Chrysalis
It was midmorning. I wore my slippers, pajamas, and a bathrobe. I felt as if a dozen caterpillars were crawling up and down my back. My guest knocked on the door. I opened it.
“Anderson!” he cried. “What an extraordinary thing you’ve done!”
I smiled. “Every room I’ve ever set foot in, recreated as part of this house. No small feat of time or money.”
Thompson stepped through the door. “The blueprints must be fantastic.” He turned in a slow circle, taking in the foyer. “So many doors. Is this a hospital room?”
“Indeed. We will return here often throughout the tour. It’s a complicated path, and only I know which doors to take.” I tapped his shoulder. He winced. “So don’t get lost.”
“I won’t,” he said, and adjusted his glasses. “Now, where is my office?”
“It will be some time before I visit a psychologist,” I warned. I led him into a room of red light and soft furniture. “This is my childhood living room.”
“When do we reach Johnson?” Thompson asked.
I shook my head. “I haven’t even met him, much less killed him. Patience.”
We left the living room, then wandered through my first bedroom, a blanket fort, and my grandparents’ kitchen.
“An architectural marvel,” Thompson breathed, seesawing in the doorway between a principal’s office and a friend’s basement. “Where does all this come from?”
“Here and there,” I said, waving a hand. “Naturally, nothing is real.”
“But it looks so authentic!” He tried to take a cookie from a tray. It was glued down. “What do you plan on doing with this place? Oh! Salt!”
It was a motel room by the beach. I regarded the dim lights and sand on the floor. “I intend to unravel my life. Besides, I dearly missed these rooms, and so will you, once you spend some time here. Do you see those butterflies?”
He looked. A case of preserved butterflies was mounted on a bookshelf. He nodded.
“Exquisite specimens.”
“Keep looking,” I said. “There are more.”
We walked on. In the science laboratory of my secondary school, Thompson spent minutes hunting for butterflies. He found them. “What do they mean? Are they symbolic?”
I kept walking. “I like butterflies.”
Next came a funeral parlor. The open casket contained a perfect wax model of my mother’s body, wearing an orange dress.
“Are there any butterflies in here?” Thompson asked.
“Only a painted lady.”
He removed his glasses and polished them on his collar. “Is your prison cell here?”
I faced him. The yellow lights shone on his wide eyes. “Tell me, Thompson. Who do you think I am?”
“A complicated case,” he stammered, sliding his glasses up his nose. “Very complicated.”
“And I would not forget such an important part of my life. Patience. We haven’t even reached Johnson’s back porch.”
“Johnson’s back porch!” Thompson gasped.
We entered a large room with swallowtail chandeliers. “A restaurant,” I said. “Nothing important happened here.”
“Good,” he said. “May we sit?”
We sat at table seventeen, beside the fireplace. “Have you learned anything?” I asked. I sorted through a basket of plaster apples on the table and tested one with a fingernail.
Thompson drummed on the wood. “A great deal. I could explore this place forever.”
“You could?”
“Certainly. I am so close to a breakthrough, Anderson. Here, I can explore a deranged mind and figure out what drives people to similar madness. Then I can share it with the entire psychological community!”
A whole community of Thompsons would be a bore. “Are you quite rested?”
“I am. Let us continue!” He leapt to his feet. I finished scratching a butterfly into the apple before following him into the next room.
There, he stood frozen in the false sunlight. I knocked on the top of his head to unfreeze him.
“This is it,” he whispered. “It looks nothing like I expected.”
“What, no blood on the floor? I’m a sanitary man, Thompson.” I admired the screened-in porch. It was an exact replica of Johnson’s back porch, without the smashed lamps or blood spatters. Thompson fluttered around to investigate everything. I watched and smiled.
“If you’ll excuse me, I would prefer not to linger here,” I said.
Thompson snapped up. “Apologies. It’s just so fascinating.”
“Come. You wanted to see your office.” I led him. He followed. We passed through a padded prison cell, a courtroom, and through the hospital foyer again. The front door had vanished. Thompson didn’t notice.
The next door I opened was a familiar gray one. Thompson beamed. “It’s perfect!”
“You know this room inside and out. I had to make it accurate.” I lounged on the cornflower-blue couch, just like always.
He sat behind the desk. “Are any of the other rooms inaccurate?” he asked.
“Every room is accurate to my interpretation.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Anderson, I understand you better than ever before.”
“Really,” I said.
“Yes, I do. The problem is, you don’t want to change. But it happened, at some point in these rooms, and you’re trying to find it.”
“I never change.”
“No, you’ve changed a lot in our time together. It’s why you aren’t in prison anymore.”
I looked in his eyes. “You’re my friend, Thompson. Do you trust me?”
He looked in my eyes. “I’m not your friend; I’m your psychologist. I don’t need to trust you.”
I nodded. “Do you know where that door leads?”
“The door?” Thompson followed my gaze to the left. “No, I don’t.” He crossed to the door and traced the butterfly pattern on its wooden panels.
I watched him. “Try this: Listen to me. Do not open that door. I will kill you.”
Thompson jerked his hand away. “That’s what you told Johnson! In your confession, it’s just what you said!”
“Open the door,” I told him.
He hesitated, then opened it. Pale green light and a breath of air-conditioning brushed through. The hospital foyer — back to the beginning. “I don’t understand,” he said, peering into the room beyond. There was no door to the outside world, not anymore.
“My life is a circle,” I said quietly. “Like the life cycle of a butterfly, but it’s only me. Over and over and over again.”
Thompson stared at me, his face pale as death. “Anderson,” he said. “What have you done?”
I didn’t answer. He stood with a foot in his office and a foot in the hospital foyer, fiddling with his glasses while sweat glistened on his brow.
“Don’t get lost,” I said.
Thompson stepped through. The door closed and it locked behind him. He knocked on the door. I didn’t move.
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Reader Comments
Fantastic!!
Thought provoking words creatively written.
Creative and thought provoking. Excellent writing.
What a phenomenal piece of literature! Loved from start to finish!