  Short Stories
This week: Dead and Buried Edited by: Shannon  
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“Even though I buried our love in a coffin, it isn’t dead. No, our love is very much alive. Or at least it was yesterday, when I went to visit the cemetery.”
~ Jarod Kintz, 99 Cents For Some Nonsense
There's something about being buried alive that penetrates what I like to call our primal fear cortex. The odds of it happening are slim to none, and yet....
Taphophobia, or fear of being buried alive, may seem like something you'd read about in a short story by Stephen King--"Dolan's Cadillac," for example, but sometimes truth is stranger, and much more terrifying, than fiction.
My mini obsession with being buried alive started in 1988. I was twenty years old, and I'd just seen a movie titled The Serpent and the Rainbow. For those of you who don't already know, the film's about an anthropologist (Bill Pullman) who travels to Haiti to investigate stories of people who rose from the dead long after they were buried. The common denominator: a "zombie drug" administered to the victims prior to their funerals. An American pharmaceutical company wants some of this zombie drug--something they can mass-produce as a super anesthetic, and Pullman is just the man for the job because he's been there before and is familiar with the Haitian culture. The film was adapted from a book of the same name and was supposedly based on actual events. It scared the bejeezus out of me.
Controversy surrounded the book and its author, ethnobotanist Wade Davis. While some scientists criticized him for what they say are numerous inaccuracies, Davis stands behind his research.
Whether or not the events in The Serpent and the Rainbow actually happened as depicted in the book, the following incidents did take place and are well documented.
In 1937, in the tiny village of St. Quentin de Chalais, France, 19-year-old Angelo Hays was catapulted over the handlebars of his motorcycle, slamming head-first into a brick wall. Upon finding no signs of life, doctors declared him dead and Angelo was buried three days later. Insurance investigators, suspicious about the fact that Angelo's father took out a life insurance policy on his son not too long before his death, decided to exhume Angelo's body two days after burial. Angelo was still warm to the touch, and he was rushed to a hospital where he was revived. In the 1970s Angelo toured with the "security coffin" 1 he invented, which featured thick upholstery, a food locker, chemical toilet, library, and radio transmitter.
Pikeville, Kentucky in the late 1800s was a scary place to be. People were dropping dead left and right, most of them children, as an unknown disease swept the community. When Jacob Hatcher, the infant son of Octavia Hatcher, succumbed, Octavia became deeply depressed, ill, and slipped into a coma. She was pronounced dead and buried. A week later people realized that others who had also been in a comatose state eventually woke up. Terrified that he may have buried his wife alive, Octavia's husband exhumed her body to find the inside of her coffin shredded from Octavia's futile attempts to escape. He had to rebury her, however, because by then Octavia was indeed dead. 2
In 1915 30-year-old Essie Dunbar suffered a "fatal" epileptic fit and was buried. Dunbar's sister arrived just as they were tossing the last shovelful of dirt onto Essie's grave, but she wanted to see her sister's face one last time and ordered Essie's body exhumed. When the lid was removed Essie sat up and smiled. 3
On the fiction front, in 2010 I watched a Ryan Reynolds movie titled Buried. "Paul [Reynolds] is a U.S. truck driver working in Iraq. After an attack by a group of Iraqis he wakes to find he is buried alive inside a coffin. With only a lighter and a cell phone it's a race against time to escape this claustrophobic death trap." 4 The 95-minute film, shot entirely from inside Reynolds's buried coffin, is intense, especially for someone afflicted with claustrophobia. My husband, who is claustrophobic, watched about five minutes of the film and had to leave the room.
Are you afflicted with taphophobia? Has one of your characters been buried alive? Did he or she survive? If not, what were his/her last moments like? Reply with your thoughts or send me the link to your story and I'll include them in next month's newsletter.
Thank you for reading.
Notes:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelo_Hays
2. http://www.viralnova.com/octavia-smith-hatcher/#.
3. http://mentalfloss.com/article/54818/4-people-who-were-buried-alive-and-how-they...
4. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1462758
“The past is dead and buried. But I know now that buried things have a way of rising to the surface when one least expects them to.”
~ Dan Simmons, Prayers to Broken Stones |
I hope you enjoy this week's featured selections. Please do the authors the courtesy of reviewing the ones you read. Thank you, and have a great week!
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The following is in response to " A Rose by Any Other Name" :
Brooke  writes, "Your newsletters are always so interesting. No matter the topic when I see your name, I open it. I already know it will be awesome.  I had never heard the term gaslighting either until now but I know exactly what it is. My biological father 'gaslighted' my mother when my brother and I were babies. He tried to drive her insane. If she went to the mall, he would move her car so she would think it was stolen then after time elapsed for her to call the police, he'd put it back so she would look like an idiot. He did so many terrible things, it wasn't surprising she was actually granted her divorce from him on 'mental and physical cruelty'. Back then there was no 'no fault' divorce, you had to have a reason and boy did she. This is a great NL and I thank you for taking the time to write it.  " Aw, thank you so much, Brooke! And thank YOU for sharing your story. That is EXACTLY what gaslighting is. Scary, and so cruel. I'm glad your mom got out. 
