Donasdogama Micma

Story Submitted by Tricia:

Ethan brought me flowers at a restaurant on our first date.  He was a good-looking guy with a great smile, and I enjoyed getting to know him.  During our early dinner, he asked me, "Do you like ping-pong?"

"Yes."

"Because I live two blocks from here and have a ping-pong table at my house.  Only if you're comfortable coming along, but I bet I can school you."

I was always up for a challenge, and I did feel comfortable enough to follow him to his place, so after dinner, we walked to his house.  When we entered, he asked me if I wanted anything to drink, and seemed to be very concerned for my comfort.

He led me down a rickety wooden staircase to his basement, where I expected to see a game room.  What I saw was a sparse space with cracked plaster columns, a rotting wooden floor, huge music speakers lining the room, no windows, and in the center of it all, a torn, dark pink, satin-upholstered armchair with all manner of jagged metal shards sticking out from behind it, like sun rays.

"I am lord and master, here," he said, then sat on the throne and hit a switch on a controller that was tied down to the armrest.

The two bulbs that had previously lit the basement went out.  Blinding strobe lights flashed into my eyes from the ceiling, and after a few seconds, a track of music blasted that sounded like a mix between someone going crazy on a bass and people screaming.

He shouted over the din, "I sometimes come down here to think about what awaits us all.  I'm conditioning myself to it so that it won't be so bad when I die."

I screamed at him, "Turn it off!"  He kept everything on for a few more seconds before shutting it all down, the music and lights simultaneously.

He said, "I can stand it for hours.  Once I did it for a whole weekend.  It's really soothing after a while.  You have to go to a special place."

I said, "Okay.  Can we get out of here, now?"

He said, "You can leave hell, but hell will never leave you."

I said, "I'll just meet you upstairs."  I climbed up the cellar steps and waited for him in his kitchen.  A few moments later, he blasted his "music" again from downstairs, and I waited for another two minutes before leaving his house entirely.  I'm unsure how he had hoped I would react, but I think we were both better off not being together.