The Phantom Gargoyle

Note: The following story contains heavy use of potentially difficult vocabulary. (A dictionary may be helpful.)

It is well known that a common strategy almost always guaranteed to produce better results in assessments is that of reviewing one’s answers before submission. This is a strategy that I myself employ, and it is not uncommon that I perform one, maybe even two, revisions of essays, portfolios, and assessment answers. But one may certainly agree that more than two revisions is a bit unnecessary, and that three or four hints at an underlying problem in the student’s mental state. This was exactly my case a few months ago, when I had imperceptibly wandered off the path of due diligence, into the dark woods of insecure perfection.

The first sign of my wandering had been a subtle one—so subtle, in fact, that I initially paid it no attention. I had been sitting at my desk, working on an English lesson, when a faint wisp of a whisper had echoed through the room. I had looked up for just a second to see if I could spot what might have been the cause, and at first, I thought I had seen a semi-transparent white figure fading into the wall. But I blinked just then, and at second glance, I saw nothing except the window curtains undulating at the wind’s behest. I therefore concluded that the whisper had come from the open window, and, after a second’s more contemplation, gave it no more thought and promptly forgot about it.

***

A few days following the first indication of things gone awry, I received another sign, this time more pronounced. As I was re-reading a World History portfolio, I found myself questioning whether my work was worthy of a full grade. I had put reasonable effort into the essay—had done all the proper research, formatted the document, and cited my sources. Still, re-reading the essay once more, I wondered whether there was one thing I had missed that would make the difference between a good and horrible paper. I suddenly found myself at an impasse, unsure whether to submit or continue revising. However, the impasse was short-lived because I promptly forgot about the paper.

In the corner of the room, right where the curtains were dancing to the rhythm of the wind, whispers came forth once more, once again accompanied by the fleeting image of a semi-transparent figure. Rather than fading into the wall, however, the figure’s definition sharpened. I watched, stunned, as, from the hard stone, a floating, opaque, grotesque white gargoyle materialized itself. Its eyes were vacant depressions in its misshapen head; its body was a cross of that of a lion and a pug, with four paws and claws at the end of them; its wings were folded rigidly tight to its body, as though made of set ceramic or stone; and its tongue was sitting idly in its half-open mouth, nestled between two large bottom canine teeth that prevented it from fully closing its jaw.

Faced with such a creature, I might have felt an overwhelming sense of terror. However, quite bizarrely, my first instinct was to laugh, which I did. The gargoyle was merely the size of a chihuahua, and as one might reason, even the most terrible, formidable of monsters, when reduced to the size of a little dog, could only be found amusing. Furthermore, it struck me as hilarious that such a dramatic entrance of whispers, suspense, and horror was reserved for such a puny being that, in addition, seemed to be facing the wrong way. Its ‘eyes’ were locked on the wall directly opposite the one from which it had appeared, which had nothing notable attributable to it.

After my short chuckle, however, the gargoyle’s neck snapped in my direction. It was such a sudden, unnatural event that the laugh quickly stifled to be replaced by an unsettling feeling of inquietude. The creature remained in the same spot, neck snapped in the same direction—mine, that is—for what seemed like an interminable period. But after assuring itself of whatever it wished to assure itself, it snapped its neck back to its previous position, and floated back into the wall, where it promptly disappeared.

Despite the striking event, I still managed to forget about it, after having returned to my World History dilemma, and I never mentioned it to my mother at dinner. But, far from being the last encounter I had with that mysterious gargoyle, it was the first.

***

Over the next few days, as I continued battling with English and World History second thoughts, the gargoyle’s appearances grew more frequent. Sometimes I would see it once a day, in the afternoon, when I was completing my English homework; other times, it would appear after a World History LiveLesson. The encounters were still brief, with only whispers accompanying the gargoyle, but in time they grew longer. Once, as I entered my darkened room to get a pen that my mom had requested, I saw it there, waiting for me. It said nothing to me directly, but the whispers in the background that always accompanied its presence grew suddenly louder, to the point where they were intelligible. ‘The draft,’ they went, and I listened a little closer. ‘The draft lacks.’ And then, once I had heard the last syllable, the gargoyle vanished into the wall, leaving me utterly alone in a silent room.

This time, the encounter could not be ignored, and I rushed out the room to the living room, where my mother was awaiting a pen. I thought for a moment that I might mention the gargoyle, but then I realized I might try to do it more discreetly so that I would not sound insane.

I asked her, “Have you seen anything weird drifting around here lately?”

She replied with a quizzical glance and a ‘No.’

I then realized three things. First, I was seeing something no one else was seeing, which either meant I was suffering from psychosis, or there was a ghost that showed itself to no one else. Second, as I settled down for dinner and thought more about the gargoyle, I noticed that I had only ever seen it in my room. It had not showed itself anywhere else. Third, lastly, I had only ever seen it in my room in the afternoon. It did not come in the morning; it did not come at night. It came in the afternoon. Putting these three realizations together, I came to the somewhat ridiculous conclusion that I was being haunted by a gargoyle ghost interested in ‘drafts’ (as the whispers had mentioned a ‘draft’ lacking in something) that was limited to appearing in my room, and my room alone, in the afternoons.

