“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6” I counted as I flicked the light switch as I stepped out of my bedroom, doing my usual routine of checking the windowsills and the threshold of the front door for the rice and salt I laid there, I changed it out every six days, checking to ensure the line was doing its job and keeping spirits from being able to enter my apartment. I straightened the framed horse picture by the door after I straightened the line of salt/rice at the front door, in my culture it’s good luck to have a picture of a horse running into the building as an omen of good luck and wealth being brought into the building, if the horse it is outfacing the wealth and luck vanishes. I adjusted the mirror hanging cattycorner to the front door to protect me from dragons, adjusting the angle six times as I straightened it on the six. I got the smudge stick from right below the mirror as I lit it and walked forward and back along front hall six times before snuffing the burning sage on the incense burner plate, I had on the little hall table. I picked up the plate as I walked into the kitchen then washed the plate six times to ensure all the ashes were off it then returned it.

            I replaced the proper set up of what little furniture I had in my apartment. It took me a long time to pick this place because I wasn’t concerned with how far away it was from the hospital or what the local nightlife was like or anything like that, I was focused on what direction the front door faced, due to when I was born, I needed an apartment that had an east facing front door for the best luck. It was really nothing more than a glorified studio which is probably better for my sleepwalking because there’s less space for me to end up in or things to mess up. Often times I’d wake up from my sleepwalking and my entire apartment would be overturned as if I was in a manic state of trying to find something…sometimes I’d find one of my notebooks, torn up around me and all the pages covered in scribbles like I was blocking out the text, or covered it with some sort of script I had no idea what it said and didn’t look like any script I had ever seen…or they’d be covered with graphic drawings of what the nightmare had been about. I had my doctor look at the some of the more legible pages and they couldn’t find anything to figure out what I was writing in or what it said or how I even wrote it, they…recorded me in that state once, my eyes rolled back, I was writing with my right hand and muttering in some sort of tongues like language…. I’m a lefty as to why writing right-handed was odd.

            The front door let into a small hall, the only closet to the left and a door to the right with the only bathroom in the apartment to the right, then you walked through a small galley kitchen then the back area of the apartment was both the living room and bedroom, so there was only a foot or so of space between the back of the dark red two-seater couch I had and the side of my bed. My bed, just a twin, was pushed into the back corner so I slept facing east, the only window in the apartment was on the back wall too. The couch I had was really old and battered, it took more than six passes of cleaner to get the worst of the smell and stains out, generally whatever the cheapest IKEA furniture I could get was about the studio, but aside from the loveseat which I got at a thrift store because I wanted a red one, there was only the coffee table, a dresser, a small nightstand, and a small table with one chair at it. The dresser served as the TV stand for the small one I had. A large salt lamp was on the nightstand, twin strings of bells hung at the top corners of the window and above the front door, multiple dream catchers were above the headboard and around the window, there was an incense burner beside the TV along with a small desktop waterfall to keep the energy and chi of the room moving as it should.

            I winced as I lifted my hands out of the sink, the familiar burn of soap on a flesh wound coursing through my hands, every time I wash my hands, it has to be six times, so the skin of my hands was bright red, raw and more than a few areas were cracked open and sandpaper level rough, but often times there is somewhere on my hands that are cracked open deeply and softly bleeding.

            I looked at my hands, I had only washed them five times, so despite the burning and the spots of blood welling up along the backs of my knuckles, I got more soap and washed my hands again, biting my lip as I bit back the sting as washed my hands that last time. After I dried my hands, I got some super moisturizing balm on them before I got the first aid kit out of the cabinet then closed the door six times as I opened the kit and bandaged up my hands. Made myself my usual breakfast, eggs are good luck in Vietnam, at least balut it, but I can’t find anywhere that makes it well enough, plus I don’t like it, I was raised in the U.S so while I am used to some weird food, balut was not one of them.

            I pulled a pair of soft gloves on my hands as I grabbed a mask from the table beside the door, I wear the mask because I need to stay clean, and I cannot ensure my cleanliness if I’m not wearing a mask and gloves. Latex gloves are too expensive to use daily like I do, so silk while expensive when I bought them, because I can clean them as best as I want to and not have to spend a lot of money on them.

            I did my usual morning routine with getting my mail and a few other errands before returning home, instantly throwing the mask and gloves into the sink as I got the water as hot as possible and washed them till, I thought they were clean enough. Then I put away my groceries and sat on the couch as I went through my mail six times, sorting and resorting the piles they were in before I disposed of the junk-mail which was most of it.

            As one could expect, work is not something easy for me, but luckily, I was able to get a job with some small magazine in town that wanted an editor and my condition made me a very good one because I went through every document they sent me six times to ensure it was up to my standard, but I also had the issue of over editing at times to the extent the writers had to go back and add more to it because I took too much out of it, but I am thorough and the people above me do like what I do, plus they did some shady things with the fact that I don’t really drive or anything because of the fact I’d have to do certain aspects of the drive six times like take only six turns or go around a traffic-circle six times before going along the street I needed. Also, when I was a teenager, my doctors found it needed if it wasn’t enough, that I am not fit to be behind the wheel of a vehicle of any kind. It paid well enough for me to keep this place and keep up my lifestyle.

            As I did my usual work, there was still that constant foreboding feeling of someone’s icy cold hands resting on the back of my neck, like the fingers were slowly trying to wrap around my neck and strangle the life out of me. To help myself focus, I kept a hair-tie around my wrist, so when something was irking me, I’d snap it against my wrist, but…even then I’d snap it six times, so there was always a bruise on my inner wrist from it.

            “…help me…” a distant voice echoed in my ears, as if screaming, but a far distance away, I shook my head softly to clear away the voice as I did my usual work and went back to editing the article that I had been sent that morning.