insanium

By Grady Curtis

The thing about being a window washer is people think you don’t exist. It’s like you’re there, and they know you’re there because they see you, but they act like you’re not a person. They see you on the other side of the window, standing on that shaky metal platform, eight stories up outside some fancy hotel you could never afford, and sometimes they smile but usually they just look away. 

Sometimes they really act like you’re not there. Sometimes they see you, and they know you can see them, but then they go about their business, doing work on their computers or phones or writing a poem or googling their ex-wife and you can see it all. 

And every now and then they act like they just have somewhere to be, like they have to get going, but you know they’re just camped outside their hotel room because they left their phone and wallet on the bed and they keep getting texts from someone called “Jack.” 

Little kids think you’re funny, sometimes. They press their noses against the window and giggle when you draw things in the soap, little smiley faces or puppies, even though you’re not supposed to draw in the soap because management says that causes streaks. But the kids think it’s funny, and you like kids. But sometimes moms whisk their children away from you. They treat you like you’re some creep, like the smiley faces you’re drawing in the soap are going to traumatize their kid. 

Once, someone got dressed when you were cleaning their window. You turned away, of course, out of respect, because you don’t want to be rude or get arrested, but you think they might have wanted you to see. That troubles you, sometimes, because you could be anyone. 

Another time, someone walked right up to the window while you were squeegeeing the soap off and looked you dead in the eyes and shut the window blinds. They didn’t really mean any harm, but it was sort of rude, just walking up and shutting you out like that. 

Earlier today, you had seen a man in his room and he was really strange. You were sure he’d seenyou, he definitely had, there was no way he hadn’t, he’d stared right at your face, but when his eyes passed over you it was like they glazed over, like they just weren’t seeing anything anymore, which was sort of weird because you weren’t trying to hide. You were just there, in your cargo pants and strapped into the platform, eight stories up, dipping the sponge into the bucket and slapping it on the window. But this guy didn’t even seem to see you. 

He’d opened his closet, and you hadn’t been able to look away because the job was really boring and seeing what folks were doing was really all there was to do. So when he opened his closet, you shifted a little, to try and peek inside, but he was blocking its contents. But it didn’t matter because he reached into the closet, leaned his whole body in, actually, and wrapped his arms around something really big and pulled it out slowly. It looked like a life-size puppet, maybe, or a sculpture, or maybe some huge doll. He had his back to you, lugging the thing across the carpet until it was in the middle of the room and he stood back from it, hands on his hips, pride in his shoulders. And when he moved to the side you almost fell off your platform. 

The reason you’d almost fallen offyour platform was because there were two of the man in the room. Well, there was one, but there was another one, but it wasn’t quite right. It was blotchy and didn’t really have any features, but it was the same size and shape and hair color as the guy in the room, and when you leaned against the window and looked closer, it looked like those balloons you made in second grade where you blew the balloon up and covered it in paper mache and then popped the balloon. It was wet and plastered and painted to look like the man. 

You hadn’t been able to tear your eyes away. The man had gone back into the closet and you wondered if he was gonna bring out another paper mache person but instead he brought out a huge cardboard box full to the brim with toilet paper rolls and then the man dragged this other bucket out from next to the closet and it was full of glue. And he carefully, gently, lovingly, dipped a strip of toilet paper into the glue and then smoothed it across the face of his creation, caressing its cheek as he flattened it down, holding its face in his hands like he loved it. 

And then you remembered that you were not getting paid to watch people so you slapped some more soap on the sponge and began scrubbing at a streak of bird shit (there’s always so much bird shit) and then you squeegeed it away and the man was still there, patting down the thing’s stomach and rubbing more glue on its abdomen. It was horrifying, really, and maybe it was therapeutic for this dude, for whatever reason, to construct a replica of himself out of paper mache. But it made you feel sick to your stomach. 

And then the man saw you. His eyes weren’t glazed over anymore, and he stared right at you, right in your eyes, and you couldn’t move and you’d really never felt so lost and hopeless in your whole life. Slapped another spongeful of soap on the window, like a peace offering, like saying look, man, you do you. I’m just here for the windows. Like an olive branch. Just in case he was some sort of sicko, or if he reported you to your boss for staring, which was something other people had been fired for.  

