2025-2026, Borgesian Fiction
"The House of Pursuit" – Ethan Villgran '27
Despite the many dreams that were burned into the young man’s mind, none so vividly had ever taken shape like the one on the morrow of Christmas. Snow blinds vision past the length of the streetlights on the other side of the street. A news anchor reporting the unfortunate news of a murder that occurred just hours before. Larrson was of the feeble type. Being susceptible to the common cold even in summer, he typically stayed inside, training his mind with the daily Sudoku.
The walls are bare, and the smooth golden beige resembles the never-ending sand of beaches in tropical islands. There were no pictures that decorated the walls, nor any luxurious furniture other than the smooth oak dinner table.
As the night approaches, the TV characters begin to converse with each other, drowningout the harsh winter wind blowing against the hardwood windows. Drowsiness attacks the mind, closing the eyes and dulling the senses. As he starts to stand and head to his bed, a nagging feeling comes over him. Sauntering into the bathroom, the mirror lights up the small room. Never opening his eyes to see his pale, sunken reflection, Larrson floats off to his bed, almost unconsciously getting under the sheets and slowly drifting away. Soft thuds, as if someone were beating a drum, grew louder in his ear. Eerie creaking follows the series of beats, and the planks of the home audibly felt the pressure. Larrson’s eyes expand, his pupils dilating to try to adjust to pinpoint the source of the ever-so-worrisome noise. The faint moonlight brightens the pathway to the bedroom door. His hand reaches for the golden door handle, shaking as he attempts to regulate his breathing.
The white door, hated by Larrson because of how it gets stuck on the frame, makes him have to forcefully pull open the door, causing a ruckus that scared even Larrson. Trembling, he moves along the right side of the now gray wall, scanning the corridors for signs of movement. The mysterious intruder had cut all noise, leaving only the fear of not being alone. After minutes of searching, he noticed the same windows had started appearing again and again. The familiar swaying trees had gone undetected until the same golden handle and unruly door had appeared. Realization set in, and now the house became a stranger. There was no sign of any uninvited guests, but the pit feeling in Larrson’s stomach had told him that someone was watching him, following him, all in the cover of darkness.
The house seemed pristine, as if it were thoroughly cleaned, but a strong breeze had swept through the narrow corridor. The bone-chilling air shocked the trembling man. Larrson searched for the source, clearing every room twice. Somehow, there was no wind. Feeling baffled and the alluring thought that the Christmas dinner was waiting, convinced himself to get on his way back to bed. He started on the opposite way he came, expecting to find his golden handle waiting for him, but it never appeared. Nothing was the same as he had seen it previously. Rooms that he has never seen before started to show up, some being reduced down to the insulation, others filled to the brim with childhood toys. Only one set of stairs had appeared. The continuous hallway had been interrupted by a dark circular stairwell, and Larrson peered down and saw not a landing, but perhaps a shadow of a presence, unable to be clearly defined without seeing, but a blur standing at the center. It was indeterminable whether the being was looking up at the now shell-shocked young man. The floor began to feel like wet clay, slowly swallowing Larrson's feet up. The figure glides up the stairwell, giving off no audible noises, slowing Larrson's reaction to the imminent threat. His feet tear from the floor, but as he sprints, he feels that he cannot gain any speed. He seemed forever stuck at a walking pace, constantly looking over his shoulder. As he tried his hardest to speed up, and the approaching, yet still, figure got closer, he saw small white pills that littered the floor, accompanied by an empty orange pill bottle that lay open near the wall. Although he felt a tugging sensation to investigate it as it seemed at the tip of his tongue as to what it was for, he focused on escaping the mysterious intruder. His heart pounds, adding only more panic to the stressful situation. Sweat beads on his face. The corridor in which he runs starts to feel endless. Each turn leads to an unknown region of the house that Larrson does not recognize. Deep gashes in the walls and moss draped from the ceiling appear as the thought of death creeps near.
The house was never like this, as he remembers. The routine of vacuuming, scrubbing, and brushing seemed never to have existed, as the corridors only deteriorate more and more. Groans erupt as the house’s shattering structure begins lose its meaning that stuck for decades before he even moved in. No longer do the nighttime stars shine; only a thin veil of darkness encapsulates the dream, but the warmth from the sun still reaches Larrson. The calm feeling eases his senses, but the fear of looking back keeps his legs moving. Searching for it, Larrson sees the light, a window at the end of the corridor. For what he thought would be the inevitable demise of his complicated life, an escape found him. The window was a perfect square, with straight white lines dividing it up into 4 sections and slightly pushed forward, opening up to reveal people in blue overalls walking around and carts being pushed around. Everything was so bright, but it could not be any more relieving. His rescue was in sight, but his arms seemed to work against him.
A feeling of restraint kept Larrson ever closer to the misery approaching him. Finally, looking back, the figure was no longer there, only the darkness and fear devouring the corridor faster than he could outpace. The final stretch then slowed down in time, his body no longer responding to his erratic mind. Thoughts race through the nerves, only for them to fizzle out. The fuses of the body drowned, but the bony fingertips of the young man reached the light. Through closed eyes, everything is bright.
Once again is Larrson’s body unable to move, but not because of a mysterious force, but by way of plastic zipties connecting him to cold rails. Lying face up on a soft, blue bed, rectangular lights leave no trace of shadows to be seen. Shuffling feet and rhythmic beeping bring life to the surroundings. Closing his fist, Larrson opens his eyes and sees clearly a TV directly in front of him, displaying a news reporter covering the uprise in popularity in suburban homes and their homeliness for families. A man with a clipboard, visibly worn down with the stress of managing human lives, says, “Hello, Mr. Larrson, you’re back.”
Setting the clipboard down with a clack, he walks around the bed with an intrigued expression and looks at the machine directly to Larrson’s right. Multiple long, snaking tubes connected to the machine dangle as the doctor reads the numbers and graphs. More tubes, but rather thin ones, were inserted into his wrists, with a strange sensation in his nostrils, forcefully feeding him air. In the next moments, the doctor explained that he came to the hospital in a fit of exhaustion and stress. An unknown cause had left him with a severe concussion, losing consciousness, and falling a considerable distance. Realization hits like a train, and flashes of memory come back to Larrson. Fear, desperation, pleading, begging, for a chance at survival. Larrson asked how long he had been out. “Just about seven days and 6 nights. You were lucky someone found you so early. Lying out in the bitter cold the way you were would’ve been a nightmare,” scoffs the doctor as if he had been inconvenienced by an insect that just so happened to pass in front of his eyes.
A burning sensation of incompleteness filled the dizzy head of the overwhelmed man who had just escaped from his house, fleeing from neither a man, nor an animal, nor a living being. As he lay in the deafeningly quiet, empty blue room, he thought, “But I remember feeling the pills crunching under my feet, and yet now, I feel nothing.”