The New and Improved Cynical Idealist

Am I Crazy?

In the beginning, I was given a very vivid imagination.

I mean that in a sort of light-hearted, personal jab at myself kind of way, but it is true. I was gifted with an imagination where I can picture worlds, and peoples, and creatures that don't really exist. I see it a lot in my daughter, who continues to discuss with me, her continuing saga of the shoe eating monster. (I swear this is absolutely true)

I'm a bit hazy on the details of this heinous tormentor, but I know he lives at Grammy's and he ate her shoes. He's not a nice monster, he's scary, and he doesn't like purple. This is what I've gathered so far... You know, whilst reading this you might think that this is the adorable imagination of a near 3 year old. Well in all honesty it does sound that way, but truly, I'm hazy on the details because she's legitimately afraid to talk about the shoe eating monster. He's apparently quite scary indeed.

Now of course, my kid is afraid of all things a 3 year old girl would in fact be afraid of... the shop-vac I have in the basement is a fine example, or my air compressor, or my router, or any of the other tools in my make-shift woodshop. But this is a different kind of fear from what I can see. It's the result of some terrible image that she just can't shake. (at least that's what I hope) And in all honesty, I've really pushed hard to not expose her to my horror movie collection, which is small, but still very much horrific. I try not to expose her to graphic content of any kind, whether it be strong language of a TV Show or Movie, or just something that a 3 year old simply should have no interest... unfortunately she does enjoy sitting with me and watching snips of "The Newsroom."

Well anyway, I've rambled about the shoe eating monster, which to be honest, isn't even my original point I wanted to make, or even close to it. Well, I suppose it is in its own right, but anyway. Like my daughter, a monster haunted me for many years in my youth. I can still picture him in the back of my mind, and this figment of my imagination was the reason I was terrified of going into the basement alone for many years. This monster, of course was the result of my imagination, but it was triggered by a not so nice event that happened.

I was five years old, and fishing with my dad and his cousin, R.J. We were walking the old railroad track on the shores of the Beaver River, just north of Pittsburgh, PA. It was mid-spring, but it was a cold spring that year, and a lot of the pooled water was still frozen in some places, and the last remnants of snow still lingered in patches in the woods. Anyway, it was cold that day. I don't really remember the walk too well, but I do remember we didn't go fishing that day, because we came across something that would end the trip quite early. We found a man. He'd been floating in the water, face-down, and he was on the shore of the river, half-frozen and bloated. I'll never forget what he looked like, and I can tell you with utter sincerity that I can't even describe it to you for fear of invoking total disgust. It was something a child of five shouldn't see, but unfortunately, I did. For years, I thought that man was following me around wherever I went, and I hated being alone. I don't really know what finally shook that fear, but eventually it ended... to an extent.

Honestly, I still don't particularly enjoy being alone, but as such, it happens. Throughout my life, I've experienced a good deal of really cool, and often totally amazing things. I consider myself lucky to have been born to be honest. However, some of these things, I simply cannot explain with any discernible and credible scientific solution. An example of such things...

I was 19 at the time, and I just recently moved out of my dad's and into my first apartment which was a duplex. My friend and former drummer visited one day to talk music and X-box, and I recall telling him, "Jeff, I'm gonna tell you right now, I think this place is haunted and it lives in my kitchen closet."

An odd conversation starter, but I meant every word. I noted that my closet was unnaturally cold one day in the summer... so cold in fact, that I questioned why I bought a refrigerator. After making this profound discovery, I moved a chair into that closet, and a lamp, and that is where I did all my reading in the summer. (I tell you... that apartment was so horribly hot in the summer, I don't think Amityville horror could have kept me out of that closet to escape the heat)