But instead the man had just walked back to his creation, grabbed it by the face, one glue- coated hand on either side of its head, and you thought maybe he was gonna kiss it, but he slammed it into his own head, his face mushed into its face. The glue ran down his cheeks and some of the toilet paper stuck to his eyelids and chin when he pulled away. He smiled at you and smushed the concaved skull into his forehead again. 

So you squeegeed the rest of that soap off that window as fast as you could, because you wanted to move on to the next window as soon as possible, you didn’t wanna see this guy for any longer than you had to. 

The man laughed. His dripping head was thrown back and his mouth was open and his chest was shaking, and then he ripped his sculpture’s head right off, like it weighed nothing, and maybe it did weigh nothing because it really was just toilet paper and glue, and then the man hurled the head at the window and it splatted really nicely, spread out evenly with the black painted eyes right in front of your own. 

You hadn’t even finished cleaning the window. You pulleyed yourself to the right as fast as you could, maybe a little bit too fast because the platform swayed considerably. But you didn’t care, as long as you didn’t have to stare at that man anymore.

In the next room, the shades are drawn. It’s almost hypnotic to put the soap on and wipe it off, and put it on and wipe it off, over and over again, staring at the white suds against the faded brown window shades, clearing it away again with the squeegee. You’d left soap on the previous window—that was really the worst part. You hadn’t finished cleaning the window. 

If you’re anything, it’s good at your job. There’s a reason you’ve worked there for over ten years, or maybe it was eleven now, or was it eight? The company has some generic name, something like Window Experts or Washy Wishy Windows or Henry and Sons Window Washers. It’s changed owners and names a few times. 

You’ve been washing all day. The heat is getting to you, it’s so hot, sweat’s dripping down your nose and into your eyes, and that’s probably why it seemed like the man had been making another man out of toilet paper mache, yes, that’s it, it wasn’t real. 

With renewed confidence, you move to the next window. Out of the corner of your eye you see the curtains being reopened in the room you just left and you feel a little offended. Part of you wants to go back and keep cleaning, but you decide not to because you don’t want to be fired. 

The walls of the next room are dark red, which is weird because it’s a hotel and usually the rooms are uniform but not this one, this one is eerie and dark, but the window is what matters, and so you start cleaning it, soap splatting against the glass, dripping, spreading, and when you start wiping it away, there’s a child in the room smiling at you. 

Smile back, because that’s polite. The kid smiles wider and giggles again, and you do that thing you’re not really supposed to but you do anyways, because why not, you put some more soap on the glass and draw a little smiley face. When you wipe it away the kid is giggling even more. She has green eyes and blonde wispy hair, and couldn't be more than five. You love kids at that age, they’re so small and happy and cute. Not affected by the world yet, no bills to pay, don’t have to get a job at a nice window washing company with a generic name and mediocre pay. 

Old enough to be funny. More soap, another smiley face. She’s giggling so hard she falls backwards and then she’s sitting, and you’re worried she hurt herself because she does that thing little kids do where they pause, like they’re deciding whether or not to make a big deal of the situation, but then she laughs again, even harder than before, and you laugh too and draw another smiley face. 

You run the squeegee along the bottom of the window, wiping off soap, and the girl crawls along with it and brushes her fingertips against the glass next to your squeegee and she’s really having a good time, and then her hand brushes against the wall, and you realize that you’re at the edge of the window. The little girl lifts her hand up and it comes away dark red and wet. The inside walls are covered in wet paint, and who repaints a hotel room? And who leaves a little kid alone in a hotel room with wet paint? You can’t leave a kid alone in a hotel room at all, really? You should call the police, but the girl smiles and wipes her red paint hand on the window and giggles. She draws a smiley face in the paint and you can’t help but laugh. 

You cover the corner of the window in soap, again, completely obscuring the little girl, You start to squeegee the soap away, looking for her giggling little face, but you get to the bottom corner, where she must be hiding, and she’s not there. 

Maybe she’s hiding around the wall, you think, but she’s not. She’s standing in the middle of the room, dead still, smiling at you and you wave, but she doesn't wave back. And then the door next to her opens, maybe the bathroom door, and a woman walks out, tall and handsome and with long hair and she’s in a bathrobe and she’s holding a bucket, a huge bucket. 

She approaches the girl and tips the bucket slowly onto the girl’s head and you smack your hands against the glass, STOP, but the girl’s head, the top of her skull, starts caving in, starts flattening, and her eyes are falling and her mouth is still smiling but warping, and she melts into the carpet, melts like wet paper, wilts like paper mache. 