Such an idea was so far-fetched, however, that I quickly abandoned it, and decided that I would attempt to find a more logical conclusion for what the creature might be. More likely, it was a vision, I thought; I simply had to identify the root cause of the vision to stop seeing the gargoyle. But the thought barely had time to finish forming. In the corner of the living room where my mother and I were having dinner, the gargoyle slowly drifted out of the white stone wall. I watched it, my curiosity, not so much my terror, growing by the second. Whispers bounced off the walls, louder than I had ever heard them, repeating a single word: ‘Insane.’

And then, without warning, the whispers split amongst themselves, as if voices were conversing in groups with each other:

‘It’s insane.’

‘She’s insane.’

‘We’re all insane.’

‘It’s an insane occurrence.’

‘Impossible.’

‘Is it possible?’

‘Is she okay?’

And on and on, until my mom snapped her fingers in front of my face. The whispers died down; the gargoyle vanished.

“How’s dinner?” she asked, presumably for the second time, since she’d noticed that I’d grown distracted.

“Very good,” I said, and I quickly returned to eating my salad. But I sensed that the gargoyle’s agenda had somehow shifted, because it had appeared outside my room.

I was right.

***

The gargoyle now no longer appeared sparingly. In fact, it stopped disappearing. It would appear in the afternoon, follow me around, occasionally offering some words through whispers, such as ‘it’s not good’ or ‘are you sure?’, and never leave until I had fallen asleep.

Eventually, the gargoyle started appearing in the mornings as well. One Tuesday, I woke up to find the gargoyle’s vacant eye sockets pointed directly at me, and nearly passed out again from the fright. But, in time, I invariably coped with its ubiquitous presence. It never left me now, neither at sunrise nor at sunset, neither when I was alone nor when I was in company. It was always there, and so were its whispers.

Meanwhile, my issues with English and World History had compounded and spread. The pernicious virus of second-guessing infected first Spanish, then Physics, and finally Calculus—mathematics, whose unshakeable principles are the very pillars of my beliefs! All portfolios, assessments, and soon even lessons became stressful endeavors, the gargoyle’s whispers always questioning ‘Is this right?’ or ‘Could you have done better?’ or, the worst question of all, ‘Are you sure?’ That last was always the one that I could not help paying attention to, and that led me off the well-lit path of due diligence, into the dark woods of insecure perfection.

At last, the situation worsened to the degree that I couldn’t complete lessons anymore. There were too many imperfections, too many revisions, and there was not enough time in a day. For the first time, I also noticed how the gargoyle had grown. It was so big now that its head barely fit into the room. It always left its body in another section of the house because no single room could contain it. This was no problem, strictly speaking; I could always pass right through it to get to where I needed to go. But as the days went by—as the doubt grew worse—the gargoyle swelled to such an immensity that it could no longer be contained in the house. Only its eye socket depression could fit into a room; the rest of it burst out of the walls, out of the roof, and remained perpetually outside.

And so, as it came to this, my mother finally intervened. It was on a Wednesday. I had a horrible stomachache and could barely move. School was out of the question.

“You’re stuck at portfolios,” my mom pointed out. “What’s going on? They’re taking way too long.”

“Portfolios are very important,” I tried to defend, “and as such I need to make sure they’re the best they can be. I just need to do one more revision—”

“How many revisions have you done?” she asked.

“Twenty,” I answered. “But the essays are still not perfect.”

My mom looked at me.

“This, right here? This is not you talking. It’s doubt. Doubt is what is keeping you from doing any work at all.”

As she spoke, I glanced momentarily at the giant gargoyle eye socket that had become a daily presence.

“For it to be this bad,” she went on, “you must have been entertaining it for a while.”

“Are you sure it’s doubt?” I asked.

“Are you always questioning your work? Asking yourself if you’re sure it’s correct?”

After a second’s consideration, I nodded.

“Well, then, it’s doubt. And doubt is the most insidious type of negative emotion you can experience.”

“I thought that was envy,” I sniffed.

“Not the point,” Mom said. Then she paused before carrying on.

“The only person who can deal with your doubt is you. You must trust in your abilities. If you keep feeding your self-doubt, it will eventually destroy you. From the inside.”

And with that, Mom gave me a quick hug and left the room.

I was alone with the gargoyle, and I stared at it intensely. Whispers were reverberating around the room, and upon hearing the words ‘She’s wrong’ and ‘Or am I wrong?’ I realized exactly where things had gone awry.

“It’s you!” I said suddenly to the creature. “You, you gargoyle of deceit!”

And I remembered how, every time I had experienced a moment of uncertainty during the revisions, or during the lessons, the gargoyle had been there to whisper the insipid questions. I had been suffering all this time on account of the attention I placed on such a thing as a ghost! Though I was in physical pain, it was this realization that hurt the most.

I wouldn’t stand for it any longer.

“But what are you without me?” it asked, in a deep, booming voice. “You cannot stop feeding your doubt.”

I thought for a moment, and stood up, with great difficulty, to face the creature. I considered only its first utterance, as I took a deep breath and looked at it.

“You ask what I am without you,” I repeated. “And I answer, myself.”

And without giving it another thought, I turned from the ghost.

The gargoyle has never been seen since.

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