. “Being.” I was his little ball of existence, a mirror of his own. “Me and Michael are going to talk. You can go in the car if you want, it’s unlocked. Just stay on this side of the road.”

I nodded, too frightened to protest. I felt like a mouse in a live trap, waiting to starve to death. And I felt stupid for it. I saw how happy my father was and I had the gall to feel so scared. If he trusted Michael, shouldn’t I? What right did I have not to listen to him?

They disappeared into the light of the trailer. I watched them go, standing in the cold dark of night. I remember how happy he looked in that moment, following his guru into his home. His rosy cheeks, the light in his eyes. It was the last time I would ever see him like that.

After our drive down, I was utterly exhausted. I needed to rest, but for some reason, my fear was now placed in my father’s safety as well as my own. I didn’t want to be out of sight of him, even if he was in a room I was not. What if he came running out and I had to defend him? What if I was his last hope?

I reluctantly sat in the dirtied recliner. It creaked as I sat down and I imagined myself on a high bridge over water. I sank into the cushion and felt springs pressing into my bottom. It stank of something I didn’t recognize and had a wetness to it. Not utterly wet, but soft as if it were sweating. It made me sick, but standing would exhaust me further and I did not want to wait in the car.

I stared out into the night while I waited. I tried so hard to keep my eyes open. It was so quiet. I was used to the sounds of cars on blacktop rumbling beneath my bed, or loud, blasting music coming up through the floor boards. The shouts of our neighbors having another domestic dispute, or ambulances blurring past. But this was so unfamiliar. There were no cars on the dirt roads we took to get here. There were no crickets chirping or neighbors partying. Not even a plane in the sky.

The only noise I heard was the coyotes barking.

I feel now that they were warning me. Their barks came from far off fields or forests in every direction. They howled in a choir somewhere I could not see. I thought I should be scared of them, scared that they would come eat a skinny kid like me – easy prey. But their howls only got farther until there was a lone coyote shouting. I thought he was saying, “Go home.”

I turned my head to the trailer. It was the only light around except for a dim, blinking lamp by the dirt road. I could see the silhouettes of Michael and my father through one of the windows. It left a pit in my stomach, the sight. They appeared to be standing face to face. One of them had their hands on the other’s head, grasping. They were still as stone. I heard nothing. I forced myself to look away.

I fell asleep after that. When I woke, it was day. The umbrella was blocking the harsh Texas sun from my body. The recliner, even in the heat, still held the dampness from when I sat down. That was the first thing I noticed. Then I saw my father.

He was out in the field in front of Michael’s trailer, head tilted toward the sky. He stared up at the vast blueness, a cloudless day, sun shining down on him. As sleep began to leave my head, I wondered how long he had been there.

A creak beside me made me jump. Michael was standing on the steps up to his door. He was looking at my father, the same soft smile on his face. His eyes half-lidded and full of something I couldn’t place. When I looked at him, he turned his head to me.

Dread. Dread was all I felt, all I knew. That was my one truth in that moment, even after the sense of peace washed over me. Michael stared into my eyes and I was entranced.

I felt myself die. Maybe this was the ego death my father had promised me, that which led to eternal bliss. It was like God had looked upon me and shown me some incomprehensible truth. Like I was looking at something that was beyond all reality, something that was not made for humans to understand. I felt like a dog before Man, some sort of master of me. I just knew that Man was evil. This was not God.

He looked away. I truly do not know how long he looked at me. Perhaps a few seconds, or longer. I wouldn’t have known the difference. It didn’t even feel like it mattered. He did not speak. But as he looked away, I felt worthless. I knew that I was unworthy. He did not need to tell me.

I got up after that and hurried over to my father. I didn’t look back at Michael.

“Dad?” I asked. “Dad?”

I reached him and grabbed the hem of his shirt. He didn’t move, so I poked him. No response. I walked around to the front of him and looked at his face.