Your legs go all wobbly and you can’t feel your fingers. You need to get down, out of the sun, out from this height. Your water bottle is empty and that must be it, you’re dehydrated and overheated. You start to lower to the ground, slowly.

The platform hits the pavement and your knees buckle, hands gripping the railing, sweat pooling, breathing shallow. You stumble off the platform and into the lobby of the hotel, towards the cucumber water, which is just sitting right next to the doors. You prefer melon, or strawberry, but cucumber water is better than nothing, so you fill up a cup and start drinking. It soothes your mind and you feel better already, but you drink a few more cups for good measure.

“Are you okay?” 

The voice snaps through your mind fuzz. There’s a boy in a red uniform, he looks like one of those boys who carry luggage in old movies. He’s taller than you. He seems genuine, like he really cares about you. 

“It’s just so hot outside,” you tell the boy. “I’m a window cleaner for the building.” 

The boy nods thoughtfully. “It is awfully hot outside. Can I interest you in something from the hotel bar? First drink is on the house.” 

“That would be lovely.” You could really go for some peanuts and a drink. It’s been a hell of a day and you need something to ground yourself, remind yourself what’s real. 

You walk over to the bar. Your legs are slow and weigh too much, but at least the hotel bar is nice. It’s dimly lit and the stools are made of deep red leather and they spin a little. Sometimes, you’ve found, when stools spin too fast it’s hard not to spin. That’s always a recipe for vomit. 

There are hanging light bulbs around the room, dull, and it gives the whole room a weird old vibe. The bartender is a woman, a really tall and smart-looking woman, with black hair and brown eyes. She leans on the counter in front of you, the ends of her hair brushing the counter. 

“You look exhausted. Can I get you a drink?” she asks.

“A beer would be great,” you say.

 “There are a few options—” she begins, standing up again and gesturing to the glass case behind her.

You wave your hand. “Surprise me.”

The bartender smiles and turns around, and you help yourself to some peanuts. They’re really good, better than hotel bar peanuts have a right to be. They’re salty and almost melt in your mouth, and there’s some deeper flavor that you can’t quite pinpoint: mustard, maybe. Or garlic. 

The bartender places a bottle on a coaster. She’s taken the label off, leaning into your request. The bottle has droplets of water coating the outside, and it’s cold on your hands. A welcome cold. The beer is sweet like honey and delicious. You take a few sips before turning back to the bartender. 

“What is this?”

 “You like it?”

 “It’s very good.”

The bartender smiles a crooked, perplexing smile. “It’s my personal favorite.”

You nod, appreciating the mystery, and drink your beer. You’re the only one in the bar, which doesn’t surprise you, since it’s one in the afternoon. Who else but a sweaty window washer would be in the hotel bar, drinking an unknown honey-tasting beer in the middle of the day? 

The bartender slides a piece of paper towards you. She has four fingers on her hand. “Note for you,” she says. 

Room 533. 1:30. Part of you was hoping for her phone number. 

“Who sent this?” you ask, but when you look up, the bartender is gone. Did she leave you this? Is this her room? Would it be possible that she could...like you? 

You swallow the rest of your beer and cross the hotel lobby, clutching the note in your fingers, heart racing. You ask the lobby boy where the elevators are, and he tells you that they are out of service. The stairs are right around the corner. 

A voice in the back of your head is whispering, you’ll be fired, get back to work, but a louder voice shuts it out, saying, it’ll be fast, don’t worry about it. You’ve worked for this company for nine years and never taken a day off. You deserve this. 

You listen to that second voice as you begin to thud your way up the stairs. You’re not out of shape, exactly, but by the third story, your thighs are burning and your lungs hurt. You look at the note again for reassurance and it gives you new strength. 

Room 533. 1:30 

You don’t even know the bartender’s name, but you imagine something elegant and smart, like Violet, or Sasha. What are you going to say when you get there? Hi, I got your note— oh, it’s you! Maybe throw in a chuckle. Or, is this your note—oh my, you’re that bartender from earlier. What if she doesn’t like being called a bartender?  

The honey beer is going straight to your head. Your legs are starting to feel a little bit like jelly and you feel...far away. You’re floating inside your skull, watching the world through your eye sockets. 

By the time you burst through the heavy door that leads to the 5th story, you’re almost stumbling. Your memory of the bartender’s smile gives you the strength to wobble down the hallway. 

