Don't be scrrrd.

Emily’s Tale


Emily and I sat beneath a white gazebo in the park on a somehow still summery day in early October. White gardenias grew intertwined with the wooden boards that encircled us. We read “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe aloud to each other. She was in seventh grade at the time and would trip over words like “candelabrum” and “sepulchral”. Helping her with one such word, archaic now to our modern sensibility, she interrupted me. The sunlight beamed from her black hair. She told me that she’d had a strange encounter with someone or something that she could not explain. She took me to her father’s house in a story of the night before.
The house was mostly unfurnished. With their parents gone socializing in the city, Emily along with her younger brother and their twin cousins found themselves alone. They all began to get that funny feeling that comes in the night with the darkness and the silence of solitude. This communal feeling quickly manifested itself in an aural sensation that was alien and disturbing to their young ears. Bump bump bump bump. They heard a drumming upstairs. They started to feel nervous as the sound increased its ferocity. The urgent sound took them from room to room in that adultless house. Where is it coming from? Bump bump bump bump. It seemed nonsensical in its volume, coming simultaneously from the floor and the ceiling, fading momentarily and picking back up fervently as they passed though certain wooden thresholds or as they caught their reflections in a mirrored closet door. Bump bump bump bump.
Eventually, the children called off their search as if instinctively—in fear of being scared to death. And just then the front door flung open letting in a flood of parents in their out-to-dinner suits and with their bellies full of food and wine and with their heads heavy with sleeplessness. The adults put their children to bed in separate rooms of the house and then retreated to their own beds. But, Emily did not sleep because an incessant bass drum kept her brain a buzz with fantastic images and possibilities. And that is when she saw it.
There was a shadowy figure in a far and darkened corner of her room. It began to walk towards her. She saw long black hair which blew wildly in the wind that poured in through a cracked window to her left. It had the body of a child, she thought, probably of her own height. Her heart began to pound in her chest. She pinched herself. This was not a dream. The figure stood beside her bed in silence. Had it breath, she could have felt it’s warmth on her face. The semblance of a hand called for her. She reached out from under her quilt to touch it but her fleshy hand fell right through the dark hand, catching a chill in its descent, and Emily fell instantly into a dream that she would remember nothing of the next morning.




