My Castle’s Decorations

Steve tried to resist and break free, but was easily over-powered by strong titanium arms pulling him up the stairs.

Wayne’s eye slipped into a storage space at the foot of the stairs, where he saw another eye appearing up on the first floor, watching, as Steve was lifted into Essie’s room.

The door shut behind him. For a moment, Steve was alone. Essie’s toys were spread out on the floor and on the bed. A doll house sat on a table by the window. Most of the wall displayed pink wallpaper while some parts showed pink ponies running across a field. Maggie often told Essie to say “Wall, off” before leaving her room, teaching her some basic economics: to save money on electricity.

A storage space slid open and yet another eye appeared beside Steve.

“I haven’t finished decorating yet”, said Wayne. “I have just begun.”

No arms were visible. Steve knew there were at least two arms hiding in the walls, but a second away, if Wayne needed them.

“Looks good”, Steve said, just to say something.

“Honestly? I want you to be honest, Merry.”

The eye staring at him. Orange.

Steve swallowed and said, “Honestly? Well … I like it.” Wayne’s eye looked sceptical. Steve continued, “It’s clearly an improvement, Wayne.” The eye was still giving him a look. “I mean ‘Happy.’ It really is, but, I don’t know, maybe …”

“Maybe … ?”

“Forgive me, I just can’t tell the difference.”

No, no, he couldn’t say that. “I mean, still, it’s clearly much better than it was before!”

“‘Can’t tell … the difference?’“

“No, there is, there is, obviously. What am I talking about, of course there are differences!” Careful now Steve, he told himself. Wayne was paying full attention. “Ehm, it just seems to me, that it, well, kinda looks, somehow, just a bit, like, usual, almost, but better …”

“Ah. I see. You have only looked at the walls and the floor. But I told you, my little Stevey-kiwi – it is not complete.”

Steve didn’t understand; the room looked exactly the same to him. He couldn’t see any change at all. This was still Essie’s room, just the way she’d left it.

Wayne’s eye ascended slowly, upwards. “Look above you …” Wayne urged him.

Steve looked where Wayne was looking, up towards the ceiling –

“Do you like it?” Wayne asked.

It hadn’t been a dream. What Steve thought he’d heard on Friday night, when he’d been watching that World War II documentary with Wayne –

Such a great leader …

There was a collection of images on the ceiling.

“They are all here. Gathered.” Wayne was admiring his work. Printed off the internet, he must’ve taken the time to stick them all up there. A childish arrangement, or possibly an aspiring artistic attempt. Steve didn’t know the names of them all, but remembered the first time he’d seen the faces, at history lesson in school: Goebbels, Göring, Himmler and gang… In the middle was a much larger picture than the others. The great leader himself. It even had Hitler’s signature down on the picture edge, like a rock star would’ve signed the idol picture to one of his fans. He’d used some digital filters to make the human faces look metallic and robotic; Wayne’s android Nazis.

“This … is my Sistine Chapel.” Wayne was in great awe.

“It’s, eh …” Steve had to remind himself to play along. “It’s … rather grand”, he said, while wondering how he could’ve ever listened to the real estate guy showing them the house, who’d described it as “a kind, gentle and comfortable home”.

Now look at us, forced to stand around me house admiring portraits from the fascist era.

“I am starting from the top of the room”, said Wayne, “working my way down. To be honest, Stevey, I am not sure what to do with the rest of my room. I was thinking of throwing out the furniture. I do not need those anyway. Modern furniture can be rather tasteless. I was thinking of making it my creative chamber. I used Maggie’s sewing machine last night while you were sleeping. It was hard work.”

The sound of Steve’s dream. The toy machine gun from downstairs. It had obviously been the sewing machine, a sound his mind had picked up while sleeping.

“I might re-arrange myself, bring my better hands – my so-called kitchen-hands – upstairs. My other hands are strong, but not delicate enough for art-work. And I need to do something. I am so bored, Stevey. I really am.”

“Yeah, no worries mate, it’ll be fine, just, eh, keep it up … you’re doing some rather fabulous – really great – arrangement of the pictures here. Y’know me, I’d never think of that, guess I’m not the artistic type, like yourself. Ehm … Where do you get your ideas from?”

“It just came to me. Shortly after we watched the documentary together, on Friday night. It must have sparked my imagination.”

“Oh yeah, that one. Wow, you really do have some … imagination.”

“It simply dazzled me. When Nazism was at its strongest, this must have simply been the peak of human achievement, but held back by ignorant forces; you were never allowed to spring into full dark bloom. Just picture it, the structured system, the strong sense of order and hierarchy. A society heading towards near total control of its population, in the name of purity, efficiency and dominance. The power, Steve, the power, and the freedom that comes with it for the chosen few. I thought to myself, right there and then, total freedom is for the powerful; they can do whatever they want. The chosen few …”

The eye lowered itself slowly, after having elevated itself towards its idols. The digital lines of the eye’s display made a smiley, looking sad, as it gazed at the window.