Ro5om r33. 13:0 

You blink. 

Mro3m 5:130 

533. You’re pretty sure it says 533. Which, according to the sign on the wall, is to the... left. The sign keeps moving and changing numbers. 

The carpet is checked. You try to only step on the black squares. You’re worried you’ll fall through the white ones, fall all the way down to the lobby. How embarrassing would that be? Have to explain to the lobby boy that you’d made it all the way up but just fell back down. 

There’s a room with a label clear as day: 533. It’s the only clear thing you’ve seen in a few minutes, and you raise your hand—it’s heavy, like it’s made of wood—and you knock on the door. Smooth your shirt down, run a hand through your hair. Is that what your hair feels like? 

The door opens and the bartender is standing on the other side of it, smiling. “You got my note,” she says. Opens the door a little wider. “Do come in.” You follow her into the room. It’s warm inside.

“I rlaley hpoe yuo lkeid teh eber,” she whispers. 

“W-what?”  

“I said, I really hope you liked the beer, silly,” she giggles. “Come, have a seat. I have drinks.” She sits in a chair in the middle of the room and pulls out two unmarked bottles, identical to the one she gave you in the bar. 

You follow her and sit down in a chair, also in the middle of the room, four feet away from hers and facing it. She reaches out her arm towards you, holding the beer. Her arm is elegant and long, and stretches infinitely in the empty space between you. You take the beer. 

“Ĭ̸̼̕ņ̴̝̏̎͝s̶̪͈̊̂á̸̗̮̈́ͅň̸̺̯̇̕ḭ̷̰͉̀̅a̶̠̱̐̏̃ḿ̸̹̩͌̍ͅ,” she says, and her lips don’t move as she says it. Instead, her mouth opens into a perfect “o” and the sound spills out like vinegar, and her voice drops an octave. It trembles and makes your bones vibrate, your ears weep. 

“Oh—that’s a beautiful name,” you reply.

“And what is your name?”

“I—” you pause. “I’m not sure.” 

“Well that’s alright. My name will be enough names for all of us.”

“All of us?” You twist the cap off your beer and drink some. It’s refreshing.
“Waht, dndit you raed the ntsoe?”

“What?”

“I said, didn’t you read the notes?”

You look down at the note clutched in your hand. You lift it up in front of your eyes and inspect it, closely. 

Room 533. 1:30 

You take another drink of beer. Flip the note over. On the back, scribbled in red ink, is a sentence that you hadn’t noticed before. 

we can’t wait to meet you 

“Oh.” You nod. “Okay.” 

The bartender stands and goes over to a closet. She opens the doors, slowly, grinning at you. 

“Are you ready to meet us?” she asks, tapping her fingernails on the doors as they open. Your mouth is dry. You drink more beer. 

“Y-yes.”

From the closet, six people stumble out, one after the other, and it reminds you of those clown cars that hold impossible crowds. The six closet people stand around the two chairs, and you look from one to the next. Their faces are swirling and shifting. Must be the beer. You take another drink. 

“Who...who are they?” you ask. You’re not really sure you want to hear the answer. The bartender smiles her confusing smile again and holds out her finger, beckoning one of them over to her. It stumbles across the carpet like a fawn through snow, unsure of its knees. 

“They’re nothing,” the bartender whispers. The thing bends down until its face is level with hers. She reaches out her hand and squeezes its cheeks, squeezing just a bit too hard. Its mouth starts to mush into a circle, nose crinkling, white glue running down the bartender’s fingers, and then she lets go and it sloshes onto the floor in a heap. 

You stare, mouth agape.

“Like I said,” she whispers, leaning towards you, “they’re nothing.” 

The pile of glue and toilet paper sinks into the carpet. 

She drags her chair across the carpet and sits inches from your face. Her eyes are black, you realize now. They must’ve looked brown in the bar lighting, but now her irises are the color of her pupils. Her mouth is thin and wide, and her nose is sharp and small. She’s...you want to say beautiful, and she is beautiful, but she invokes a deep fear in you, something primal and terrifying. Her hands are on your face. They’re cold and dry, like they’re sucking the moisture out of your jaw. 

“I have to go,” you say, standing up and knock the chair over. The bartender stands up too. 

“So soon?” she asks. Tilts her head to the side. 

“I’m sorry, I hate to—I have to get back to work,” you say again, and back away. There are arms on your shoulders, not the bartender’s arms. One of the closet people is gripping your shoulders, their fingers inching across your chest. 