I cannot describe the emotion in it. For a moment, however, before his head turned down to face me, I saw a shimmer in his eyes. They looked as if they were made of sea glass, a matte and pale substance in the place of his pupils. My child brain panicked that perhaps he had stared at the sun too long, that since it could bleach items left out that maybe it had done that to him. But when he looked at me, it was gone.

“Don’t you feel so happy?” He asked me. I didn’t respond.

He took in a deep breath and let out a long, soft sigh. I noticed his hands at his sides, big and worn from labor. They trembled meekly beside him.

“Can we go home now?” I asked.

He hummed and sighed again. “We’re going to be so happy.”

He took me to the car and strapped me into the front seat. A smile was plastered on his face that did not leave him. As the car started, I stared over the dash at Michael. He was still on his steps. He had not moved. Nothing about him had changed, not the smile on his face or his peaceful demeanor. The guru watched us drive away.

We made it home in the early hours of the morning. I had not been able to fall asleep on the drive back, no matter how tired I had been. It felt as if something was keeping me awake. I also felt as if it was my responsibility to watch my father, to make sure that he was safe. I was young – it’s not as if, had he not been able to drive, that I would have – but I still felt obligated to be alert.

Perhaps it was the exhaustion setting in. I don’t know. But I could not stop hearing a voice.

It was a soft, tame voice. It felt welcoming. It felt like home. It wanted me to return to it. It wanted me to give in. I didn’t. I don’t think I knew how.

Things weren’t the same after that trip. Having gone so quick and left so fast, I was jarred. It felt like I had just had the most vivid dream of my life, and it was over, and I was still waking up. But my father wasn’t. He was awake now.

The most obvious change in him was his demeanor. He never dropped his smile. He always remained positive. He spoke less than he used to, no more rambles about life or reality. He would speak in simple phrases. He would act completely non-dual, as if he was the world.

“How wonderful the trees.” He said as he stared out the window of our loft. “I sway as they sway. We are wonderful.” There were no trees on our street.

It got bad when he started to neglect things. It was like he completely forgot about the material, like objects were not part of his reality. He wouldn’t buy food except in rare moments of lucidity. I would meekly suggest to him how hungry I was, how it would be nice to have a bite to eat. Most days, he would say something like, “It’s okay, Being. It’s okay. He feeds us all.”

I had to resort to the free breakfasts at my school, or begging my friends to let me take their lunches home or to bring me an extra one. I was already a skinny kid, but this made it even worse.

For some reason, he didn’t get any skinnier. My dad had always been a big man. I always thought he looked like a young Santa Claus, what with his big, greying beard and round belly. And despite how little he ate, how few times a month he would bring home any groceries, he maintained his figure. I just kept getting worse and worse.

My own personal hell were the whispers. That soft voice again, speaking to me in the slow moments of the day. I still felt unworthy. I still felt as if I could not accomplish what it was asking of me, that I could not return, but it wasn’t as if I wanted to. It felt like it was programmed into me, like it was my directive to return. Return to the earth, return to what I am. But I wished to remain a distant speck in the cosmos, not to become whatever this thing wanted me to be, or to go back to being what I was always meant to be, what we all are.

Sometimes my father would speak as if he could hear them, too. Hear exactly what they were saying to me.

“We will be so happy when you do.” He would say randomly. Nothing would have prompted it. I wouldn’t have mentioned the whispers – I never did, how could I? I could barely speak to him anymore. He was incoherent. But every time he spoke, it was just after they had.

“Who am I?” Was something he asked me once. I did not think much of it. Who am I? was a mantra that I have heard since I was little, the death of all thoughts. But instead of suggesting that I should practice its meditation, he walked up to me, grabbed me by the shoulders, and stared deep into my eyes. It was his most lucid moment since Michael. He bore no smile.

