Story lovers! Welcome to the rebirth of the blog! I will be giving more time back to this sucker...hopefully you'll continue to enjoy the stories as much as you did before.
On the story.
A story of ghosts, family, and learning to be brave.
Fabrication factor:5
Exaggeration factor: 4
Once upon a time,
There was a boy who may or may not have been me….
…and he had just experienced the single most terrifying moment of
his life. Lying awake in bed, I stared out the window to the left of
my bed, the bright, white, full moon shining through the trees, casting shadows
that looked like sinster, shapeshifting faces. My room felt so large – as if another presence was inside of
it, full of staring, intrusive eyes that bore into me. I looked out into the hallway (I always
slept with my door open as a kid) waiting for whatever presence was there to
come in and harm me.
You see, I had just watched Disney’s The Black Cauldron with my cousins. And it had scared the pants off of me.
That’s right y’all – I was turned into a neurotic mess by a
Mouse House cartoon.
I was always a scaredy-cat kid. Mere pictures of Freddy Kruger, Jason Voorhees, and the like
would give me nightmares. I was
never allowed to watch R-rated movies – a rule that stuck all the way through
high school. Mostly because I conceded
to it - I never wanted to watch any of them. They scared the pants off of me.
Looking back, I always wonder why I was always so easily
scared as a id and why I had difficulty sleeping. I truly believed for my entire childhood that my house was
haunted – and I still do. Some of
the older houses in my neighborhood were hundreds of years old, and there are
lots of stories of hauntings in them.
My house, on the other hand, is younger than I am – but at the same
time, there is a definite presence there...an energy. I don’t know what it is. Maybe we were built over some kind of burial ground…maybe the
energy from the surrounding houses has bled over into ours…maybe I just have an
active imagination….
…but sometimes, weird things happen that you can’t explain.
My father was having difficulty sleeping. He had been complaining about it at
dinner every night. Family dinner
was a big thing in my family.
Every single night, whether it was 5 pm or 10 pm, whether we were eating
take out or homemade food, whether all five of us were there or not, we
gathered around the dinner table and ate together. Mom and Dad would drink wine, and my brother, sister, and I
would chug 16 ounce glasses of skim milk while we all talked about our day and partook.
After dinner, I would play video games for about an hour, Dad
and Mom would watch sports, Sis would play with her dolls or do basketball
drills, and my brother would run around wreaking havoc…or we would all watch a
movie…Dad would fall asleep on the couch, and eventually we would all turn
in.
And I would feel it.
The presence. That thing
that was in the room with me. I
remember staring at my closet, just waiting for whatever…thing…that was in
there to jump out and pull me into its darkness forever.
However, in the daytime, the house never felt that scary
(except on a couple rare occasions of a weird slamming door…or strange
footsteps…those probably were generated by my imagination.) Our house got a lot of light, and this
summer, I was spending it watching Gullah
Gullah Island (nothing scary about that shit) and chillin’ with my siblings
and neighborhood friends. We would
run around all day, playing crazy games that you can only do as a kid, like
pulling each other down hills in a wagon and calling it “roller coaster”. Our neighborhood was very suburban,
sterile, and safe. Picture
three-story, upper middle class, new-construction, red and grey-bricked homes…the
90’s products of investors in Reaganomics.
In short, there was very little reason for me to be so
scared all of the time at night.
One day, I was sitting in the family room, watching TV with
my sister and Nana, when all of a sudden, we heard a small, but very distinct
tapping at the window to our right.
We looked, and saw a little bird, a finch, pecking away at the window.
It was a big deal to see this little fella at the window –
we always had a bluejay that lived in our back yard, a pair of cardinals, and
several other birds – including a mother robin that built her nest under the
pillars of our back porch. However, we had never seen a bird of this color – a
bright, pure, vibrant yellow. My
nana explained to us that birds, when looking for mates, often bump into
windows, because they are seeing their reflection and think they are
interacting with another bird. We watched the bird peck away for a little bit –
maybe about three minutes – and then it flew away. We resumed our TV watching without a second thought.
Dad kept complaining about his lack of sleep. He was concerned that his heart was
acting up…I was about twelve years old at this time, he was about forty-two. He kept waking up multiple times in the
middle of the night, and he would have the strange feeling of something
pressing down on his chest. He
would start to panic, and force himself to sit up, and feel the pressure rise
off of him.
He shrugged it off as nothing and told us not to worry. I looked down at my milk, and did
exactly the opposite.
The next day, I was sword fighting with a friend of mine in
the backyard. Having the
hyperactive imagination I do, I get very caught up in such games, and get a
little vigorous – sometimes to the point where the other guy can get seriously
hurt. This was one of those
occasions.
I was the White Power Ranger, hurtling myself at my enemy,
the insidious Lord Zedd – I imagined myself strong and fast, and
unstoppable. Although, I really
wasn’t. I was a weak little kid. And this friend liked to play rough
too.
My friend nicked me on the elbow with his wooden sword – drawing
blood. Normally, in this
situation, I would sit down and cry.
And assured, the tears came, but with them the sting set something off
in me, a real fight as opposed to flight response…and I went after him like a
Musketeer on crack.
We bounced around the yard, thrusting, parrying, jump
slashing, all around the perimeter of the house. As we moved up the side of the house, I managed to get the
best of my friend. He fell to his
back and I advanced over top of him, blinded with rage…he opened his eyes wide in fear as I
brandished my wooden sword above my head, as if I was going to run him through.
He made me bleed, and now he was
going to seriously pay.
As I raised the sword above my head, I heard a familiar sound – a small, but
distinct tweet. I looked to my
right, only to see the little yellow finch, resting on the bush next to the
family room window. It was looking
right at me, and chirping away – as if it was trying to tell me something.