The Ditch



Just outside of Yuba City, California there was a dense forest of sugar pine and cypress trees. In the center of the woods there was an old house and in the house lived a young man. Percy Ratcliff sat in the confines of a bedroom in a remote turret of the house. Erratic color flashed on his face from a tv screen that sent him uncouth messages from a far away place. The sound and semblance of other people kept his mind from slipping into the darkness of solitude. In idle time, and without the warm (or if not warm at least busy) company of any human being besides his self and his memories, his mind had the tendency to drag his spirit to some outer space marked by sadness and worry. This other place, mostly unknown by the living, cannot be described by the language of mouths, nor seen with such fragile ocular organs, but only felt by those who allow for the diffusion of intuition. Percy scratched his head.
He was a young man, although he did not look it, of slight build and he was lanky. His face was a bloodless white shade with sunken in features and a protruding jaw full of wild and sharp teeth. His dark eyes rested far back in his skull and had the black quality of the obsidian rock from which ancient Americans had been known to fashion their arrowhead spears. The combination of these features proved exceedingly awful. Percy held his personal appearance responsible for his lack of friendly company and his utter isolation in the world.
Percy hadn’t always portrayed such an unsavory countenance. It was the result of an acute psychological disorder that pushed him frequently into cataleptic fits. He often found himself in a trance staring blankly into space with his body at peace, but with his mind fitfully racing in insensible contemplation. From this he would emerge feeling tired and aged and bearing the semblance of Death himself. When these fits first began they would endure for no more than twenty-five or thirty seconds. But as Percy matured, his brain became habitually ready to engage in such fitful explorations and he could stay under for a whole hour or more.
His condition was not treacherous unless he was overtaken in the midst of performing some precarious task. He once, thinking about something far beyond his sphere of availability saw or dreamt he saw a mass of flames encroaching upon him, and awoke to find his feet burning in an inch of over-run bathwater. He had fallen under a spell just as he began to run the hot water in the tub, but before he had the opportunity to temper it with the cold. This accident left him without use of his feet or ankles for several weeks.
Percy turned off his tv and slipped effortlessly out of consciousness.
The next morning he woke up with ideas and with purpose: he was going to tear up his lawn and plant a large garden. He felt down lately and this was an opportunity to pull himself out of that depression.
He dug in his back yard for hours that day. It was hard work but pitching his shovel into the earth and tilling the old dry soil made him feel at ease. The sun floated across the sky reddening his pale skin. He filled a wheel barrow with fertile topsoil. He loved the rich smell of fresh silt. Soon his mind left his work. He remembered a beautiful woman he had once seen in the town square sitting alone and allowed himself to drift backwards into the memory of her.
He saw her sitting on a park bench and was in awe of her beauty and confidence and ease. He wondered what it would be like to speak to such a woman. He imagined the warmth of her presence and the fragrance of her hair that he might enjoy in close proximity. But the nine mile trek to the city had left him tired and sweaty. Surely, she would be repulsed by his appearance. He wished that he could erase the signs of his exhaustion. He wished his home was closer to civilization. His face became heavy. And what had he to say to Beauty? From the way she dressed he thought she must live in the city. He knew nothing of that bustling city life, and didn’t care to. Perhaps there was some common ground upon which they could tread together in conversation. But this thought harbored an even more frightening possibility, for what would the poor woman think if he were to fall into a trance right before her eyes. He would not be able to stand the humiliation. He dreaded that sickening state that seemed to creep behind him wherever he tread. Percy wiped the perspiration from his furrowed brow and looked back toward the bench. The bench was empty. She was gone. How long had he been arrested by his frustration? He was sure that he had one chance and that he had lost it. Beauty was forever gone.
He found himself again in his isolated plot, digging. Rows of jagged pines surrounded him like a monstrous fence. He got the feeling the trees had eyes that followed him, watching his every move, arching over him in judgment. He wished that he could wave his hand and erase them from his life.
A black cloud appeared in the sky and covered the sun. Within minutes of its encroachment his muscles, which he had ignored until that moment, seemed to exude an ache that filled his whole being. A drop of water fell from the sky. He was done working. A storm was approaching.
He retired to his confinement and contemplated his work, thus far, well-done. Yes, he had something to show for himself. He had worked for hours on end with no break. He had put an honest effort into his environment. If he were to venture into town again he could tell someone what he had done. But what if that person wanted to see his garden? What had he to show of it? The gaping hole in his back lawn was hardly impressive. He had a lot more work to do before it would be presentable. And what if he did not have the strength to continue such work? Or what if the rain were to persist and wash away his progress—could he start all over again? He didn’t even know what to plant that time of year. How foolish he had been to try to build a garden. He couldn’t believe that he spent all day tearing up his neat lawn only to find, in its wake, nothing.
He fell asleep that night to the sound of the pouring rain, and with a dark cloud in his head. A lightning bolt flashed outside illuminating his cell and casting brightness upon his weary face. He was jarred from his dreamless sleep. Percy rubbed his black eyes with bony fingers. He stood with the intention of withdrawing to his bedroom. He rose and began with uneasy steps but a queer feeling over took him.
He imagined the weight of those horrible pines that boxed him in. He hated those green giants—the height of their branches, the depth of their roots. Perhaps because of his contemplation of those massive earthy bodies, or perhaps by fiendish coincidence, his feet moved him away from his bedroom and into the dark night outside. His mind had left his body once more. Even the pounding storm could not wake him from the trance. Vague ideas oppressed him in the darkness. He sensed that he was approaching some great abyss. He saw or dreamt he saw the roots of those lurking pines stretching towards him like terrible claws and felt that he lacked the will to evade their grasp. The claws took hold of him pulling him deeper and deeper into the black recesses of his subconscious imagination. The beautiful woman flashed in his mind’s eye followed by a sensation of a pulsing and sludgy embrace to which he surrendered his entire being.
Percy had fallen into the muddy ditch in which he had intended to grow a magnificent garden. And under a black and stormy sky, he sunk deeper into his spell and deeper into the earth’s clay until he was completely submerged. By the time he escaped his own enchantment, it was too late for young Percy. His chest and lungs were oppressed. His body was paralyzed. He could not breathe. His throat filled with sobs. And then came hideous suffocation and the absolute silence of death.



xoxo