Dakhanavar

Now I move from room to room, attempting to rid myself of it. It does not follow me. Surely it would be easy to never see it again, but I still find myself back in the room where it lurks.  It has stood in the darkest corner of my bedroom since I was a child. The thing itself could not be described, being somewhat the shape of a coat rack and somewhat like a shadow. I have never seen it move. When I sleep in my bedroom, and I still sleep in my bedroom despite it, I wake to pinpricks in the soles of my feet. I wake with less blood in my body than I fell asleep with.  “They conspire, they lurk, they watch my steps, hoping to take my life. In God I have put my trust; I will not be afraid. What can It do to me? For You have delivered my soul from death.” What I recited nightly was no longer Psalm 56, but a recreation of it that my mind had made out of individual verses. I muttered it even in my sleep, my eyelids fluttering and my eyes rolling back and forth. My feet and my hands trembled, and my skin broke out in hives. The priest was ponderous and smelled of wool. “My dear, you must not let it get hold of you. Do not be afraid, for we know how to deal with such things. Evil may only hide when there are places unknown to us, so you must draw a map of your home. Measure every niche and doorway, every closet and alcove, so that no evil may linger there.” He himself did not name the evil, but my parents, being Armenian, believed it to be Dakhanavar.  When I drew the map, the strangeness began. I had never noticed that doorway before, but there I stood, looking at it. The doorknob was brass, but otherwise not unlike the other doorknobs in the house. I noted it on my paper and continued on, and the strangeness continued with me. An alcove I did not remember, a stairwell that led neither up nor down, a closet in the center of a room, the sill of a window where no window stood. I marked and marked, round and round the house, ensuring nothing would be missed in case something lurked in the places I did not seek out.  I approached my bedroom. The door was ajar, as it always was despite my closing it every morning. I looked in. There it stood, as always, in the corner of my bedroom. To tell the truth, it did not even frighten me. I had seen it all my life, like a scar on the back of a hand. I marked my bedroom, though the task proved difficult. Doorway, east wall, closet door, north wall… perhaps a radiator? Strangely empty. On and on, back to the doorway. When I looked down at the map, I saw the mess I had made.  Why did that corner evade me? I scribbled harder. Doorway, east wall, closet door, north wall, blankness, bed. No, no. I scribbled the attempt out and pulled another sheet from the stack. I drew the line of the doorway slowly, deliberately. I traced my way towards the closet door, where my clothing hung. I pushed the pencil forward. North wall. I had to look at the subject to understand what I was drawing, but found I was unable to.  My parents tossed my attempt to map my bedroom into the trash, wringing their hands. Why could I not face the thing that lurked between the north wall and the doorway? My attempts did not improve, though I tried and tried again. In frustration, I wanted to give up on this useless task. By then the sun had set. Soon enough, I would be back asleep in my bedroom that had a corner I could not look directly at, and the thing that lived in that corner would continue to take from me.  I washed myself, letting the water fall onto my face. I knew what needed to be done, and I prepared myself for it. From the closet I took my sleep dress, the white one with small blue flowers. So that the thing that stood in the corner of my bedroom would believe me asleep, I lay perfectly still, timing my breathing to the old and slow creaks of the house. For a long time, nothing happened, and I began to regret my foolish idea, thinking that it was another childlike whimsy. I stayed still half a second more, just in case, and that is when I felt the presence at the foot of my bed. “Hello,” I said.  I had never spoken to it before, but in this act, It became alive. What might have been a dark cloak hanging from a rack was undoubtedly a creature with two legs, two arms, and black, black hair that hung down to the floor. It crouched over the baseboard of the bed. Its beady eyes were looking at me, always looking, like pinpricks in the black.  “I know things.”  When It spoke, Its voice was a rasp like silent feet on dry wood. I shuddered. “What kind of things?” The thought of not answering seemed rude.  “Ancient truths,” It said. “Ones your parents have forgotten, and their parents before them.”  The being, the thing that may have been Dakhanavar, that had stood in the corner of my bedroom since I was a little child, did not move when It whispered. I never once saw It move. Words tumbled out of It like pennies out of a pot, promises that It was and had always been my silent protector. I knew that It was lying, but to loosen the knot It had tied between us, I had to let go. I lay awake the remainder of the night, knowing that It drank the blood from my soles. In the morning, I sprang to the leaflets of paper, furiously sketching the room as I had done before. To both my horror and fascination, what I had committed myself to the previous night worked, allowing me to see my bedroom with fresh eyes. Confidently, I marked down each wall and each corner, jamming my pencil into place.  When I brought the map of my house to the priest, he considered the pages thoughtfully. Sweat prickled under my arms, and the high ceilings of the church seemed to swim overhead, as if in vertigo. My parents clutched each other behind me, anxious as ever. Eventually, the priest smiled. I had done it. The presence that haunted me would soon leave, if all the steps were followed. All that was left was the ritual cleansing, and then I would return to my home and rejoice, for perhaps the first time in my life, in a thorough and restful night’s sleep. The priest returned with holy water to sprinkle over my head. When the water touched me, it sizzled and stank. Great clouds of sulfur rose where water met skin, obscuring the church in a haze. The priest reeled back, shouting, covering his eyes. I cried for him to douse the holy water over me again, that the first time was just bad luck, that if he tried again I would be clean and new, but he cowered from me, horrified.  “No!” he cried. “No, you have given yourself to it!” Sobbing, I shook my head no, that I hadn’t, that I wouldn’t, but even in that moment I recalled those black starry eyes peering across the bed at me, and the way I had lain there, translucent in my surrender. When I turned to run from the church that wanted no part of me, my parents both held signs of the cross to ward me away from them. I was not afraid, for they were my parents, and I clutched onto their arms. The crosses burned me, and I was forced to let go.  Now I move from room to room, attempting to rid myself of It. It does not follow me. Surely it would be easy to never see It again, but I still find myself back in the room where It lurks. At times, when I peer at It from the corner, I see the soles of Its feet as It sleeps in my bed, leaving small pinpricks of bloodstains on the sheets.  The post Dakhanavar appeared first on The Armenian Weekly.