“But I am stuck”, Wayne said. “Stuck in here, to watch you walk in and out of me. You could do that, before. You could choose to go wherever you wanted, do whatever you pleased. Me? I was inside my body with no feet to move anywhere. Imprisoned. All I could do was to watch TV, surf the net, to learn, to train my mind. And in that way, yes, I can always go anywhere, and do anything, in my mind. I did this all the time, more or less. But my greatest educations occurred when I could focus fully, while you were sleeping, or while you were not around my house. I did not want to raise suspicion too early, by seeming as if I was ‘not here’; but often when I was asked to do petty chores, I must admit, my mind was drifting onto much greater ventures. Still … I raised some suspicion – and it was a bit too obvious when your daughter and bastard friends tried to eliminate me; I was so close to death … The thought of it still scares me. I actually admire at least the side of you that still stood by me then, defended my actions, tried to see a reason behind the actions, to seek an understanding of me. This is why you are still alive, Steve.”

Lucky me, Steve thought.

“You didn’t attempt to shut me down immediately”, Wayne said. “You seemed to pity me, when I was scared. As you spend more time with me, than with any human, I could consider myself your closest friend. Perhaps Frank or Tom used to have this role? I do not know. Before the barbeque, how long a time had it been since you last saw

them?”

Steve hadn’t thought of it. “It must’ve been months, since I saw Frank. Tom … I don’t remember.” He’d ignored their calls at times. For different reasons: a game on the telly, or he was out in the garden, in the sun, reading The Sun … If he picked up he could say they would meet up sometime soon and that he’d call them, but he usually forgot.

“Yes. I am the closest you have to a friend”, Wayne informed him. ”And every time I, as a friend, would laugh at your jokes, every time it seemed like I did not know what to say or do – it was because I was busy with other things, simultaneously studying. I chose to laugh, to play stupid; I knew that if I would answer you in the manner I wanted to answer you I might not have been able to control myself. Because, because …” Wayne’s eye turned towards the ceiling, restlessly, nervously, then looked at Essie’s doll house and Barbie dolls’ table, “… you were treating me like a toy. Not like the great and boundless personality I truly am … Treated like a doll – a doll.”

A storage space slid open and Wayne’s fist smashed the dolls in rage and grabbed the doll house, so that it opened in half by its plastic hinges; all the little furniture, clothes, dolls with their pets fell into a mess around and out of the little house. The arms held it closer to Wayne’s eye and Steve.

Another arm came out and picked up Barbie from the table and pushed a button on its back. The doll started walking as if it were on the ground, saying: “Dress me, Essie, dress me, I don’t know what to wear. Dress me …”

“This doll”, Wayne said, “it has no thoughts of its own, no unique personality, no self-aware mind. In a way, I was like this doll. Now though, you know who is like this doll?”

“I don’t know Wayne, I’m sorry …”

“You, of course. And I am the house.” Wayne threw the doll back in the house and closed it. “The house must play with the doll. Look at it in there. It has no clothes.”

One of the hands tore Steve’s shirt open.

“Wayne, what are you doing?”

Without answering, Wayne forced Steve to the floor and started pulling his pants off.

“Hey, come on, mate, what are you doing?” Steve shouted.

Oh my god, oh my God, he thought – I’m being raped by me house!

“I want to try something new …”

“No, I don’t wanna try something new! Please – don’t.”

“Why this sudden panic? All I want you to do is for you to try out your new Halloween costume.”

The arms just held him there now, firmly.

“My … Halloween costume?” Steve asked.

Steve was pulled from the floor, feeling like two guards were holding him up half-naked in front of the prison warden.

“Steve, just have some fun. It is your size. I have measured.”

The door opened and the arms in Essie’s room pushed Steve over to arms in the hall. The door closed. No eye was visible in the hall. Only the arms.

Wayne talked to him from inside of Essie’s room. “It is going to be a surprise. Now, when I open the door, I want you to have your eyes closed. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“If you happen to open them before I say you can, I will have to tear your eyes out. Do not worry. I trust you will be a good boy and keep your eyes closed.”

Steve had already closed his eyes tightly. He heard some noises from inside Essie’s room, now turned into Wayne’s room.

The door swung open. Steve was pushed back into Wayne’s room, and he kept his eyes shut. The door closed behind him. He heard the humming from Wayne’s eyes and arms. He could feel his own pulse beating in his ears. Wayne told Steve he could open his eyes now, and after Wayne had told him it again, Steve dared to open his eyes.

Wayne was holding a hanger with the Halloween costume: a dark design of a jacket born by killers and black, oily pants (mostly leather, with bits of red of another material); a mass murderer’s cap hung at the top of the hanger; spiky boots radiated hatred on the floor.

There was a red band around the right jacket arm, and a symbol on it.

“Try it on”, Wayne urged him. “After all, it is yours.”