The Mystic in the Cupboard

I get the sense I’m living in America now. Not just visiting. Not merely passing through. A bona fide Yankee. Somewhere like Manhattan, or at least a version of it stitched together from films, postcards, and second-hand imagination. The buildings stretch too high, too shiny, like they’re competing with each other. Down below, the streets thrum relentlessly — engines, voices, footsteps — a restless pulse that never quite settles. Even the air feels recycled, overused, like I’m breathing in the vestiges of someone else’s day. And yet, I don’t question it. I’m dressed for it. Black and white, crisp, and imposed. A full Manhattan-maid get-up. The duster is in my hand — as though it chose me — as though it knows the curvatures of my fingers and the softeness of my grasp. I look like I know what I’m doing. Which is, of course, a complete lie. My job isn’t exactly clear. There’s no contract, no explanation, just a quiet understanding that I’m here to clean the apartment of a supposed famous mystic. “Supposed” being the only word that feels honest. Because they’re certainly an enigma — I haven’t seen them, haven’t heard them, haven’t found anything that proves they exist outside my own wild imagination. And yet, I’ve been told — quite firmly — not to disturb them. “Remind me why we agreed to this?” Alex says, stepping gingerly over a mound of socks that have seen better decades. “To earn money,” I reply, flicking dust from what could be a stale sandwich, or some other questionable relic. “To experience life abroad. The food, the people, the culture.” He picks up a pair of holey y-fronts, holding them at arm’s length. “Does this look like culture to you?” The apartment is overwhelming in a way that feels intentional. Not messy in the casual, lived-in sense — no, this is a cry for help. Layers and layers of dust upon dust, ash upon ash, grime upon grime. One dainty sneeze from ruin. Socks and pants are everywhere. Draped over furniture, slumped in corners, half-folded as if someone started the task and immediately lost the will to live. There are so many of them it stops being funny and starts feeling faintly threatening, as if the place is haunted by some perverse poltergeist. Ashtrays fill every available gap. Wedged between books, balanced on uneven surfaces, clustered on the floor like little graveyards. Each one overflowing. Cigarettes smoked right down to the bitter nubs. The air is thick with it. Old smoke, settled deep into the walls, into the fabric, into the bones of the place. I can taste it. Catalogues are strewn across the floor. Easy Life. Dusty pages advertising orthopaedic footwear and mobility aids, smiling pensioners posed mid-step like they’ve accepted something I haven’t yet understood. Comfort over style. Function over illusion. A quiet surrender dressed up as convenience. And then — the DVDs. I pause mid-wipe, staring a second too long before I realise what I’m looking at. “Right,” I mutter. Alex leans in, squints, then snorts. “Oh. That’s—” “Yes,” I cut in quickly, sliding it under a pile of catalogues. “Exactly what you think it is. Let’s not linger.” Gay porn, obviously. “I’m forming a picture,” I say, scanning the room like a detective with deeply questionable evidence. “Male… I’m guessing.” Alex gestures broadly at the chaos. “Incredible work, Sherlock.” The cupboard sits in the corner, quiet and unassuming — except for the door. Always ajar. Not wide open, not closed. Just enough. Just enough to feel deliberate, like it’s waiting to be noticed. Alex nudges it slightly with his foot. “Don’t go in there,” I say quickly. “Why?” he asks, already leaning closer. I hesitate, because I don’t actually know. “I’ve just been told not to disturb this… mystery person.” “That’s not a reason.” “It’s the only one I’ve got.” He peers in anyway. The darkness inside is thick, unmoving. It doesn’t give anything back. “Bit anticlimactic,” he says, stepping away. “Good,” I reply. “Let’s keep it that way.” I move to the old-fashioned phone on the wall. 80s style. Yellowing plastic, slightly sticky with age. I’m halfway through wiping it when it rings — sharp and sudden, like it knows I shouldn’t answer. “…hello,” I say anyway. “Oh howdy,” a voice chirps. Too bright. Too rehearsed. “I was wondering if you could tell me my fortune.” I should explain. I should hang up. Instead, I lean against the wall. “Of course.” Alex visibly recoils. “I’m sensing…” I begin, pacing slowly. “A recent hesitation. A decision you’re unsure about.” “… yes?” she says. A small screen flickers to life on the phone. I freeze. Her name. Address. Purchase history. Oh. This is filthy. “I’m also sensing… Sharon,” I add. “That is my name!” “Mm,” I nod. “It usually is.” “I see… poultry,” I continue, scrolling slightly. “A missed opportunity.” “…I cancelled a chicken order this morning,” she says, stunned. “Of course you did.” Alex is shaking his head now, thoroughly unimpressed with my moral decline. “You must avoid hot food today,” I add, committing fully. “… why?” “It will not end well,” I say gravely. I hang up before she can question it. “You shouldn’t have done that,” Alex says flatly. “Oh, I was only having fun,” I shrug. “Plus, it’s fairly evident this so-called psychic is a total scammer.” “Yeah,” he says, picking up something deeply incriminating. “You could say that again.” Once the apartment is finally spick and span — or at least, rearranged mess pretending to be clean — I turn to him. “Hotdog?” He pulls a face. I take that as an absolute yes. The streets are loud, alive, relentless. We weave through people and noise until we stop at what I think is a hotdog stand. But it isn’t. It’s a post box. Bright red. Royal Mail scrawled across it in an old-fashioned font that feels completely out of place here. “What