“I have to go,” you say again, and the closet person’s grip is really tight, too tight, and even though you wriggle to get out of their grip, another one grabs you and their arms are growing and wrapping around you, wrapping and wet, cold, snaking up and around your neck and pushing you back, back, until you hit the wall and then they keep covering you, wet and cold.

“I have to go.” It’s like that’s all you can say anymore: I have to go, I have to go, I have to go. The bartender is walking towards you and smiling. 

“I have to go,” she mocks. The wet paper is drying now, cementing you to the wall. Your face is uncovered and you hope she can’t see the terror in your eyes. There are only four closet people in the room now, and looking down, you realize the other two are cementing you to the wall. On your stomach is one of their eyes and on your left arm is a nose. 

The bartender approaches you, inches from your nose, and she puts one hand above and one hand below her eye, pulling the skin back, tearing it at the corners of her eye. Blood drips from the seams. With one hand, she digs her fingernails into her face and plucks her eyeball from the socket. It’s bloody and wet. Her empty eye socket is drooling blood and fluids down her cheek. 

Her fingers, coated in blood and gunk, clutching the slimy eye, little red strings dangling off the back, slink towards your face, towards your mouth, and you try to turn your head to the side but she grabs your cheeks, holding you in place. 

You clamp your mouth shut, but she pinches your nose, and you have to breathe at some point. As soon as you do, she plops the eyeball into your mouth. It’s slimy and smooth, and moves towards the back of your mouth like it’s meant to be there. She’s got her hand covering your mouth now, so you can’t spit it out.

You think you’re gonna throw up. You gag. You try to swallow the eyeball, and the red strings slide into your mouth like hair, falling down your throat like a marble, and finally she lets go of your face. 

The dried paper holding you to the wall begins to melt again, and the two closet people regain their humanoid forms. You collapse onto the carpet, coughing and gagging. 

The bartender sits back in the chair, still steadily bleeding. She is unfazed. 

“What the fuck—what the fuck just happened?” you scream at her. You move to stand, to charge at her, to tackle her and kill her, but as soon as you stand up your legs turn to mush and you fall over again. 

“Woh the fcuk are you,” you wheeze. “Waht si wnorg wthi tihs paslce?” She leans forward, tilting her head and smiling. “Sorry, I can’t understand you.”
 Your arms are numb, and you collapse on the floor, your cheek pressed against the carpet, the bartender moving in and out of focus, shifting and growing and shrinking, laughing and bleeding. 

Her empty eye socket is black and hollow, and you stare into it, mesmerized. It grows and grows and grows and swallows you whole. 

“Well, I had a good time,” you say, smiling and shutting the door behind you. On your arm is the bartender, smiling up at you. The door beeps—it’s locked. 

“Let’s go grab a drink, shall we, dear?” the bartender asks. You nod and laugh. 

“I’m simply parched. The elevator is this way, dear,” you say, and you guide her towards it. It’s working again. 

There’s a buzzing in your ears. You’re with the love of your life. You can’t believe you two only met a few hours ago, or was it a few days? Either way, it doesn’t matter. You’re truly, deeply, in love with the bartender. 

The elevator dings and the doors slide open to the lobby. You step out, holding the bartender’s hand as she steps over the crack between the elevator and the hotel floor. 

“Why don’t you get us some drinks,” the bartender whispers to you. “I’ve got to take care of something.” 

“Of course,” you say. You kiss her on the cheek and make your way over to the bar. The lobby boy watches from behind the check-in desk, grinning at you. There’s no one behind the bar, and you sit at a stool for a few minutes, but when no one shows up, you look over your shoulder to make sure no one is watching, and you slip behind the bar. 

There are a few beers on tap, and some stuff in fancy looking bottles on shelves. In the fridge under the bar are gleaming amber bottles with no label, identical to the one you had earlier. Grinning, you grab yourself one and take a sip. 

Someone comes in and collapses on a stool. They’re sweaty and tired, and they must think you’re the bartender. You decide to play along. 

“You look exhausted. Can I get you drink?” Your hair brushes against the counter top as you lean towards them. 

“A beer would be great,” they say. “There are a few options—” “Surprise me.” 

Grady Curtis is a creative writing major with an ecology minor. They live in New Hampshire with their two dogs and enjoy painting in their free time.