Year of the Rabbit: Original Narrative Soundtrack

Strange things happened in the dorm that summer. I don’t know if I believe in paranormal activity, but several incidents remain unexplained. I’m suspicious of words with the para- prefix. To me, para represents ambiguity. Parachute = you might land safely. Paralegal = I’m almost a lawyer. Parallel = separated by an equal distance at every point; never touching or intersecting. Therefore, ghosts or other paranormal entities are not welcome in the tiny fraction of space-time in my control.

In hindsight, the dorm had a spooky vibe, especially at night. But I always came home drunk, which is like Scotchgard™ for creepy feelings. Sometimes, I heard strange noises, but I chalked it up to a combination of hardwood floors, ambient street noise, and cavernous acoustics. In a building that size, there’s a continual gurgle of unidentifiable sound as its superstructure expands and contracts in changeable weather, or sways in the gale of a typhoon, or resettles after a moderate earthquake. Most of this “activity” is random and completely ignorable. There was never a heavy sense of foreboding about the joint. It just seemed “off,” and I paid it no mind. Until one Saturday night in mid-August.

Felix and Daisy were out of town, so Alice went to spend the weekend with Quinn at the house in Muzha. The visitors had cleared out, so the dorm was mine again. I woke from a nap around 8:45 p.m. and hit the 7-Eleven for pre-game tallboys. A brilliant waxing gibbous moon hovered over Anhe Road, lighting up the neighborhood. I cracked a beer on the sidewalk and returned to the dorm. Exiting the elevator on the 8th floor, I found the front door wide open. That’s fuckin’ weird. I distinctly remember closing and locking the door behind me.

The KPHQ building was comprised of twin towers with separate elevators. Because the dorm consisted of two conjoining condo units, it straddled Tower 1 and Tower 2. The secondary unit (where I lived) had its own entrance that I was told to avoid. Jerry Mouse used the foyer of the second entrance as a makeshift storage space. You could still access the door (for safety), but it was essentially off-limits. I just assumed it was locked because I never got closer than 15 feet to the foyer. There was no reason for it.

The dorm had a transit station layout. You could stand at one entrance and see 30 meters across the flat to the other entrance. The bedroom doors mostly lined a corridor that opened into large living areas like the KP dining room. Meanwhile, I spent ninety-five percent of my time in my bedroom. The other five percent was in the bathroom or smoking on my balcony. If I was home, I was sleeping or talking to Janet on the phone. I never hung out in the common areas or ate in the dining room.

Feeling a little frisky on a Saturday night, I cranked the stereo in my bedroom and drank the beer in the main dining room. Every door in the dorm was closed except for mine. And every window and sliding glass door was shut tight. I wobbled around the dining room, listening to Cheap Trick’s All Shook Up (1980). The first track, “Stop This Game”, began to fade on the outro when a door on the far side of the dorm slammed shut with such violence that the lights flickered in the dining room. My heart skipped a beat. What the fuck was that?

I shuffled down to the far side of the dorm (and my room), but there was nothing to see. My door was open, and all the other doors were shut. As I turned on my heels and started toward the dining room, a door on the other side of the flat slammed shut, again with violent force. Jesus Christ! I howled and ran to the dining room, where, again, nothing was amiss.

Now, I’m fuckin’ spooked, but I’ve got two more tallboys to guzzle before hitting the street, so I just kinda stood there in the dining room, facing the main balcony, and nodded my head to track 2 on the Cheap Trick record, “Just Got Back”. In my peripheral vision, on the far side of the flat, near the second entrance, I saw a dark figure shoot across the corridor toward the foyer. The off-limits door opened and slammed shut. Boom! It happened so fast, like a cartoon.

I bolted to my room, turned off the stereo, grabbed my phone and money, returned to the dining room, scooped the beer, and left the dorm so fast I forgot to take my keys. But that didn’t matter because I didn’t bother to lock the front door. Out on the street, I made a beeline for Sam’s Club, where Simon was intuitive and alarmed. “What’s wrong with you, Charlie? You’re white as a sheet! You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I started to explain, but suddenly, I felt uncomfortably reluctant to replay the scene, like someone was standing next to me. Don’t say a fuckin’ word, pal.

“Nothing,” I said. “Forget about it. Here. Put these beers in the fridge for me.”

I did not want to go back to the dorm that night, but I had nowhere else to go. It was 2:30 a.m. when I stumbled out of Sam’s Club and up to the 8th floor, where I found the front door locked—and I forgot my keys. Fuck. I didn’t lock the door! Wait a minute. Maybe Alice came home. I rang the bell for a solid three minutes before the next-door neighbor opened their door and told me to knock it off. If Alice was in there, she was dead to the world.

Standing in the elevator going down to the lobby, I had an idea, and, honestly, cross my heart, it didn’t come from me. It was pushed into my head like a suppository. “The second entrance in Tower 2 is unlocked. Go check it. See for yourself.” So, that’s what I did, and goddamn it. The door was unlocked. I let myself into the dorm, checked Alice’s room (she wasn’t there), locked myself in my room, and passed out.