I was pretty up front and deliberate when I said it. I wasn't afraid or anything like that. Whatever was happening in there didn't really bother me to be honest, but it was happening daily. I considered it, either like a pet that I couldn't see, or like a homeowner who was kind enough to let me be a guest. Either way, it was a harmless haunting that made noises from time to time, and occasionally made its presence known quite loud and clear. Often times, I could hear it strolling through the apartment one footstep after the other. Other times, it would smack my television when the picture was screwing up (that was quite often.) Overall, if it was real or not, it wasn't harmful to my way of life in any way so I just accepted it. Well, my friend was quite skeptical. But, my haunting friend was an honorable one, and was quick in revealing itself to him. We were in my living room. I had a beaded curtain (I know...) that separated it from the bedroom, and I swear to you it split right down the center, and opened just like someone would do when they walked through it. It had never done that before, and never did it again, but he wasn't skeptical after that, and even asked me how I could live there, and I told him, it just didn't bother me. If it wanted me out, it would have let me know. It never did. Nobody ever talks about those hauntings that aren't malevolent, but well... I just wanted to point out that if it was real (from what I saw I think it was) it meant no harm to anyone.

My landlord told me that that place used to be his mother's house. She had a heart attack in the afternoon while vacuuming, and died in that house. I assumed it was her, but honestly, perhaps I'm just crazy in my own way... I don't know. It's impossible to find reason and explanation to the unexplainable and I don't know why I'm trying right now, but at any rate, that's one of the more extraordinary experiences I've had.

If you follow any of my writings, either my novels or short stories, you may note I have an attachment to the supernatural and unexplained. It's a favored genre of mine, and I try to write in the styles reminiscent of Poe and Lovecraft whom I consider to be masters of the art of supernatural and occult.

At any rate, lately, I find myself getting so into a particular creation that I wonder if I don't begin to fabricate it into existence. I of course don't mean this in the literal sense but more of a sensory sort of thing. I'm sure you've experienced something similar before. Have you ever watched a scary movie, and were then afraid of the dark for the next three hours? It puts your senses and emotions on edge long after the ending credits have rolled. Writing and reading can do the same thing I think. I've been put on edge so many times in the past from a well written scene by Lovecraft, that I've jumped at the signature creaks and cracks of my old house more times than I can count.

Recently however, I've taken a break from reading and writing and began to work on improving the house again. I finished installing hardwood floors in my dining room and office, and have added a lovely half-partition between the living room and dining room. The point however is, I've not put my senses on edge in quite some time. But lately, I've been having those weird sensory things happening to me that I just need to talk about. A couple months ago, on the fly, a story popped into my head, and I wrote it down. I titled it "Shadow People." The goal was to invoke a sense of fear in the tiniest but most apparent degrees. I don't know if it worked, but I hope it did. But those little pin-pricks and "Someone's watching me" sort of feelings have been troubling me for several weeks.

We've had this house for 2 years now, and though I experienced it only one other time, shortly after we bought the house, I'm getting it now, so horribly powerful that I'm starting to think I could turn this into the next Paranormal Activity movie. My fiancé is skeptical as all hell, and rightly-so, she's simply never around when this stuff happens.

The other day, I was at my laptop, likely watching a youtube video of a favorite wood-worker of mine, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye, in the archway between my living room and foyer. You can do google searches and come up with "Shadow People," but I tell you, this wasn't a shadow at all... This was a seriously, a person. A child, if I were to judge it by height. But I swear, I've never been more jump scared in my entire life. It seriously took my breath from me, and stopped my heart for a second. Later that night, I heard an odd sound, like a tree branch landing on the porch roof and sliding off, which is what I made of it, but I felt something right after that and it got me out of bed. When I went to go downstairs for a drink, I saw it again, right in the same spot I'd seen it before.

