Category: Dichotomy

“We were in our residence room one night, fast asleep, when we received a visitor knocking at our door. We’d often smoke until falling asleep stoned, so for the first few knocks, neither of us stirred. Given the nocturnal life of a university dormitory, we didn’t think too much of a three a.m. caller. Still, as the knocking persisted and increased in intensity, Nick got up slowly in a daze with a “what the hell” and answered the door. When the man asked frantically to come in, we were surprised but allowed him in because he said he had once lived in that same room. He wasn’t the first to make this claim; the building was ancient, so it wasn’t too hard to believe. How he got into the building remains a mystery, but at the time, we were more enthralled with his paranoid jitters and delusions of persecution. He had on a small knapsack and carried in his hands a midnight blue ceramic urn. His story was hard to believe due to his strange behaviour, but we could suspend our disbelief in light of the circumstances. He said he needed to hide his stuff somewhere; this place was all he had left. We said naively that we’d be happy to help. He put the bag and the urn down on an empty shelf under the windows, thanked us and, as abruptly as he’d entered, left. He was found stabbed, strangled and thrown from a bridge the next morning about a kilometre from campus. It gnawed at us, having these things staring us in the face, beckoning to be opened, but we fought out of respect for our mysterious visitor. We didn’t hear about his demise until about three days later, at which point our curiosity transmuted into a morbid fascination restrained by fear of what could be in that urn and bag.”