is that?” I ask. “You should know,” a woman says beside it. I laugh. “Why? Because I work for Royal Mail?” Her face drops. “No,” she says. “Because you’re psychic.” The laugh dies in my throat. “Sharon,” she adds. My stomach flips. “You’re a fraud,” she says bluntly. “My readings didn’t come true.” “Well,” I say, scrambling, “give them chance, Sharon. It’s barely been… ten minutes.” She shrugs, then hands us each a hotdog. “Enjoy your curse.” Alex and I just stare at her. “What the fuck?” he mutters. When I get home — not my actual home, but something eerily similar to the apartment I’d just cleaned — Mat is beaming. “I’ve got a surprise.” Of course he does. There’s crashing from the next room, then he wheels out an enormous, boxy television like it’s been dragged through time. “A new TV!” “Oh,” I reply. “Which century did you steal that from?” He laughs, plugs it in. Static floods the screen. Then — clarity. Black and white. Grainy. Familiar. The apartment. The ashtrays. The catalogues. The DVDs. The cupboard. And then — Him. Jeremy. My old service user. Dead. Very much dead. Except… not dead, apparently. Alive. Living as a recluse. In a cupboard. In Manhattan. Or wherever the hell I am. It doesn’t make sense. None of it does. But the moment I see him — really see him — something in me drops. Recognition, sharp and immediate, cutting straight through the absurdity of it all. Because I know him. Jeremy was one of the most interesting characters I ever cared for during my very short-lived career as a mental health support worker. Interesting in the way a thunderstorm is interesting —unpredictable, loud, and always threatening to strike. He looked like he’d comfortably outlived his own timeline. Easily in his hundredth year, or at least wearing it convincingly. Long, straggly grey hair hung in uneven strands around his face, as if it had given up trying to belong to him. His eyes were milky — not blind, but not entirely present either. Always tuned to a different frequency. And his mouth… a graveyard of rotten teeth, permanently on the brink of falling into oblivion. He was scary. Not in a horror-film way — but in the quiet, unpredictable way that keeps your body slightly tense without you realising. You never quite knew which version of Jeremy you were walking into. On good days, he’d greet me with, “You’re a cunt,” like it was a term of endearment. On bad days — Well. The things that came out of his mouth didn’t feel entirely human. He smoked relentlessly. Over a hundred cigarettes a day, easily. His room wasn’t just smoky — it was smoke. Thick, suffocating, layered so densely it felt like stepping into a different atmosphere. Being in there for ten minutes felt like you’d taken up smoking as a full-time hobby. Your clothes carried it. Your hair carried it. You carried it home whether you liked it or not. He had… ideas. About himself. About the world. About reality in general. He was convinced he was a woman — not in any grounded, identity-based sense, but because his bumhole was, in actual fact, a vagina. And there was no shifting that belief. It was a fact. Then there were the shopping lists. Jesus Christ, the shopping lists. They were less requests and more psychological endurance tests. Water sourced specifically from the Welsh valleys. Fizzy drinks that hadn’t existed since the early 2000s. Chocolate bars discontinued long before I’d even considered working there. Items that required time travel, negotiation, or divine intervention. I’d return, inevitably, with a bag full of alternatives. Close enough. Reasonable substitutions. Normal human solutions. And he’d unravel. Completely. His face would crumple, his body folding in on itself as he slipped into that awful, high-pitched baby voice. “Put it in the bin,” he’d whine, tears welling instantly. “I don’t want it… you’re trying to poison me…” It was horrifying. And bizarrely… a bit tragic. But what stuck with me most were his ideas. His absolute, unwavering belief that the world was a carefully constructed lie. “The television isn’t for watching. It’s for being watched. They can see straight through it. Straight through you.” And my personal favourite — “The water’s not water anymore. It’s being poisoned. That’s why I need the Welsh stuff. It’s the last place they haven’t got to yet.” I stare at the screen now, my chest tightening as he flickers there in black and white, pacing, muttering, smoking like he never stopped. Living in a cupboard? Here? Now? Impossible. So of course — I go back the next day. The smoke hits me first. Thick. Immediate. Familiar. It clings to my throat as I step inside, like it’s been waiting for me. I cough, glancing around. More socks. More pants. I cleaned this. I know I did. And yet here they are again — scattered, slumped, like they’ve grown back overnight. The cupboard is ajar. Of course it is. I stand there for a moment, staring at that thin line of darkness. I could leave it. I should leave it. I don’t. I move towards it slowly, each step heavier than the last. My hand hovers at the handle, trembling slightly. “This is ridiculous,” I mutter. I push the door open. Darkness. Complete. I hesitate… then step inside. The air shifts instantly. Colder. Thicker. The smoke feels alive here, curling around me. A flicker. A candle. It casts a weak, wavering glow across the space — not a cupboard at all, but something deeper. A bed sits in the centre. Narrow. Stained. Ashtrays crowd around it, overflowing, cigarette ends piled high, some still faintly smoking. And on the edge of the bed — A plate. I step closer. Half-eaten chicken. Cold. Torn apart. My stomach drops. “Jeremy?” I say, quietly. Nothing. Just the soft crackle of the candle. I take another step. And then — Right next to my ear — Warm breath. “You fucking poisoned me.” I scream