{"id":374,"date":"2025-10-18T05:25:46","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T05:25:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markdunn.ca\/blog\/?p=374"},"modified":"2025-10-19T23:45:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T23:45:16","slug":"october-seventeenth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markdunn.ca\/blog\/october-seventeenth\/","title":{"rendered":"october seventeenth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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There are different types of unease you can feel in different circumstances, right? Like, one version lives on a rollercoaster, just as you cross over the first hill. Another one you might feel sitting on the bus beside a stranger who really wants to talk to you about conspiracy theories. There’s also that feeling in your gut when you haven’t had anything to eat for a while, which is different, but similar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was another sense of unease entirely that I felt that night, as the branches rustled in the wind outside my window. The screen door to the balcony shook against its frame – something I’d been meaning to talk to the building manager about, but never got around to. Big thick dark clouds blanketed the sky, ready to burst like an overfilled salad roll that I put too much vermicelli into. But dark, like it was dipped in soy sauce or something. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were deep into fall and I was still getting used to the shorter days. It was already dark when I left my office…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know what? If I can back up just a second, there actually were a few things I’d been meaning to mention to the building manager. The heat was broken, which would have been fine as it was spring and I wouldn’t be needing it for a while, but somehow it had broken in the “on” position, so it was constantly pumping warmth into the apartment. It must’ve been over thirty degrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And he promised to replace the kitchen counters when I was moving in as well. That never happened! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, I couldn’t focus on the New Girl <\/em>episode I’d put on the tv, so I turned it off and let the light fade out of the room. I turned and lay down on the couch, staring out the window. The wind howled outside. I hadn’t made dinner, wasn’t hungry. Still didn’t feel like anything to eat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I watched the hanging fern I’d put on the patio that summer, now dry and brown, as it frantically swung back and forth in the wind. It was so lush when I’d bought it. Green and full. I’d overwatered and underwatered it, given it both too much light and not enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it was the warmth of the apartment, radiating through the windows and mixing with the cool air outside, but a steam started to form. It grew and lingered on the patio, thickening like a (vegan) chili.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I drifted off to sleep. It can’t have been for very long, but when I woke up the fog had seeped into the apartment. A blanket, at least a foot and a half thick covered the entire floor. I dipped my arm in it, slowly flicking wisps of fog and watching them dissolve as they rose towards the ceiling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dim yellow light from the lampposts outside hit the leaves of the still living houseplants in the apartment, casting grand shadows on the walls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d been staring at the shapes the monstera shadows were making on the wall for ages before I realized that something was weird about the whole situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was also dripping with sweat, so I grabbed my notebook from the coffee table, opened it to a random page, and wrote down<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

clean apartment and then text David re heat<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But realistically, I had to do something about the fog. It was cool, but it wasn’t right. And maybe it was the shadows of the money tree interacting with the shadows of the prayer plant, but I was starting to get a distinct impression that there was something else in the apartment with me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I closed my eyes for a second, figuring I’d try going back to sleep and waking up in a normal apartment. Or, maybe I was having a weird dream and I’d wake up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It didn’t work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then I heard the balcony door slide open an inch, and then get caught. I listened as the door kept sliding open another inch and then getting caught, slipping, and getting caught again. I was too scared to think that this was yet another <\/em>thing I needed repaired. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I kept my eyes closed. I figured, if I can’t see it, it can’t hurt me. Makes sense right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I closed my eyes tighter as all the warmth in the room was sucked out the sliding door. Goosebumps covered my arms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s kind of funny, earlier that same day, as I walked home in the twilight, I was thinking about how boring my life was. I watched too much science fiction, the type where a regular kid (and at almost thirty I still felt like one of those kids) is in the right place at the right time and is thrust into some sort of crazy intrigue and has to step up and save the world. As I walked home, I kept thinking, when will I be tested like that? I’m ready, aren’t I? I can handle anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, as I was lying there, eyes tightly closed, more goosebumps emerging across my arms like grey whales rising to the surface for air, I guess I found the answer to that question. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With visions of a cloaked murderer with grey skin and black soulless eyes coming into my apartment, I kept whispering it’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real <\/em>over and over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who knows how long that went on, but the room got a little warmer, and then felt a little brighter, and the sliding door had stopped opening, so I slowly opened my eyes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside, the sky was a brilliant pink. The sun was poking out behind the mountains. The fog was gone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I looked at the balcony. The door was open, all the way. That definitely wasn’t me. A pair of pigeons stood on the railing, bobbing their heads as they walked back and forth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heat was once again radiating into the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I looked at my phone, it was almost seven am, too late to go to the gym, but I still had time for breakfast before getting ready for work. I wasn’t hungry, but needed the routine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stood up and caught something out of the corner of my eye. I swung my head back towards the patio. The pigeons had taken off. That was it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only end pieces remained of the loaf of bread I was keeping in the freezer. I put them into the oven and turned it on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weird dream, I thought. But if something like that ever happened for real<\/em> I would definitely be ready. I wouldn’t just lay there with my eyes closed hoping for nothing to happen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are different types of unease you can feel in different circumstances, right? Like, one version lives on a rollercoaster, just as you cross over the first hill. Another one you might feel sitting on the bus beside a stranger who really wants to talk to you about conspiracy theories. There’s also that feeling in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markdunn.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markdunn.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markdunn.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markdunn.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markdunn.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.markdunn.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":387,"href":"https:\/\/www.markdunn.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markdunn.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markdunn.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markdunn.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}