#artifacts

Pentimento I spent two years working on a single sentence.

I am a cover guard which basically means I only get called to guard places when someone has fallen sick or a last minute emergency has risen. I am put down as self employed by my manager which means I have to deal with my own taxes, and being self employed does give you a lot more freedom than being employed. Like for example I can quit whenever I want and I can decide which shifts I want to work, but I have to work most days because days off are costly. I have been a cover guard for various…

We all knew Spirit Halloween, a store that is filled to the brim with the most messed up animatronics out there, ranging from screaming clowns, decayed zombies, demonically possessed children, and other stuff. Every year, they always push the limits with the level of gore and blood. But what if I told you that there was an animatronic that never made it to the shelves? Well, you’re in for a treat, so keep on reading.

I know, what a generic thing to talk about in a story like this, as stories about creepy dolls were shared around to death, but hey, surely someone on here will be interested in what I am talking about as I have something similar to share.

A single unfinished opera entitled 'The Matinee of the Damned' is an incomplete and cursed piece of music that has plagued the eyes, ears and hearts of those who bear witness to this piece and has taken the lives of those who dare to try and finish the ballad.

“Pluggy the Plug-in,” that is the name I keep remembering for some reason, even after those posts of the lost show titled Sammy the Cat. I wonder who that character is; I might as well talk to the creator of the show about it. Yes, it has been a long time since Richard Turner was arrested. Even after my two posts, I never heard anything about him being released.

For my niece's sixth birthday I bought her a Barbie doll. She loved dolls and stuffed animals, and loved playing pretend with them even more. Whenever I stopped by my sister's house I could always hear my niece playing with her toys, speaking to them as if she was having a wonderful conversation and would sometimes make her dolls talk back.

I found an old Polaroid camera at a yard sale. It was even still loaded with film. Excited, I just took a picture of myself in the living room. However, when the photo was developed, there was a shadowy figure standing behind me, its hollow eyes staring straight into the camera lens. I was home alone.

Eight years ago, during the week before Halloween, some friends and I decided to tell spooky stories around the campfire. We had always wanted to make a fire outside and hang out at night, but we were too young to go by ourselves, especially after midnight. That year things were different. ‘We were no longer children,’ we thought, so we somehow convinced our parents to let us stay out late (we didn’t tell them about the fire, obviously).

The picture you’re staring at was taken sometime in the 70’s. It’s the only remaining image I have left of my son, and the artificial being known as "ANTRAN", whom we adopted into our family at the time.

I'm sure we've all heard of Disney, right? That adorable Mouse and all the other lovable characters. Well, when I was a child my favorite was Pinocchio. He had always appealed to me. The simple fact of him wanting to be a boy was charming and yet strangely unsettling. I mean, what would he do to become a boy? I also found his growing nose amusing. Apologies, my name is Brian, and I used to live in a little town in Oklahoma that was know as, Vieille Ville, which is French for 'Old Town'.

Almost everyone who has lived, or once been a tourist, in Cleveland, Ohio, has probably visited the West Side Market, an old-fashioned marketplace of generations-old stands selling fresh produce, meat, and spices. Do you ever wonder how the West Side Market was founded, or how the original West Side Market still operates? Officially, the market opened in 1840. A long time ago, but nothing compared to when it truly started.

April 23, 2000

There were too many doors in the upstairs hall. Sarah told her parents, but they couldn't see it. They told her not to worry. They told her there was nothing there. But there was an extra door, at the end of the upstairs hall. An extra yellow door, and it didn't belong.

It was a dark, and stormy night when I write this journal, stating the horrific things I have experience just the other day..

Do you remember those old televisions that everyone’s grandparents had in their basements? Those old bunny ear t.v.’s that turned to static whenever there was a storm or even a little wind? I do... All too well. Children have very vivid imaginations. We all remember seeing things that our parents told us weren’t really there. The monster under the bed, the beady eyes in the closet that were really just your jacket’s reflectors, the ghost in your basement that would “get you” if the lights…

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon when the sobbing echoed through the apartment complex. Everyone rushed outside to find Jacob, kneeling in front of the leafless birch tree, crying. They stared in awe, unsure of what to do. After all, no one knew anything about him. The tenants stood shocked and confused as Jacob's fingers dug into the soil at the base of the tree - scooping handfuls of dirt into his pockets. He continued until his pockets were full, then the crying ceased, just like that. The…

It was perhaps my eighth birthday when it all started. It’s hard to recall from this far in the future. My grandfather, a gentle old man, bought me a doll to play with and together we sat around a small cake with only four candles upon the top. They weren’t the fancy candles that you see on all the cakes now a days. We didn’t have the money for such fanciful things when I was a kid. No, they were just small nubs of candles that were nearing the end of their usefulness.

Something occurred to me today: If there is really is something that could be called "the soul", and it was immortal, then that would mean that you could live...forever. Limitless possibilities come from this point, and it really makes me think: did I do the right thing in my life? Were all the things I did worth it, the things that those people hate me for? I remind myself that it was for the betterment of my people, and my family.

Back in February of 2008, I decided that I needed a change in my monotonous life. Whether that change would come in the form of a new job or a new toothbrush, I didn't know. I was never the most adventurous person, I've always found it difficult to veer away from my comfort zone and the limit of my existence usually depended upon which book I was reading at the time. It took me a while to realise that my happiness often derived from the stories that my mind was living in; I was an avid bookworm…