I would have turned to my mother, but she was distant. She wanted little to do with my father after I was born, and by extension, myself. She told me once that I reminded her too much of my father. There was a reason he needed all his spirituality; methadone could never suffice. I didn’t think he even took it anymore.

CPS was finally called one day when he snapped. I wouldn’t even call it a snap – it was a drastic change in movement, supposedly, in my mind, premeditated since the day we drove to Houston. It was what was coming all along.

I was watching an anime on his flatscreen while he sat still on his zabuton. It was blaring extra loud today because the neighbors were having another one of their fights. He used to get annoyed if I would be doing anything without headphones while he meditated, but it didn’t matter to him anymore, not now that he was “enlightened.” He would still meditate – in fact, it’s all he would ever do. Day in and day out he was on his zabuton or off somewhere distant in his head, perhaps connecting with everything he could understand about the world. Perhaps he was in the trees when he came for me. Perhaps he was swaying as they swayed. I used to want to meditate with him, to get a turn on his cushion, but that old, black zabuton wasn’t what it used to be. I could always see the shimmer of his sweat.

It started with a blinding pain to the back of my head. I hadn’t even heard him get up, too zoned in on my show. It hurt so bad that I almost passed out, but I didn’t. I cowered on the ground, turning my body toward the light, toward him. He was standing above me, his soft smile on his face. I saw in his eyes what I had seen all those months ago after he had talked to Michael. I saw the matte white of them, the cloud, the haze covering his pupils.

“Michael wants to see you now.” He told me. “He’s ready to talk to you in person. He says he’s gotten to know you so well these past few months.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about. I had never spoken to Michael. The most internet usage I had was YouTube. Reddit was for adults, not me. He never told me what private forums Michael could be found on. It wasn’t until many years later that I found his Blogger account.

As my father loomed over me, a broken visage of the man he once was, I scrambled in fear. I tried not to make a sound. It felt like it would do nothing. Tears just came in quiet bursts and blinded my desperate path to freedom. He just kept coming. Slow, methodical, calm. He hadn’t had anything in his hands when he struck me. I think it was the pure force of his fist. I never knew he could be so strong, or so cruel against his own daughter. But was I his daughter? I didn’t even know if he was the same man I had travelled to Texas with. I would be inclined to believe not.

The TV was still blaring above me but I could faintly hear the shouts of my neighbors. I knew they were crazy, but my father was even more so. They were the only adults around. I was 11 now, but that wouldn’t get me very far. I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t travel on my own. I needed a person.

He lunged for me.

I had the advantage of speed, even on my back. I scrambled out of the way as his heavy body thwacked against our floors. I watched his thick head bounce with a sickening smack. A 300-pound man, I’m sure everyone in the building heard that crash. If I had not gotten out of the way, I fear my bone-thin body would have been utterly shattered.

I shouldn’t have hesitated to run out the front door, but I did. He was still my father. I still cared. As I pushed myself to my feet, staring down at him, his body moved. His head, currently facing away from me, slowly turned beneath him. His thick arms pushed upwards as his belly pooled around him, fat forming a landing pad for himself. Just before I moved for the door, he looked at me.

His eyes showed matte and his head split down his temple. There was no blood, just a viscous, shimmering liquid. It seeped out of him and oozed. It was like thick, glimmering sweat. I saw it moving. Pulsing, turning, creeping out of him like a fungus. I finally ran.

I made it to the door and slammed it shut behind me before I ran across the hall and pounded on my neighbor’s. I didn’t hear any shouts from inside then, and not after I knocked, and it took a shockingly quick amount of time for a skinny, buzzed man to open the door. He glared down at me with hatred, but confusion laden his face.

“The fuck do you want? We’re busy.” He spat. Maybe my only saving grace was the fact that I was bawling, because from over his shoulder, his girlfriend saw me. She looked in as near a shape as I, but as soon as her eyes locked with mine, she hurried over.

“Jeff, shut up, just- Hey, what’s wrong? You live across the hall, right?”

