Paranoia

November 22, 2021. No. 74

Luis and his wife live in a remote part of the city, in a small town, with few houses around it. A quiet town which has a lake where the children of the town spend their time bathing when they are not playing ball in the small stadium that they themselves built near the houses. In this town people are quiet, nobody messes with anyone, if it were not for the children who play almost all day, it could be said that it is a ghost town, since one rarely meets an older person on the road.

His house is made of wood and very modest. The living room is relatively small, in it, there is simply a television, a sofa for both of them, and behind it, some old axes hanging on the wall in the shape of a cross, a tradition on the part of Luis's wife's family was to have those axes always in the living room of the house, according to them brought luck and happiness to the home, as well as prosperity in the face of adversity.

Since he was little, Luis has had a problem that has sometimes caused him displeasure with his wife. He believes that sometimes they speak in his ear and that they tell him things about the future, for which he became very superstitious, and quiet. He has never wanted to go to the doctor, for fear of being branded as crazy. And also because these events lasted sometimes a day and sometimes hours, and they were very rare.

One night while they were sleeping, Luis has a nightmare. In it, someone has whispered in his ear, "In 7 days you will be dead." Here the story begins ...

Day 1 "It was just a dream"

It was a slightly unusual day, the little town was calmer than ever. Even the children who were always playing in the stadium or on the road seemed to have been swallowed up by the earth. There was a certain cold air in the environment and a slight mist that spread throughout the town, which little by little as the day progressed began to disappear in a slow and subtle way.

Luis watched that panorama from the door. Without leaving the house, as he was used to doing every day in the morning, he would stand in front of the door and look outside. His house was the last one on the road, the most secluded, so you could see the entire road since it was in front of it.

His wife comes up to him from behind and hugs him around the waist. Luis shudders with fright at that moment. Luis stares at her and little by little brings his lips to her forehead giving her a kiss.

Sitting on the couch, watching TV, his wife watches him from the dining room as he prepares some breakfast. She was a specialist in the art of food. He liked to prepare all kinds of exquisite dishes. Luis notices that his wife is looking at him, and tries not to look at her. It bothered him.

The day goes by smoothly. Luis has spent much of the day, standing in front of the door, looking down the road, surprised that the boys today have not been seen all day. He turns around and goes to the sofa in the middle of the small room. The moment he sits down, something rushes through the door he had left open and hits one of the axes behind the sofa. The ax falls close to Luis, who is thrown by fright towards the corner of the room, sticking to the wall staring at the ax that was now lying on the sofa. He looks up slowly towards the door and sees 6 children standing a few meters in front of the door, with a mocking, and daring laugh, one of them, the one with a bat in his hand, enters and catches the ball in the middle of the room, and everyone runs off without saying a word.

Day 2 "Will I die?"

This day was the opposite of the previous one. The boys started playing early in the morning, all the way. Luis this time thought twice before going back to the door, which his wife had opened minutes before to ventilate the house. This time Luis stands in front of her stares outside, and watches as the same boy with the bat talks to his friends, and whispers something to one of them at the same moment that he stares at him. Luis yanks the door shut.

With some very strong wires fix the axes behind the sofa, preventing them from falling again.

While having lunch with his wife, at the table, he begins to remember his dream and the phrase that had set a pattern in it, "In 7 days you will be dead." He starts to break out in a cold sweat as he remembers yesterday's incident, and how the same guys who had caused that incident yesterday had looked at him today, and how they were plotting against him. His wife notices his sweating and touches his hand. Luis responds a bit aggressively, getting up from the table, pulling the chair to the side. His wife is petrified, with that reaction of her husband.

From that moment, Luis begins to haunt him the idea that he will actually die, creating in his mind the deepest conviction that the children of the town want to kill him.

Day 3 "The discussion"

In the morning, Luis's wife opens the door again. When Luis gets up, he walks slowly towards the living room. He walks slowly, as he hears voices that are not quite distinguishable in the room. Upon reaching the living room, he sees his wife talking with the boy with the bat, to whom he hands a note. Luis gets furious when he sees that, and with a violent reaction, he begins to walk over the boy, who runs away to avoid being hit. At that moment a strong argument begins with his wife. It addresses ideas that his wife had given the boy a letter to give to a lover. His wife explains to him in surprise that she had given the boy a sweet. It was then that the argument escalated, and Luis slapped his wife. She falls to the ground crying while touching her cheek with one hand.

