Paranoiac Read Online Free Page A

before
walking out of the trash heap that was now the kitchen.
    I quickly
stopped at the doorway that led to the next room. As I turned
around, I realized that except for the new paintjob the kitchen was
exactly as I remembered it from my childhood, down to the curtains
above the broad, stainless steel sink. The same old floral towels
were hanging half hazardly on the cabinets. The same childish
magnets sporting old cartoon characters, faded from time, were
still stuck to the fridge. Even my mothers' collectable china
plates were still displayed proudly on top of one of the
shelves.
    These kitchens
were scarcely used when I was a child. Before she got sick, mother
always cooked us scrumptious meals. Although my little family
abused their money on the most unimportant things, we never hired
people to clean or cook for us. My father couldn’t stand the idea
of someone serving us, except for my mother. I still cannot fathom
why he wouldn’t hire nurses to help take care of her. He was either
embarrassed by us or he was just way too proud, I think. My dad ran
us into the ground in every giant, luxurious home we lived in. We
were the ones expected to clean, cook and fix up everything in
these ugly, monstrous homes. Mother wasn’t much help either. She
came from a poor family with a large amount of siblings and when
she married my rich, crooked, lawyer father, she became accustomed
to a certain lifestyle.
    All of a
sudden, terrible and wonderful memories intertwined leaving me
breathless and delirious. Aimlessly I wandered unaware of my
surroundings, my mind traveling to better and worse times. I
started seeing the past as if I was still there. From a third
person perspective, I could see my life. The vision was so vivid I
could smell my mother’s cooking, and then seamlessly, as if in a
dream, I could feel her dry cold dying hands as I sat next to her
bed.

Journal Entry Five
    I saw myself
stumbling into the kitchen as a child, the sun exploding through
the garden window, the smell of bacon thick in the air. I saw my
innocent seven year old self, sitting down to eat with my mother.
She was solving a crossword puzzle and drinking hot tea. I looked
around in this dream state for my father. Come to think of it, I
don’t recall ever eating any meals with my father aside from the
occasional dinner. Tears began to roll down my face while I saw
myself sitting there, pathetic and unaware of my fathers' absence.
I was innocently sitting next to my mother, so naïve of the truth
while I dropped syrup on my superhero themed pajamas.
    I wiped the
tears away and just stared at her, my beautiful mother. Her face
was so full and plump, her hair healthy and brown. It was before
she got the disease my cheating father gave her. One day she was my
healthy mom and then moments later a wraith that laid rotting in
her own filth. I reveled in these once forgotten memories that were
buried under the awful ones.
    Suddenly, I
was slapped violently with the horrible memories of my drunken
father. The kitchen disappeared in a whirlwind of streaking colors
and I was suddenly watching myself as a teenager spying on my
father.
    The three of
us were standing in this very house. My father looking out the
large bay windows across from my mothers' sick room. My dad was
staring at the full moon, streaks of white moonlight illuminating
his face. The glass of scotch sparkled gorgeously as he raised the
bottle to his lips. I looked over at my trembling teenage self,
crouched on the stairs, watching as my drunken father mumbled
something incoherently to himself. Promptly I remembered everything
from this moment.
    I clenched my
fists, tears streaming down my face but I stood paralyzed. It was
as if I could feel every emotion my younger self was feeling at
that moment. I felt anger, sadness, but most of all, fear. Fear of
this man standing in the frame of the window, filling it with his
broad, tall figure. My fathers' black hair, thick and greasily
slopped over his