Sniffling, I nodded and turned to look at the door. I didn’t hear anything besides the TV from inside, but he could come out at any moment. I did hear, however, a gasp from the girlfriend.

“Oh my god! Your head!”

“Jesus.” Jeff cringed as I looked back at them. I reached up to the spot where my father had hit me. I felt sick when I saw my hand, my shimmering blood.

“Mallory, I think she’s gotta go, we-”

“We can fucking fight later, Jeff! We need to help this little girl. Sweetie, come inside. Did your daddy hit you? Are you all right?” She reached out and touched my bloody scalp. “Why does it feel like that? When did this happen?”

It was a bit of a blur from there. Jeff relented and didn’t get in the way. I was shocked that my showing up at their door was able to so easily stop their argument. My father had gone over there countless times before to ask them to keep it down, but to no avail.

Mallory sat me down on their couch while Jeff called 911. The whole time, I kept my eyes glued to the door. I kept waiting for my father to burst through. I kept waiting for another strike to the head. I couldn’t even focus on the muck and trash piled up around Jeff and Mallory’s loft. Their couch reeked of cigarettes and old food, but I didn’t care. I’d been somewhere worse. Thoughts of Michael’s sweating recliner filled my mind, and I was happy to be elsewhere. The dampness of it, the shimmering on the arms of the chair. I idly held a cloth to the back of my head to stem the fluid leaking out of me.

When the cops arrived, they took me down to their car. As I walked out into the hall with Mallory behind me, I looked into my home which was being raided by the rest of the police. Inside, my father sat perfectly still on his zabuton. His head pulsed and bubbled with that jelly. His face remained the same way it had for many months, a smile and distant eyes. He didn’t even look at me as they took me away.

I’m writing this to you while my father is in his hospice bed. I was relinquished to the care of CPS after that incident. My mother reluctantly took me back after a long period in court. My father was deemed mentally unfit for trial, or for anything at all. He was put into an assisted living facility about a year after it all happened.

He’s only 65 now. I just had my 21st birthday recently, just a few days after they put him in hospice. They say it’s Alzheimer's. He doesn’t have long. I know that’s not true.

He’s staring at me now with that same expression on his face. I have become so used to it over the years. That smile is almost home. I always return to it. His eyes are glazed over with white, and have been for some time. A form of cataracts, they also say. Another lie. They always tell me his diagnoses with an uncertainty in their voice. I’ve learned to accept it.

I’ve taken up meditation myself in the past few years. It’s helped me deal with everything in my life. I am a happier person now. Despite every connotation it has with my father, there is still worth in it. He does not have to ruin everything. I feel at one with the world, when I can.

This is the first time in a while that I’ve spent any time with my father. I’m sitting in the lazy boy in the corner of his room while he stares at me from his bed. He hasn’t said a word. Neither have I. We already know what each other would say. It’s like it’s programmed into me.

I mentioned earlier that I had found his Blogger page. I found it about a year ago. And I found Michael. He wants me to see him. There was a simple message sent on the same day that I opened the page, about an hour before. It just said,

“Are you coming?”

Do you remember the trumpets in the sky? It happened back in 2012 when everyone thought the world was going to end. The sound of trumpets began blaring throughout several different countries and kept it up for hours. Belgium, the US, Brazil… The trumpets weren’t an entirely unknown phenomenon. There have been reports of them dating back centuries. This one was different.

Hardly anyone who wasn’t there still remembers it, and even those who were have a hard time. It was like no one wanted to talk about it after it happened, like it was a momentary lapse in judgement by the universe and everyone just got on with their day. But I was there. I remember.

The weather was, for all intents and purposes, perfect that day. In a rural part of Iowa, I was out tending to my crops when the trumpets began. My hands were working in the soil, tearing weeds from the ground that threatened to choke my food. I almost fell flat on my ass when I heard it.