Well, that didn’t work out for me – my friend, from his
fallen position kicked me in the shin.
Hard. I crumpled down,
yelping out in pain. He picked up
his wooden sword, and reared back, ready to give me one hell of a welt on the
shoulder, just as mad as I had been before.
Suddenly, the yellow finch darted from its perch, right past
my opponent’s face. Startled, he
swatted at the air, and fell back, landing back on his rear. We sat there for a few seconds,
regained our breath and composure, and started to laugh – the fight or flight
response had passed, and we were pals again. I fell back and stared at the blue sky and cloud in the
sky. I gazed for a moment in my
reverie, smiling.
Then, the chirp.
Again. As if it were right
in my ear.
I sat up, rather abruptly, and looked around. The finch was nowhere to be seen.
That night, Dad was cranky again.
“I just haven’t been sleeping well.”
“Well, dear, what can we do about that?”
“Nothing…”
“Is it me keeping you up?” (My mother was a tough lover. Compassion and passive
aggression were deftly blended often)
“No…I’ve just been having weird dreams.”
“What do you mean, Dad?”
“It’s nothing…don’t worry about it.”
“…” (Milk.)
The next couple of weeks continued to progress as
usual. Playing with friends, long
TV sessions, just a kid enjoying his summer. The only unusual thing was that little yellow
bird. It continued to show up at
the window and peck.
Constantly.
And by "the window", I mean all of them. At my bedroom
window, when I watched TV, even when I was using the bathroom. Somehow, the little bugger would find
me in a room at least once a day and peck-peck-peck at the window. I would always try to ignore it, but the tapping had a strange urgency...I would always give in to its call, and stare at it for a few minutes before either leaving the room, or swatting at the window to chase it off. I’d never see it on branches outside, flying around – the
only time I saw the thing was when it was pecking at the window.
My nana noticed that the little yellow finch had an affinity
for me. “She must like your blond
hair”, nana would say.
But no – my mother and sister were blond, and it didn’t seem
to follow them around…just me. And
my father. He started to
notice it as well.
“That little bird is funny…what’s it tapping for?”
I continued to brush it off as nothing. As much as it could be annoying, I really was delighted that we had a
third primarily colored bird in our backyard.
I woke up with a start one night, from a nightmare. It was about two in the morning.
I was cold with sweat, and pumped with fear-driven adrenaline...and in that
moment, everything in your room can look terrifying. The trees outside look like monsters, the light from the
windows on the walls like ghosts, and the darkness in your room like a phantom
looming over you. I darted in to
the hallway towards my parent’s room, scared out of my mind.
However, I brought myself to a halt in the landing of the
foyer, right before the entrance to their door. I was stopped by an overwhelming sense of shame…being twelve
years old and running to your mom with a nightmare is kind of silly.
My parents had talked to me about waking them at night with my silly nightmares. I was a big boy – I knew the difference between real and make-believe, and that there was nothing in that darkness that could hurt me. I had to learn to grow up and be brave.
I sat in the hallway, going back and forth about opening
their door. I was shaking all over. The darkness of the
house continued to make me uneasy….I felt eyes everywhere, felt too scared to
go back to my room…the sound of the wind beating against the windows didn't help. Every shadow filled me with dread.
I decided to put my ear against the door and listen to see
if, maybe, for some reason, my parents were awake.
And I heard my father. Or, what I thought was him…he was moaning, speaking words
that didn’t make sense…a lot of “nos” and “I’m sorrys” mixed with grunts... “the dress”
and “coffee” and “Dick made me do it”.
I was now gripped with an intense fear…what was he
doing? I listened closer and
closer, trying to build up the nerve to open the damned door. His moans sounded more and more
distressed, growing louder with each noise…my heart pounded…my legs
trembling…my hand shaking….until finally, I pulled the door handle and swung
the door open.
I saw my father, lying in bed, next to my sleeping mother,
waving his hands in the air, as if he was swatting at something, hearing him
moan and say “no” and “go away”…then, I heard it. The tapping. I
looked to the window to my father’s left…and there she was. The finch. Tapping. Tapping.
Tapping.
Peck.
Peck.
Peck.
I was overwhelmed.
I screamed a long, high-pitched, throaty scream that sent the finch
darting away. At the same time, my
father yelled out and shot up, waving his arms everywhere while screaming just as throaty of a scream, but one of a grown man terrified out of his mind. My mother shot up as well (thank God
they had a king size bed, otherwise she’d have a terrible black eye) and
started frantically yelling – “What’s wrong?”
She grabbed onto my father’s arms, all the while yelling at
him to calm down and asking over and over what was wrong. I cried. Stood right there and wept like a six year old who had seen a ghost.
My mother, understandably, was just as overwhelmed. She grabbed onto my father and stroked
him until he relaxed. She then
looked at me and screamed, angrily, for me to go back to bed. I turned around and ran, charging into
my room, in tears. I heard my
sister, awakened from the chaos, crying out in her room, and my toddler brother
doing the same. I leapt into bed and pulled the covers over me...I was
shaking…cowering. What
had just happened? The wind
outside was howling, the trees still casting their dark shadows into my
room. Why was he yelling? What was he grabbing at?
And why…was the finch there?
I continued to cry, soaking my one pillow with salty tears,
while I pulled my other pillow over my head…It wouldn’t do away…I kept hearing
it. I couldn’t make it die down.
The tapping sound of that pecking. Rhythmic.
Intentional.
Persistent.
Peck.
Peck.
Peck.
Scared yet? Just wait for part two, story lovers!
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