A Conflict of OCD

I came home from a trip over the long weekend. I went out of town to a little hotel with a pretty brunette named Vanessa. I had planned on killing her during the weekend, but all the snorted drugs impeded my ability, making me forget. Also, she's a little too pretty for her own good. I like to watch her. Not from afar. Up close, and on top of me. She thinks she loves me so it will be easy to get her out for another weekend. I'll be looking forward to that. She was really good in bed, and delicious I assume.

Then for a brief moment, everything was fucked up, ugly, and rearranged. The day I returned to my dwelling. The two bedroom, lower apartment, down the street from the high school. The place I call home. My body was tired, and sketched out. All I wanted was to lay down and sleep. The thought of my pillow embracing my head with its slight chill, thanks to a wall neighboring outside, was lovely. But it didn't work out that way at all.

First it was the strange, light blue car in my parking space. It was the same brand, same year, just a different color and backwards license plate. Second was that my key did not work on the back door. I dropped my bags, going to the front of the house. The key didn't work on that lock either. My paranoia started bubbling in my brain with the thought of someone finding what was in my basement. My dark little secrets. I would be fucked on all accounts. With a dry throat, I knocked. A man, no bigger than myself, opened the door. Something seemed especially strange about him. He almost looked passed me to the street, then to me.

“What can I do for ya?” he asked, his voice oddly familiar.

“Is this not 184 Trapt Street?” I replied, inspecting the differently chosen font for the house numbers.

“It is?” he said, with a furrowed brow.

“May I ask when ya moved in?” I replied.

“About six years ago, I think” he said. That was how long I had lived there.

“Really?” I asked, growing even more confused.

“Yes, so...can I help you with something?” he replied, eyeing me up.

“Well...uh...” I said. “I thought I was at my house, but now I'm not so sure”

“Sorry” he replied. “Do you need to call someone?”

“Oh, no thanks” I said, tapping the phone in my pocket.

“Okay, well sorry I can't help” he replied.

“That's fine” I sighed, looking passed him to see some of my belongings. “Do ya mind if I use the bathroom? Long drive”

“Uh...sure...why not?” he said, opening the door, and moving out of the way.

“Thanks” I replied, stepping in.

As I looked around, most of the items were in fact mine, but all rearranged. The forty-two inch LCD television was on the opposite wall, which was just orange instead of the orange, and yellow color wash. The pictures I had actually bothered to hang were in the same spot, but the frames that were vertical were now horizontal, and vice versa. Even the pictures of the girls that I had taken myself were landscape instead of portrait. Above the wide doorway leading to the kitchen, I had many liquor, and beer bottles lined up across the overhanging edge. The beer bottles were now on the left, and the liquor bottles were aligned smallest to biggest. The exact opposite of how I once had them.

“The bathroom is right there” the guy said, pointing through the kitchen. After going in, I quickly checked the cupboard. I had always kept an emergency knife tucked under the bathroom sink. It was not there. For a short time I had placed it under the whole counter, but it wasn't there either. The shower curtain was white, not dark red. The oval mirror was higher, and not a rectangle any more. My toothbrush was blue, not green, and the hand towel was hanging over the edge of the sink, not on the rack.

What the hell was going on? This was my house, my belongings, even my own smell paraded through the air. But everything was moved around in a fashion I did not care for. I had always been very OCD with some of the things that were changed. Now, in someone's house, completely confused, I had to get to the basement. The third room at the end to be exact. My mind was devious enough for that. But I was tired, and lazy, opting for the easy way. I took off my belt, flushed the empty toilet, and then stepped out. The guy turned from my television to see me running at him. I punched his jaw, causing a suitable stumble, then pushed him down. He looked up, terrified, as I leapt on top of him, wrapping the belt around his neck, and pulling it tight. That's when the strangeness of his face came clearer. He looked just like me.

I dragged his unconscious body into the bathroom to hold his face up to the mirror. His features resembled mine exactly. An identical match, only without a beard, and thirteen-sixteenth inch spacers in his earlobes. At this point, I was starting to freak out. Who was this guy? Where was I? Who was I if this guy was me? I dropped what seemed to be me on the floor, then ran for the basement. The railing was on the opposite side. The once faded blue stairs had a healthy shine from a dark lacquer, giving the wood a slick look. All the boxes that I had on the shelf in the first room were gone. Instead there were all the items from inside the boxes neatly laid out across the shelves. The second room, where I had a few couches, and a television were turned one-hundred-eighty degrees. The old plaid couches were now fake leather, and the black, square coffee table was brown and circular.

My third room had a padlock on it. It didn't before. I quickly flew up the stairs, searching everywhere for the key. After an hour of searching, I found it on top of the fridge that had the freezer on the bottom now. The key was in a sealed envelope. Why was beyond me. I slid the key into the lock, shaking, worried that my dark secret was found and taken, or just gone. After taking a long, deep breath, I pulled open the door. The familiar smell of rotting flesh filled my nostrils.

A single, bloody chair with ropes, and handcuffs hanging off it sat in the dead center. Three big containers, full of some kind of chemical, dissolving limbs sat in the corner. This was all gross, and not to mention wrong. I had never dissolved anything or anyone in any kind of chemical. That shit requires receipts, a paper trail. Nothing I need in my life. Most of all, I never tied anyone to a chair for my work. That makes a person completely immobile. Where's the fun in that?

I figured fuck it. If I looked as much like this guy as I thought I did, then perhaps I could take over his life. he was in my house. I spent the next two days putting everything back the way I liked it. The couches moved, the bottles arranged properly, and I cut the pictures so they'd fit the frames in the appropriate angle. To get rid of the supposed other me, I simply hog tied him, and then dropped him in one of the containers head first, and upside down. After all the unexpected work on the first day, I grew very hungry. I pulled open the cupboards to find my plates, and bowls where my glasses usually were. The utensils were a catastrophe. It took me over an hour to rectify those problems. There was only one thing that was exactly the way I left it when I headed out on Friday night. All the human meat was still in my fridge. However, that supply looked a little low. I would have to plan another weekend with Vanessa.