Oh, the sounds.........
Continued........
It was strange the way it started....sounds that made no sense began to invade my adolescent life. I knew I wasn't crazy, but had to remember that I knew it. I heard noises where there could be none. Home alone the creaks and slams were disturbing. We lived in a trailer, a mobile home, and it was very small. I heard doors slam when clearly none had, I heard floorboards creak when there weren't any. The wind would moan around the 'house' as if trying to get inside, yet it was still and calm outside. My memories of that time of my life are vivid and colorful. The lady, the apparition, maybe she was in control of this.
Our little piece of the world set into a small valley where a stream ran across the very front edge of our yard and a steep bank rose protectively behind us. The grass in my memory is a brilliant green and the stream a sparkling blue. It was a beautiful place and at my young age I didn't even know that it wasn't a 'house'. It had been such an adventure moving there, and I was excited to be bumped quickly into the grown up sort of duties I inherited that year. Taking care of my little sister, making dinner when I needed to...it was all so exciting that I didn't have a chance to miss the father that wasn't there any longer or the mother who now worked so much we hardly saw her. My childhood was dissappearing at a remarkable speed and I was too naive to realize what was being left behind and the struggle that it took my wonderful mom to hold it all together. I was that shameful age when innocence is disappearing and ignorance is lingering. I think somehow the figure in the corner had known how vulnerable I was all along.. Perhaps it was more than a silly game that had brought her into my life. With her had come a view into a place had not been able to imagine, and yet it would haunt me for the rest of my life.
One morning, my flannel nightgown tangling about my ankles as I tried to get my sister ready for school, I learned a quick lesson about not listening to what the world tried to tell me. Our little dog needed to go out on the chain, and I was trying to get myself ready for another day. Mom was at the other end of the trailer, hurriedly trying to get ready for work. I was trying to do everything so that she could take care of herself, it kept her calmer to have less to deal with, it was amazing how young I was when I realized that. I digress. The trash can was on the kitchen floor against the wall between the counter and the table, directly below the window that faced out to the road. I was tossing something out when I knocked over the trash, and as I picked it up the power outlet that was only inches above the rim of the trashcan began to hiss and spark. Blue flames shot out at me and my tangled nightgown singed and caught fire. With a yelp of terror I quickly blotted out the little fire...tossed a bowl of dish water into the trash just to be sure it wasn't about to burst into flames, and turned to tell my sister to hurry up or we'd miss the bus. She was laughing at me, having missed the flames and only seen me throwing away water. Coming from the bedroom adjusting her hairdo my mom asked what the commotion was about and laughed at me when I explained. She didn't believe me. The brown singed front of my nightgown didn't seem to phase her, and my terror only proved in her eyes I was still a little girl. She was pressured to leave the house and had no idea what emotions were swarming around inside of me, what terror lurked just beneath the surface of my being. She had no idea that I, her eldest daughter, was being haunted.
Crying, I ran to my room, pulling off my nightgown and throwing it onto the bed. The singed area burst into flames that flicked menacingly at me and then instantly disappeared. A wind rushed about my head and tears clouded my eyes. Somewhere someone was trying to tell me something, this much was clear. If 'something' was trying to frighten me it was very successful. Even so, I was too young to understand. I wonder now if it wasn't the apparition itself putting me in my place or perhaps some other force at work warning me of what was yet to come.
It was at about that same point in time that my dreams became very vivid, overwhelming even. I had days when dreams and reality mixed with such precision that I couldn't begin to tell them apart. I was laughed at when I said something in school that was so far from reality that it seemed I was crazy insane to my friends. There was the day I ran up to a girl that I hardly had spoken to before and started rambling on at her like we were best friends. Before I was done talking I found myself asking to see the pictures we had taken at a concert. A concert that had never taken place... I was laughed at, and cried that night, praying that 'she' wasn't watching me. Deep in my soul I knew that someone, something, was controlling my dreams, invading me when I was helpless... and my terror grew....
