Symbiote

There is a man who lives on my stairs.

I was looking to rent something spacious at a cheap price for my painting—I am an artist. A whole house to myself for such a low price was a steal of a deal.

He was there when I was first shown the house. He sat unmoving on the stairwell to the second floor. He was dark haired, and tall and lanky even sitting down, a phasmid—mimetic within his surroundings and still standing out. His wide dark eyes watched me inquisitively as I inspected the place, taking stock of me, cataloging everything I did and sai d just like I analyzed what could be my future home. There was something about him that gave me a cold chill—eerily close to human; too lifelike to be a sculpture, too motionless to be alive.

I asked about him, but all I was told was that he was the reason the house was so inexpensive: he was part of the deal. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t—in my right mind—justify living with a non-vetted stranger. I didn’t know who he was or where he came from.

My obsession began slowly. At first, I’d drive by the house accidentally—I’d find myself parked out front, wondering how I’d even gotten there. 

Then, every moment was haunted by its hallways and bedrooms. By the colored light streaming through the front door’s stained glass. By the soft bay window. By the dull black eyes that tracked my every move. It was when I couldn’t paint anything else that I gave in.

Before I signed the rental agreement, the owners made it clear: there is a presence in the house, they said, it likes the front door. I saw him, I said, I don’t care. They looked surprised, but they didn’t say anything. I think they were happy to finally rent and I didn’t ask them if they could see him too, if he was corporeal the way I could perceive him.

At first, it was weird to have him in the house—to be aware of him. 

He was not a nuisance, though he did a lot of curious things. He particularly liked the eighth step from the foyer—sitting there quietly most of the day with a leather backpack that I’d never seen him open. He never spoke—it was refreshing to have someone who would listen to me talk about art, brush strokes, and color theory. He ate my leftovers—I didn’t mind; I never liked leftovers, I just brought them home cause I felt bad about leaving them to be discarded even if they had the same fate in the end. He’d clean up after me.

He opened the front door both when he saw me coming up the walkway and at random times during the day—luckily, never at night—and I tried to explain to him how dangerous it was, but he never stopped. So I installed a security camera, and the feed went static every time he opened it. He was never there when my guests or my mom came over—nobody ever saw him. I told them about him, but they stopped believing me a couple of months in. They thought I was crazy. I don’t really blame them, I couldn’t even tell them where he went all the time. I never would catch him leaving. I would just see him on the cameras as he walked to the door, the second he opened it the scene disappeared into static.

I don’t know what he did when I wasn’t home. There was really not much to do; I didn’t even own a gaming console. I know, how boring of me, but I've always been more interested in the hands-on type of entertainment. I like painting, that’s the reason why I converted the house’s attic into my art studio. It’s my favorite place in the whole house.

The more time we spent together, the more I got to understand him. We developed our own non-verbal language, and communicated with each other in our own special way. He knew what I needed even before I needed it. It was nice to be quiet together, I would go whole weekends without speaking. And with time I got used to his weirdly shaped onyx eyes—not round, more like squashed hexagons that didn’t reflect light but almost absorbed it—black holes that ate stars, and planets, and light.

We never touched. Well, except for once. I lost my balance on my way up to bed. It felt like slow motion. The water glass went flying in the air, my arms flailed, and I had no idea how to stop myself from the impending doom of a broken neck. I grasped for the railing first, and then I found his shoulder. I grabbed it with such force that I pulled him with me. We tumbled down the stairs in a heap of limbs. He recoiled from me, scrambling to get up and move away from me as if I’d burned him. My ankle hurt, and I’d cut my shin on shards of shattered glass from my ill-fated evening water. His hands were bloody from cuts of his own or from my own blood—I wasn’t sure. He refused to let me help him.

The next day, I went to work as usual. He hadn’t been on the steps, but I thought nothing of it. When I got home, he didn’t greet me at the door. He wasn’t on his step, nor was he in the kitchen, or the den, or in any one of the upstairs rooms. I looked everywhere. He was gone.

I got so worried I couldn’t sleep at night, but I couldn’t call the cops; what would I say? “The ghoul-ghost-man living on my stairs went missing. There's no one here to eat my leftovers!”? So I set out a blanket and put up “HAVE YOU SEEN ME” fliers with a hand-drawn picture—I’d used him as a sketching subject—with my name and phone number. Nobody called.

The leftovers piled in the fridge and the dirty dishes stacked up in the sink. I went to bed later, and later—restless. I had to take sleeping pills to get some rest. It was a fitful sleep, with dreams that had the same energy as when I had dreamt about the house. My bed was too soft, the pillow too hot, the room too loud. I began sleeping on the floor—the cold hardwood the only thing I could lie comfortably on—then I moved to the eighth step.

I noticed my eyes doing a weird thing—I’ve been meaning to see a doctor—they aren’t really fully round or blue anymore, they have become darker and pull to the sides, becoming more oval every day.

Truthfully, I never leave my house much anymore. I often open the door. Sometimes there are people coming up the walkway, but they never enter the house, they disappear in the ether. Other times I watch them walk out and leave, but they haven’t been in the house. I’ve never heard anyone knock or ring the doorbell. I feel like I’m dreaming some weird dream but this is real.

I wonder if he will come back all the time. I should call my friends. I should paint. I should visit my mom. I actually haven’t been to work in several days.

Today my landlord came into the house. He was showing it around to someone I’ve never seen before, talking about the house being vacant for months. 

I wonder why.

I’m right here.