Stairs

Yesterday, upon the stair,

I met a man who wasn't there!

He wasn't there again today,

Oh how I wish he'd go away!

The evening did not end well. We didn't fight but I was not sure when we would see each other again. These things do happen. It was late and I had to be going otherwise I would miss my last bus and I needed to be up early tomorrow for work.

That was part of the reason the evening had ended on a cold note, I always had to go, I was the one who always cut things short. It was dark out, and rainy and the room was cold, no double glazing here, so I took my leave, cold and cold-shouldered.

The house was an old Victorian property now split into ten flats and the one I was leaving was on the top floor. The door was shut in silence, and I looked at the stairs, they continued up to an attic area and I thought I would take a look, even though I had a book to catch, but I am easily distracted.

I went up but there were no light switches but the attic was newly floorboarded and the only light came from a circular window at one end. I thought I saw a movement, but put it down to a bird or rodent, although neither should have been there.

I turned to go back down, to catch my bus, but there was something odd, the door of the flat I had left was no longer there, there was just a blank wall covered with rotting wallpaper that looked to be decades old. I thought it must be the light, then I saw a shadow reflected, the was something behind me, but I looked and stared into empty space.

That gave me a bit 0f a shock so I continued down, but all the doors to the flats were gone, it was just blank walls. There was something wrong.

I heard footsteps behind me, but when I turned there was nothing there. I kept going down but there was no end to the stairs, I know I was on about the fifth storey when I left the flat, but I was sure I had gone down seven flights, but maybe I had just miscounted them.

I went back up, but every floor was the same and the front hall had disappeared. As I walked down I could see maybe two more flights, but as I went down two more flights appeared.

I was sure I was being followed and more than once I felt shadowy fingers of ice touch me, but when I looked, I was alone.

It was all the same and there was no way out, the light was as you would expect at night, but I think I was all alone on these stairs, being stalked by a creature or person who wasn't actually there.

I was getting more frightened. Had I been, unknowingly, been given drugs? I didn't know where the flat I had come from was, the attic had disappeared and every floor I walked up to or down to was the same. There were no doors.

I was feeling that I had wandered into some side building of purgatory or even hell.

This is what hell must be like, not fire and brimstone, and being poked by devils, but pure sameness and boredom, with no option to escape. No pain just mind-numbing boredom.

Am I doomed to wander these stairs tormented by a ghostly stalker? I am sure this is just a bad dream, but it is showing no signs of quitting.