#creatures

02-10-2012

The whistle is considered one of the happiest sounds on earth by many. I'm not one of those people. I hate the sound of whistling. Another thing I hate is the tune of "Oh, Susanna." I can't bare to hear the two combined. Not after that night.

When I was young, I lived on a farm in rural Oregon with my parents. I was the only child. We weren’t a big commercial farm. Just a family-type thing. We had five cows, three horses, a small herd of goats, two dogs, and one chicken coop. We also had some Indian Runner ducks we kept mostly as pets. We didn’t really make any money off the place, just enough to sustain the animals and a little extra for ourselves. Money enough to take a decent vacation every couple of years. Dad had his other job…

Mark sighed and looked out at the night sky. He was standing on the roof of his apartment building, four stories up. Sometimes Mark just liked to stay up here and reflect, it was quiet and peaceful. Looking down you could see the normal hustle and bustle of city life but if you looked up you could see the beautiful sky, and sometimes even a full moon or some stars.

I was so happy to get this computer. For the last three years I’ve been on a laptop. Long story, boring, but let’s just say a fire took out my desktop and half the apartment complex I lived in while I was at school, and the insurance money would only cover a laptop.

The digital clock read 3:15 am. I was lying awake, restless, in my bed. There was nothing I disliked more than a long, dreary, and silent night. I sighed, recalling that the nights prior to this one shared a common dullness. I adjusted the sheets in an attempt to cover my exposed feet from the biting cold that the night brought with it. Everything was pretty mundane, until I heard a knock in my room.

My parents died in a car crash when I was fourteen. Don't feel bad for me or anything. I've made my peace with that years ago. Life with them was never great, but I do miss them. It's just that if they taught me one thing it's to not sit around wallowing in self-pity. I just wish they hadn't sent me to live with my Aunt Louise.

The child jolted awake in the middle of the night, a scream lost in his throat. He was covered in cold sweat and trembling all over. The nightlight next to his bed illuminated his room. There was no monster. He had simply imagined everything in a brief, terrifying nightmare. His hand reached through the darkness and pulled the cord to his lamp. The bulb flashed on and his room was liberated from the blackness. He would sleep with the light on just in case.

You lay in your bed, comfortably, staring at your ceiling. Your air conditioning is whirring, allowing you to completely relax and slowly drift into sleep. Just as you start to fall asleep your air conditioner cuts off. You can hear everything. You have a relatively large room. You're starting to become uncomfortable, but instead of moving to get into a better position you lay still. Almost frozen.

And I am always with you. I was there from the time you were born. I stood in the delivery room, staring down at you before you could even open your eyes to see me. Your parents, relatives and doctors couldn’t see me there, in the corner, watching you with cloudy eyes, but I was there from the time you were born. And I followed you home.

"Wake up! Wake up!" Your brain is trying to jolt you awake. However meek and disturbing your dream was, does not compare to what you will see when you wake.

Jake had no love for cats. Especially the one in his home. Of course, it wasn’t explicitly his cat. It was his roommate’s cat: a black and white stray that he’d adopted a number of years ago. But since his roommate was away for a few weeks, the cat was Jake’s responsibility. Each day, he fed her, changed her water, cleaned out her litter box (with far more frequency than his roommate ever did). Small additions to his daily routine that didn’t actually require a lot of effort.

You are alone. A scared, fearful little creature in this dank and dark forest. I can smell you. I can feel your heart beating, every single one of them. I just love to dance to the rhythm as it quickens when you hear a sound. What as that? A squirrel? A fox? Perhaps it was. Or perhaps it was me.

When we were kids, we'd always spin in circles. The more we spun around, the more dizzy we'd get. Sometimes it was a challenge to see who would fall over or who could stay up right. When I was young, seven or eight, I remember this would be all I'd do with my time, spinning, spinning, spinning.

If you really believe in something, it can be yours. That's how we've been conditioned to think. Mostly, I suppose it's a coping mechanism to keep us from eating the rich. We all think we'll be rich someday if we just want it hard enough. How long has it been since there was a good, old-fashioned culling of the wealthy elite? That probably wasn't a good way to start this blog post… I'm more than a little tired, but fuck it. I'm leaving it. "Corruptus".

It was a cold winter night in a very very remote town, out in the middle of nowhere. A debate team from a larger city had driven out that morning and had done very well, not finishing until around midnight. When the bus finally set off, it was around 12:45. As students filed onto the bus to go home, the driver turned on the strobe on top of the bus, so if they got in a wreck or anything they could easily be seen.

It was a cold, rainy day in December. There was less than a week until we got out of school for winter break. Usually my teachers don't give us work before a break, but my bastard of a History teacher decided he'd assign us a 2000-word report due the day before we got out. I knew I wasn't going to be there then; I was going up to the mountains in North Carolina to spend Christmas and New Years' in Lenoir with some old friends I hadn't seen since I moved.

Have you ever had an experience that suggested someone else was in your house, and just thought “I don’t wanna know” and left it? Sometimes, fear of the unknown just seems like the preferable option than facing a real, concrete danger. Normally it’s nothing, though. One time, the beeper function of my wireless housephone went off, when I was the only one home. It could only be called from the living room. Another time, I swear someone took some change from my desk. They’re all probably just…

Tuesday, October 11

I am Salt, and I love you. I have loved a lot of people, but now I love you. Last week actually I loved this sweet little girl. Her name was Lisa. She had sweet straight golden hair and small blue eyes. When I saw her I just knew I loved her.