It was strange the way it started....sounds that made no sense began to invade my adolescent life. I knew I wasn't crazy, but had to remember that I knew it. I heard noises where there could be none. Home alone the creaks and slams were disturbing. We lived in a trailer, a mobile home, and it was very small. I heard doors slam when clearly none had, I heard floorboards creak when there weren't any. The wind would moan around the 'house' as if trying to get inside, yet it was still and calm outside. My memories of that time of my life are vivid and colorful. The lady, the apparition, maybe she was in control of this.
Our little piece of the world set into a small valley where a stream ran across the very front edge of our yard and a steep bank rose protectively behind us. The grass in my memory is a brilliant green and the stream a sparkling blue. It was a beautiful place and at my young age I didn't even know that it wasn't a 'house'. It had been such an adventure moving there, and I was excited to be bumped quickly into the grown up sort of duties I inherited that year. Taking care of my little sister, making dinner when I needed to...it was all so exciting that I didn't have a chance to miss the father that wasn't there any longer or the mother who now worked so much we hardly saw her. My childhood was dissappearing at a remarkable speed and I was too naive to realize what was being left behind and the struggle that it took my wonderful mom to hold it all together. I was that shameful age when innocence is disappearing and ignorance is lingering. I think somehow the figure in the corner had known how vulnerable I was all along.. Perhaps it was more than a silly game that had brought her into my life. With her had come a view into a place had not been able to imagine, and yet it would haunt me for the rest of my life.
One morning, my flannel nightgown tangling about my ankles as I tried to get my sister ready for school, I learned a quick lesson about not listening to what the world tried to tell me. Our little dog needed to go out on the chain, and I was trying to get myself ready for another day. Mom was at the other end of the trailer, hurriedly trying to get ready for work. I was trying to do everything so that she could take care of herself, it kept her calmer to have less to deal with, it was amazing how young I was when I realized that. I digress. The trash can was on the kitchen floor against the wall between the counter and the table, directly below the window that faced out to the road. I was tossing something out when I knocked over the trash, and as I picked it up the power outlet that was only inches above the rim of the trashcan began to hiss and spark. Blue flames shot out at me and my tangled nightgown singed and caught fire. With a yelp of terror I quickly blotted out the little fire...tossed a bowl of dish water into the trash just to be sure it wasn't about to burst into flames, and turned to tell my sister to hurry up or we'd miss the bus. She was laughing at me, having missed the flames and only seen me throwing away water. Coming from the bedroom adjusting her hairdo my mom asked what the commotion was about and laughed at me when I explained. She didn't believe me. The brown singed front of my nightgown didn't seem to phase her, and my terror only proved in her eyes I was still a little girl. She was pressured to leave the house and had no idea what emotions were swarming around inside of me, what terror lurked just beneath the surface of my being. She had no idea that I, her eldest daughter, was being haunted.
Crying, I ran to my room, pulling off my nightgown and throwing it onto the bed. The singed area burst into flames that flicked menacingly at me and then instantly disappeared. A wind rushed about my head and tears clouded my eyes. Somewhere someone was trying to tell me something, this much was clear. If 'something' was trying to frighten me it was very successful. Even so, I was too young to understand. I wonder now if it wasn't the apparition itself putting me in my place or perhaps some other force at work warning me of what was yet to come.
It was at about that same point in time that my dreams became very vivid, overwhelming even. I had days when dreams and reality mixed with such precision that I couldn't begin to tell them apart. I was laughed at when I said something in school that was so far from reality that it seemed I was crazy insane to my friends. There was the day I ran up to a girl that I hardly had spoken to before and started rambling on at her like we were best friends. Before I was done talking I found myself asking to see the pictures we had taken at a concert. A concert that had never taken place... I was laughed at, and cried that night, praying that 'she' wasn't watching me. Deep in my soul I knew that someone, something, was controlling my dreams, invading me when I was helpless... and my terror grew....
posted by Susynne at 3/25/2006 08:36:00 AM
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