It was utterly deafening. The noise came, and for a moment, I thought that a tornado had just popped up out of nowhere and I shot to my feet to search for it. But there was nothing; not a cloud in the sky, and only the slightest of breezes to keep me from melting in the summer heat.

My next thought was that we were under attack. Some foreign country had just waged war with the United States, and backwater Iowa was their first target. But again, as I looked up, there wasn’t any sign of bomber jets or helicopters, or hell, even a commercial plane in the sky. No old chemtrails. No new ones. The world was entirely peaceful, except for that awful playing of the trumpets.

I covered my ears with my soil-wet hands and hurried toward the house. Even with my hands pressed as tightly to my head as I could muster, it barely helped the sound. The harsh, grating noise penetrated all of my senses and threatened to drive me mad. It had only been a minute or two at this point, but it was already too much to bear. I reached my door, flung it open, and shut myself inside.

It was no better there than it had been in the field. I could see my windows vibrating from the noise. I wondered if they would break, if whatever bastards who were doing this had engineered their sound just right to bust in all the windows in America. How long would it take before they burst? Or what about me? Would my ears begin to bleed, would my eardrums explode? What about my eyes? Could a sound even do that? I felt like it could.

The trumpets reverberated through my whole body. It felt like something was inside trying to get out. The floorboards vibrated beneath me and hummed against the drone of the trumpets. My arms quaked as I held my head. I had to find something to stop the noise.

I was a hunter on occasion, only when my eldest wanted to go out to shoot buck. I kept my rifles in a closet by the basement, and there was the rest of the gear, too. I knew I had to get my hearing protection. I stumbled through the house, eyes blurry from the disorientation. Who knew a sound could disrupt your day so much? I tried to keep my hands over my ears for as long as possible before I finally had to grab the handle of the door. I yanked it open and hurried to get my headphones from their case. Inside, I kept a spare pair of foam earbuds as well, so I quickly shoved those in, put on the protection, and slammed the door shut.

It was better, but only mildly. I thought that at the very least I would be able to bear it. The maddening feeling died down. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed then, maybe five minutes, but I certainly had no clue when it would stop.

It didn’t stop, not for hours.

Where I was, it was hard to reach anyone without a landline. I didn’t have enough service to get my iPhone to make calls that sounded any better than the inside of a blender, so I only used it when I was in town. And at this point, with my ears covered and certainly no way to discern what someone would be saying on the other end of the line, I didn’t bother to ring my neighbors. I lived alone, too. No one I could confirm this horrible trumpetting with, no one who could share my experiences. By the first hour, I was starting to wonder if it was all in my head.

I sat at my dining table with my hands clasped and stared out into the field. I could see the glass panes of my windows vibrating around the edges, threatening to jump out. The plants outside swayed softly in the breeze, as if entirely oblivious to the assault. I had no animals that I needed to check on, which I was very thankful for. I don’t know how I could have sheltered a whole farm from this noise.

I remember feeling entirely hopeless. As one hour turned to two, my body shook. I didn’t know if it was nerves or the trumpets. It felt bad, whatever it was. I was trapped in my own home from something I had no power to stop. I had tried turning on the TV to see if anyone was covering the trumpets, but all I got was a blue screen and a warning.

“SEVERE WEATHER ALERT - DO NOT LEAVE YOUR HOME - REMAIN INDOORS - WEAR EAR PROTECTION”

Comforting. Made me think that even the higher-ups were oblivious. Did no one know what was going on?

By two and a half hours, I said fuck this. I needed to find someone who knew what was happening. I needed to check if my neighbors were okay, if they’d gotten any news. So, for good measure, I grabbed one of my rifles, hopped in my truck, and headed down the road to Merle’s house.

The man was standing in his front lawn when I got there. I turned down his driveway and headed up to his house, and there, about 30 feet from his front door, he just stood and looked into the sky. His back was facing me, and I couldn’t see what he was doing with his hands on his face. I just knew that I found it entirely strange that he wasn’t wearing anything to block the noise.