It hasn't happened since, but hey, it's pretty damn cool if I can experience two hauntings in my lifetime! If this is real, which to be honest, I don't believe in "Scientific" equipment and paranormal investigation, at least not the ones on television, then by god I'm either the luckiest person alive, or quite frankly, the unluckiest person alive. Lately, I've had terrible feelings when I go into the basement, which is where my woodshop is for the time being. Of course, this could simply be because it's a dark, dreary basement which compliments a house that was built in 1906. There are many people who've had these feelings, and they can't explain them. I try to find any sort of discernable evidence that would suggest that it's simply a psychological anomaly that is in pattern with the things around me. This is in fact a very old house, in a very old town. Every old house has its nuances, creaky floorboards, sticky doors, and all in all, eerily constructed rooms. This basement is a glorified hole. It has walls and a floor, but that's about it. I think the ghosts from "A Christmas Carol" would be afraid of this basement. To be honest, you'd be crazy to go down there with a candle for fear of igniting the myriad of cobwebs which in itself is quite eerie. There's also a boiler down there, and if you've ever had boiler heat, you know that it too has a lot of signature noises. Ticks, and taps are pretty commonplace with boiler heat, as such, it does nothing to lighten the mood of the basement. This could in fact be the cause of my ominous feelings, but it doesn't seem that way.

I don't really want to get going on the attic, but I just have to say, I can't spend more than a few minutes up there. Seriously, its the scariest place on earth in my opinion. You'd have to come here to truly understand it. It's not your typical attic. It looks as though the previous owners wanted to finish it, but they either didn't have the means, or simply lost the desire to. As such, it makes for a very quirky place in the house, and it seriously makes my skin crawl when I go up there. I have the desire to turn it into our master retreat somewhere down the line, but first I have to conquer the fear of being up there... yeah... sad for a man of thirty years, but I've never met someone who wasn't afraid of something.

I honestly don't even know why, other than the thought that I might either have a haunted house again, or I'm just bonkers. I don't hear whispers or anything... thank god for that, if that were the case, I wouldn't hesitate to go see a psychiatrist :P. But I'm starting to wonder if that old monster of mine has come back for his last laugh. I wonder if we can ever really shake our childhood fears, and I wonder if I just let my imagination run unchecked for too long. I can say that when I'm alone in utter quiet, which is often as a woodworker and DIYer, my imagination takes me to all sorts of different places. Maybe I should rein it in a bit, I don't really know. But again I have to say... if I get to experience two haunted houses in a lifetime... by god that is just a statistical awesomeness that I can't even begin to fathom.

At any rate, there was a sound just a few minutes ago that triggered my ramblings that damn near made my spirit jump out of my body. Never in my life have I ever truly experienced "Total Silence." Seriously, I haven't. When there's no other sounds around me, I always have a feint ringing in my ears. I've had it ever since I can remember... As such I've never said, "It's too quiet." Anyway, that's all I was hearing at the time I was reading my daily dose of political rhetoric (no offense) when I seriously heard fingernails rake down my living room wall. FINGERNAILS! I swear to god its the only thing that sounds like the sound I heard. They weren't that forceful nails on a chalkboard raking sound, but more like someone lightly touching their nails to the wall and sliding them down. It was light-hearted in tone, but plenty loud enough for me to say to myself "What the hell was that?"

I immediately settled on one of my two idiot cats, but unfortunately, one is currently on my lap as he has been for the past hour and a half, and the other is lazily folded over a throw pillow on the couch. Which begs me to ask the question a second time... What the hell was that?

And that in itself begs me to ask you... how many times have you asked yourself, "What the hell was that?" Or told yourself, "I could have sworn I just saw something over there." Or anything along those lines. I don't really mean the things you may see or hear right when you're on the cusp of falling asleep, because to be honest, during that time, I see and hear things that I can't even begin to attempt to imagine when I'm wide awake. I'm talking about those moments when you're just sitting there, and you get those perceptive glimpses that raise your hairs or give you that tingle in your nose. And if anything else, I'm asking you, if someone were telling this to you face to face, would you think they were nuts? If you've met me, you may think I'm a little eccentric. (Just recently we had a peer review at work, which was face to face with whomever we felt like reviewing, and two of my co-workers and brothers-in-arms, said to me, "My first impression of you was you were a wise-ass and crazy." They luckily toned it in a manner that would suggest it was a term of endearment, but perhaps I am a lunatic... A wise ass... well, yeah I am. At any rate, have a lovely evening folks... hope the things that go bump in the night wherever you're from, bump a little lighter tonight.