Bikerider  writes, "Another useful newsletter, Shannon. I'm a retired police officer/detective and I can tell you I've investigated every circumstance you list in the newsletter. But there is something you mentioned that I want to bring up. Crimes against the elderly has been on the rise for a long time now. What typically happens is someone works their way into the trust of an elderly person, usually a handyman, and usually a woman victim. He 'helps' her and gains her trust. He spends her money on things for him and she doesn't know it. Sometimes he/she will buy something expensive and then return the item for cash, keeping it. But as a police officer, when a son or daughter of a victim finds out what's happening they report it to the police, most times not until the victim has died and they're going through their parent's financial records. With nothing to disprove the dirt bag's claim that 'she bought those things for me as a gift,' there's not much law enforcement can do, especially if the victim's signature is on the check. It's very difficult to prove a negative. Hopefully those people with an elderly relative can check in on them occasionally to make sure no one is taking advantage." YES! As a nurse I see situations that raise reg flags. All I can do is pass on my suspicions and hope someone follows through. Thank you for your insight. 
thewinchesters writes, "Hi there, I actually have experienced gas-lighting. A woman I know, when confronted about something she said or how she made someone feel, will turn the whole issue around to make me feel like a total idiot. I know she's doing it, but she doesn't see it, and there isn't a way to really stop her. It's not fun. Also, I want to add that even if a person says they love you every day, they could still be abusive. It can be really confusing and, even if the issue seems minor, talk to someone." Absolutely! I agree with you 100% Like the old saying goes, "Actions speak louder than words." It is especially true in the case of mental and psychological abuse. In fact, sweet words are part of the abuse. They manipulate their victims with I love yous and I'm sorrys and please forgive mes. Excellent point. Thank you for sharing!
Quick-Quill  writes, "I never heard this term before but I sure understood the explanation. It's sad it happens all too often in real life. People taking advantage of others." Yes, unfortunately you're right. 
ladeecaid writes, "That is very interesting. I didn't know there was such a name for this kind of abuse. This is the first place I have heard it. Does that mean the term is relatively new? Or have I just not run across it, I wonder? It angers me when I see people treat others in such a way. I want to rant, but you have said everything I would say. My brother tried to play me like that. He came to my house to use my phone. He had been out with another girl. He and his friend practiced what my brother would say to his girlfriend. It amounted to making her look like the evil jealous person she wasn't. I said nothing, until my brother hung up and tried to tell me how awful she was. I was insulted. Oh no no, I don't play those games. That sort of treatment is one of those things that really really disgusts me. Okay, I'm going to stroke my ruffled feathers." Yes! Good for you for standing up to your brother like that. I bet he won't be doing that again in your presence any time soon. As far as the term itself goes, "The term 'gaslighting ' has been used colloquially since the 1960s to describe efforts to manipulate someone's sense of reality. In a 1980 book on child sex abuse, Florence Rush summarized George Cukor's 1944 film version of Gas Light, and writes, 'even today the word [gaslighting] is used to describe an attempt to destroy another's perception of reality.'" 
Kanish ~ we got this!  writes, "Wow, that's a term I could learn.I think we all have did it at one time or another. or maybe, just maybe, I am saying it so that I don't feel alone!" Oh, I'm very sure you're not alone. I know we've all done it to some degree. Maybe not intentionally, but done it nonetheless. It takes courage to admit something like that. Thank you. 
Patrece ~  writes, "This was extremely informative, and sadly accurate for what many people live with. I never realized it had a name either, I always thought it was part of the behavior demonstrated by one who is a narcissist. It's a terrible form of abuse, as it can really cause the recipient to question their own reality, and almost drive them insane trying (to no avail) to defend themselves to the one inflicting this form of abuse. Such cruelty! In all honesty, as one who has lived with much abuse in childhood and in a relationship, I'd rather get slapped around then endure the emotionally damaging abuse, if I had to choose. Bruises to the body heal, bruises to the soul often don't, or if they do, it is a long a difficult process." I agree with you 100%. At least you can defend yourself against the physical. Thank you for reading and commenting. I'm glad you liked the newsletter.
Turtle's mom  writes, "The term "gaslight" comes from the movie of the same name made in 1944 staring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer." Yes, the stage play, written in 1938, is where the term originated and was continued in the 1940 and 1944 film adaptations. 
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Short Stories: December 02, 2015 Issue [#7334]
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