“Merle?” I shouted. I could barely even hear my own voice. “Merle!” I knew it was in vain, but I shouted anyhow as I walked up to him with my rifle in hand.

I almost puked when I got to him.

As I stepped in front of Merle, everything I had eaten that day and the last threatened to come up out of me. Blood poured down the front of him, staining his overalls and his wife-beater. His hands clawed at his face as he stared into the sky in abject horror. He had dug deep crevices into his cheeks, and one of his fingers was fish-hooking his eyelid. It pulled downward in a slow yet powerful movement, and I saw the edges of his eyes start to tear. His tear ducts slowly ripped open and cried blood, and the meat under his eyes swelled with it. I could see the entire underside of his eyeball, perfectly exposed to the outside world. I didn’t know how he was still standing.

I stumbled backwards and took in the horror that was Merle. The strip of skin connected to the eyelid peeled down his face and stopped just in the middle of his cheek, or what was left. It disconnected and fell to the ground while Merle raised his hand again and began digging into his flesh once more.

“Jesus Christ, Merle!” I couldn’t even keep the tears out of my eyes. This was most certainly the worst thing I had ever seen. I’d known Merle for many years, ever since I’d moved into the plot of land down the road. The old man had helped me out so many times, and I him. And now he was mutilating himself in the wake of this monstrosity.

I only watched him a moment longer. The amount of blood on his front and pooling around his feet was almost to the point where he couldn’t do anything anymore. It only took a few moments more of clawing and peeling before he crumpled to the ground and lay there, dirt infecting his wounds, blood seeping into the soil.

I got out of there as fast as I could. There was nothing I could do for him. I couldn’t call the police if I’d wanted to – no one would have been able to hear me. Besides, I was certain their lines were backed up with concerns of the trumpets.

I drove my truck down to the next set of neighbors on my road, Jensen and Mary. A happy couple who had just said goodbye to their kids and were empty nesters. When I rolled up in their driveway, I saw the door to their barn was precariously left open.

“Fuck.” I didn’t even know why I bothered talking at that point. The blaring trumpets drowned it out entirely every time. It was no use, but I still did it.

Rifle in hand once again, I stalked toward the open barn. I was far more cautious this time, my guard fully up. I didn’t know what might be waiting for me inside. I should have expected it, really, what with Merle’s condition.

Swinging side to side from one of the rafters was Mary. She was long gone by then, a limp sack of meat dangling from the sky. Her white dress billowed around her as a breeze swept through, turning her body around in a circle. I saw her head. She, too, had nothing to protect her from the noise. It wasn’t like she needed it anymore, though. I wanted to wretch once again, but I kept it down. All I could do was hold it together and try to find Jensen.

The barn seemed empty besides Mary, so I headed for the house. Maybe he was in there. Maybe he was still okay.

The door had been left ajar there, too. It welcomed me invitingly in, so I stepped inside and gripped my rifle tightly. Something was telling me that I needed the safety off, so I listened.

I crept through the house. Maybe I didn’t need to. It wasn’t as if Jensen would be able to hear me coming. I felt the vibrations from the trumpets through the floor as I stalked inside. Everything appeared normal. Nothing was out of place. No blood staining the floors or man clawing off his own face.

I spotted movement out of the corner of my eye as I set foot in the kitchen. Whipping my head around, rifle pointed toward the blur, I saw Jensen crouching in a corner. He was completely naked and curled in on himself, facing the wall, rocking back and forth. I don’t know what possessed me to aim at him, my friend and neighbor, but it felt like the only thing to do. I stomped harshly on the floor to get his attention, hoping he would feel it in the wood. Still rocking, he turned his head toward me and stared.

Jensen had not mutilated himself. Not yet, at least. All that his face bore was a twisted smile. He turned his naked body around, still crouching, and looked up at me. I adjusted my grip on the rifle and shoved it closer to him, a warning. He didn’t seem to care.