Day 4 "Again the ax"

Luis slept in the living room that day, on the sofa, it seemed that he did not want to wake up, he felt a little guilty about the blow he had given his wife the day before. His wife is cleaning the house, and she stops to clean the axes from the wall, notices that one of them is loose, and tries to fix it. Luis stares at her. Like a small child seeking forgiveness. His wife, seeing that he is looking at her, goes to the kitchen to continue cleaning. Luis gets up to go after her, and at that moment the same ax falls again, this time it passes closer to his head than the previous one. At that moment he hears a voice that says "You will die." He petrifies himself and looks at his wife who had come to see what had happened. Luis argues with her and asks her if she wants to see him dead.

Day 5 "The running of the bulls"

Luis got up nailing all the windows in the house. His wife was crying in a corner, as she could not even argue with him, for fear that he would hit her again. Luis was convinced that he would die assassinated and that he had to take all possible measures so that this did not happen. When he got to the door, he stopped nailing, looked at his wife, and yanked the door shut.

At lunch, while his wife was cooking, Luis stared at her without her noticing it, and he was able to observe how his wife drew some white powder and made it into her soup. They have lunch. In the afternoon Luis begins to vomit. It feels bad in every way. He remembers what his wife had thrown into his soup, and begins to blame her and claim that if now she wanted to poison him. His wife tries to calm him down, making him understand that he is sick, that he needs help, but Luis does not understand and defends at all costs his idea that his wife wants to kill him.

He comes to the conclusion that if no one outside can harm him anymore, then the only one who can cause his death is his wife.

Day 6 "Decision"

Luis's appearance was deteriorating and the house smelled bad because of the confinement. The light was dim in every way, the only illumination that entered the house was that of the sun that filtered through the cracks in the boards of the house. Luis had been sleeping on his sofa, for 3 days, due to his behavior with his wife. His wife tried to let him know that he was sick, but he denied it and did not want to talk about it. He spent the whole day on guard since he knew that he had blocked the outside world but that he had his murderer, his wife, in his house. His hatred for her increased, and every time he took the knife to chop something in the kitchen Luis was on guard not to be surprised. He knew he had one day left to die, so the idea occurs to him that if he killed his killer, then he couldn't die.

Well into the night, his wife had decided to forgive him and to make him understand she starts flirting with him. He whispers in his ear that he is going to wait for him in bed after the bath. The clock on the wall reads 11:45 pm. Luis knew what the trick was, and he imagined his wife killing him while they made love in bed. This idea was accentuated when his wife called him to bed, and he saw that it was exactly 12:00 am, it was already the 7th, the day of death.

Day 7 "Death to my murderer"

Luis enters the room slowly, his hands behind him. His wife had a very showy dressing gown, and she shows him one of her thighs, and putting her finger to her daring lips and with the other to tell her to come closer. Luis begins to get closer little by little. He does not see on the bed a beautiful, sensual woman who tries to seduce him and forgive him everything for when they have passed this week, he sees a murderer trying to achieve his goal. Don't be fooled by these appearances. He hesitates a bit to approach, but his suspicions are confirmed, when his wife inadvertently moves the pillow and reveals a knife that was under it.

At that moment Luis is rushing over her at full speed with the ax that he was carrying raised behind him.

His wife moves to the side and the ax falls embedded in the head of the bed. As Luis tries to get the ax out, his wife starts running around the house. When he reaches the door, he tries to open it but realizes that Luis had nailed it with two large nails through it to prevent it from opening. At that moment when he saw that, his wife turned around, and Luis cut off her head. The ax is again embedded in the door, sticking out a little on the outside of the door, and the blood falls on both sides.

Luis with a mocking laugh begins to laugh louder and louder. Suddenly surprised. And he begins to exclaim "I can no longer die, I already killed my murderer." repeatedly. At that moment, he looks at his wife who is beheaded on the floor with a pool of blood that has flooded the entire room. Stop laughing. He kneels, and his hands fall into the pool of blood. He is surprised to see such a panorama, he looks up to see the ax on the wall and looks at the one on the leaking door. He laughs again, but this time with a lighter, more conscious laugh. He touches his chest with his right hand, in the part of the heart, and falls into the pool of blood that surrounded his wife. Dead.

It's all friends. Thank you for reading me today and dedicating a few minutes of your time. If you liked it, let me know in the comments.