#ghosts

You will dream of me. You will dream of me. You will dream of me. I will appear to you every night. And frighten you, and you will think I am just a ghost. I will appear in your worst nightmares. I will be your worst fear. I will be your fear. You will dream of me. You will dream of me. I am not just a ghost. I am not just a ghost. You will find me watching you every night.

In the fall of 2011, a man hung himself in a bottling factory of a popular over the counter sleep aide company just outside Chicago. The man worked as a quality control manager and had just been laid off to save the company money. In the morning, the cleaning crew found him swaying in the breeze from the air conditioning system with a note in his breast pocket that read “sleep tight.”

Testimonial & Description: “I hate to close my eyes. I hate sleeping, and I even hate to blink. The split second that each blink occupies is still long enough to see it. I can still see that shadowed face attached to that sickly body as it motioned for me to close my eyes”. – Written by Anonymous, 2005 Description:

It has always been an auspicious prospect for most children. A new house means new neighbors, a new yard, new friends, and a new school. A new house, for a boy of nine, means a new adventure. Well, at least until one has settled in. My parents and I decided to move due to a few contentious issues that had arisen in our previous town. More precisely, I had begun to fight with the other children.

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

It was well past midnight as I drove home from my new job. The pay wasn't so good, and it was far from home, but I really had no choice considering I was behind on rent.

“Don’t worry! It’s just a scary story!”, “Yeah! What are you a pussy?” the two 13 year old boys said taunting Charlie, the latest transplant from San Antonio. Charlie was scared but didn’t want to look like a “Pussy” in front of the neighborhood kids. These were the kids who would decide if he was ok or not… they would tell other kids if he was cool…. or a big pussy. He just wanted to make new friends in this new place. He knew well enough that if he didn’t go in, and shout “Ole' Broken bones…

4:23AM I didn't imagine it... I'm not fucking insane. My vision may have been distorted as a result of my excessive alcohol consumption, but I know what I saw. I know that it was real, I've been sat in a bath full of cold water for the past hour to try and shake the feeling of being covered in blood. Her blood. - 5 hours earlier -

I guess I won’t escape the water on this spring evening. As rain pounds on me with the rhythm of an icy waterfall, the pain of the cold is warming me more than my nightgown ever could. The warmth of my breath fights through the bitter darkness of the evening only to be beaten back by the unrelenting frigidity of the wind at my face. Perhaps the warmness of the gulf would radiate just enough to find some comfort in this depressing storm.

Based on personal hallucinations.

3:20 in the morning. The cold pasty light of the computer monitor was splashed against the cheaply wallpapered walls of my dorm room, casting thick shadows that clawed at the corners of my eyes. My fingers gently ran across the keyboard in front of me. The biology paper was due for tomorrow, and I had foolishly decided to leave it until now. Desperate to finish, but equally desperate not to wake up my room mate, who was annoyed at me enough already.

Moving at the end of my high school career is not what I imagined. My mother and father insisted that we move a few towns a way. Far enough to escape poor memories, yet close enough to the ones we wanted to keep. The town we reside in now has a decent enough track record, and the crime rate seems to be pretty low. My father has become so quiet now, so sallow. I swear, my mother's complexion will never come back.

I woke up sweating. This was the third time this week that I had this strange recurring dream. It feels so real, like I can hear the voices clearly, feel the contact with my skin. Sometimes I can't tell if it's real or not.

I can't stand when someone is walking behind me or simply that feeling of being watched or followed. It’s not pleasant at all, and personally for me, it’s unbearable. Let me begin by saying that the reason I practically hate it is due to the fact that's how I felt that during most of my childhood. All of the events that I will tell you actually happened so you probably will understand that for protection purposes (yourself, my family and mine) I will avoid providing any names or locations.…

[Author's note: The historical context of the time period has been altered than what actually happened in history due to the nature of the story being derived from another one of my projects.] August 19th, 1915 Corp. D.H. Griffin, 3rd Infantry Battalion, US Army

The summer of 1986 was for the most part pretty typical. I was ten years old at the time, so we were doing the things ten year old boys love to do like swimming, riding around on our bikes and playing little league games. The area I grew up in was very rural; populated mostly by farmers and their kids. The nearest town was Deweese with a population of under 100 and while it didn’t offer much for kids to do, we usually didn’t have a hard time making our own fun.

I've always found it particularly difficult to start a story. It's easy to end one, but ever since grade school when my teachers would make me write a short story, I could never make a good start. I suppose I'll start by saying this is a story. A story about my best friend. He died about 2 years ago. He was in his living room, sitting, watching tv, and he had a heart attack. And boom. Just like that he's dead. Gone. Bye bye. See you later. It was really shocking when I found out.

I used to walk with her, now I walk alone. We used to marvel at the beautiful houses together, now I look down at my feet. Each home we pass, a grain of salt in the wound, each house a reminder of what I lost. Even though it hurts, I still find myself continuing our walks. Sometimes pain is good. It reminds us that we are still living. I’d rather feel the pain of her passing, than not feel her at all.

Lucas Thorne gulped as he turned the corner and saw the rotting corpse of a house that sat at the edge of town. The house seemed twisted as its warped wooden frame sagged under its weight. Grime smeared the windows, reflecting only the fading light of dusk. As his eyes darted around, he confirmed one thing: he was alone. He reconsidered his choice to volunteer for the cleanup.

Sacred Spirit came to me and reached out for my hand, whispered words of comfort so I could understand. Birth, Death Rebirth, Cycles of a whole never ending just eclipsed the cycles of the soul.