And just like that, he came flying at me. In an instant, he shot to his feet and barreled straight for me. I had little time to react as he ran straight into the barrel of my gun, knocking it out of my hands and reaching for me. I was screaming at this point, but neither of us heard it.

His hands found holds on my shoulders and he grabbed me excruciatingly hard. I felt like I was grinding my teeth down to nubs as I tried to keep it together, tried to push him off of me. His wild, deranged face sat right in front of my own. I could smell his hot breath, feel it as he laughed in my face – or, I assume he was laughing. It looked just like it, but of course, no sound could be heard. The man had no ear protection on, and I didn’t know how he could function enough to attack me without something blocking the noise.

We fell to the ground, a naked Jensen on top of me, and began to wrestle. His thumbs dug into my collar bone and I gritted my teeth in pain. My rifle was knocked underneath one of the kitchen counters and out of my grasp, so I had only my body to defend myself. I sent a kick up and into his legs to try to dislodge him, but he just fell against me and kept his hands going. I felt like my collar bone could break at any moment with how hard he was gripping me.

I decided my best course of action would be to try to overpower him. With as much strength as I could muster, I rolled my body and managed to flip myself on top of Jensen. He smacked against the floor but seemed entirely unphased. I struggled to get my hands to his head, but I managed to force past his arms and clasped his skull. His deranged smile hadn’t faltered even for a second and I could still see him laughing at me. Rage had overcome me to a dangerous point, and I knew that it was me or him.

With as much guts and strength as I had, I pressed my thumbs into his eyes. I pressed hard, and I didn’t stop pressing. He didn’t even try to close them as I dug into his skull. His smile remained on his face, teeth glistening up at me. Mouth agape, a laugh jostling his throat – this is how Jensen looked when he died. He didn’t die then and there as I loomed over him, thumbs popping his eyes like grapes. Instead, after the deed was done and I was covered in ocular juices and blood, I tore myself away from him and retrieved my rifle. He didn’t move, but my guess was that was only because he couldn’t see where to go. I raised my rifle and fired a bullet right into his brain.

The only thing that I was happy about, being on Jensen and Mary’s farm, was the fact that they had a decked-out tornado shelter. Mary had always been the worrisome type, and with them having so many kids for so long, she had convinced Jensen that he needed to put in a shelter strong enough to last them days if the weather grew so terrible and they got trapped underground. It had been a small idea in the back of my mind as I drove up to their farm that perhaps they would be hiding inside and that I could join them and get away from the trumpets.

I didn’t even bother to clean my hands when I left. Jensen’s naked, beaten body lay on the kitchen floor, brains blown out and eyes non-existent. Mary hung in the rafters of the barn, breeze turning her around. I made my way to their storm shelter and was grateful to find it unlocked. Rifle in hand, I descended into my sanctuary where I would wait out the trumpets.

It was quieter down there than it had been anywhere else. I was able to wait a few more hours before the trumpets finally ceased. I almost didn’t believe my ears. Carefully, cautiously, I removed the headphones and earbuds and listened to the sound of silence.

I went home soon after. I was expecting the cops to come for me in the next few days, but nothing happened. The news said that the death tolls were still being counted, but apparently, a lot of people hadn’t made it through the trumpets. They were chalking it all up to a case of mass hysteria, that the trumpets hadn’t even been real. Some bozo on FOX suggested that it was the rising rates of mental illness finally rearing its head, or that vaccines had caused people to go crazy. Some said it was judgement day. It took a surprisingly short amount of time for it to leave the zeitgeist, though. After a week, no one said a word about the trumpets.

I remember it, though. No one talks about it anymore, but I remember. I remember those few minutes when the trumpets first blared, before I had anything to block the noise. I remember this voice in the back of my head telling me,

“Wouldn’t it be so nice for it to stop?”