In 2007 I had taken a trip to Walt Disney World with my six year old son. It was our first family vacation since my husband had passed way, and so I wanted to make sure this vacation was as memorable and fun as possible for my son. My son’s favorite movie at the time was ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and as a result we spent many hours in Fantasy Land. Time after time my son insisted on returning to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, each time he seemed more eager than the last. The pirate animatronics that are featured on the ride looked incredibly realistic, with no small detail overlooked. In honor of the films new pirates were…

It was just like any other day when I received the call. I had been sketching the horizon for the past hour when my phone began ringing with with an unfamiliar number. I would have ignored it if the call hadn’t been from my home town. Fast forward 24 hours later, and I’m sitting in a stark conference room and waiting for a team of doctors to arrive. I would have never imagined myself in this position. Who could? My mind was racing, and I wished that the doctor had given me a clearer explanation over the phone. This is all I know. I’m here to oversee my twin brother’s transfer from Charity Medical Center to the New Eden Psychiatric…

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. When she unwrapped the doll her eyes lit up and she immediately opened the packaging to play with her new toy. Her eyes lit up and exclaimed proudly that this particular Barbie was one she had never seen before. I bit my tongue a just smiled. I couldn’t spend too much money on my niece, even though I love…

Some neighborhood kids and I are going to commit a felony tonight, but it’s no big deal. We’ve been committing a felony for almost two weeks now. We’ve developed a new pastime, and this all began when Cody Winters told us about the Railroad Game. This is the type of shit that happens when you live in a quaint suburb, filled with kids and teenagers that have nothing better to do. Let me explain. Back in the late 60’s, the Ironfront Rail Line bought the chunk of property behind our suburb, and the tracks were laid down and connected to a nearby route. The construction’s completion drew the attention of all the neighborhood punks who were searching for something to…

I have never been as happy as I was on my eighth birthday. My mother handed me a heavily wrapped present containing my very first gameboy and a mint Pokémon Gold edition. Since Pokémon Gold was my first glimpse into the series, it was my all-time favourite. Anything from the second generation completely captivated me. After a few years, I became tired of my gameboy and moved up to newer consoles; eventually getting into computer gaming. I found other games that spiked my interest as the Pokémon series had done. As time passed, I had a serious yearning to play Pokémon again. After becoming more familiar with computer gaming over the years, I found out about emulators and ROMs. Pokémon…

I’ll never forget the summer of 1998, or the encounters I shared with my classmates. When I was ten years old, just two weeks into the beginning of the school year, the entire fifth grade was taken on a special week-long camping trip to ‘Camp High Hope’ in Indiana. Being ten years old, the idea of spending a week away from home, without any parents or siblings, just friends and the other kids from school, was one of the coolest experiences you could ever hope for as a child. The bus arrived at the camp after about three hours on the road, and despite the relatively short ride, we were all tired. It was just noon, and we wanted nothing…

The nonstop pitter-patter of the cold rain against my bedroom window set the mood. I found myself rubbing my eyes, unable to follow the now swaying lines. My book was a jumbled mess of dyslexic text. I spent another minute trying to decipher the words, but my exhausted state of mind could not put meaning to them. I folded the top right corner of the page and gingerly placed Bram Stoker’s, Dracula, back on the windowsill.   I must’ve dozed off at some point because I found myself dreaming. Eyes. Red eyes the size of saucer plates peered into the depths of my soul. No matter how hard I tried to look away, I could not break the gaze. I felt…

I’ve gotten into some trouble recently, and I need to tell people about it. I need to know if anyone has experienced something like this. I don’t want to be alone in this. I’m really, really scared. Please, bear with me while I explain what happened to me. For the purposes of this, I’m going to remain anonymous, so I don’t complicate my situation further. You’ll find out why in a little bit. I really appreciate you taking your time to hear me out and help me. It all started at school while I was taking a calculus test. The classroom door opened, and a police officer stepped inside. I remember glancing over to him, looking for an excuse to…

The following story was originally posted across 8 different installments spanning the months from October to November of 2017. They describe the true events that occurred at a now infamous small town gas station. PART ONE At the edge of our town, there’s a shitty gas station that’s open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If you were to go inside, you’d see row after row of off-brand chips, cookies, potted meats and ramen. Expiration dates suspiciously missing from canned goods like they were filed off years ago in some misguided attempt to control inventory turnover. A faded “wet floor” sign from way back covering a crack in the foundation by the cooler that has since turned into…

We all make mistakes. It just takes one, little mistake, and everything will be over. I won’t let that happen this time. My girlfriend and I had a fight. It was a stupid fight, and I cannot remember how it started. We’re quiet now, the both of us. I brought us to a nearby lilac field to watch the sunset. The sun disappeared ten minutes ago, and she still hasn’t spoken. Pursing my lips, I reach forward and gently grab the tips of her blond hair to French braid it. I rest my knee against her lower back to keep us close, yearning for her to say something, anything. I know this was my fault. “I’m sorry about yesterday, Liza.…

We had just moved into a little ranch house in the suburbs. Storybook neighborhood – quiet, friendly neighbors, picket fences, the whole nine yards. Suffice it to say that this was supposed to be a new start for me, a recently single dad, and my three-year-old son. A time to move on from the previous year’s drama and stress. I viewed the thunderstorm as a metaphor for this fresh start: one last show of theatrics before the dirt and grime of the past would be washed away. My son loved it anyway, even with the power out. It was the first big storm he’d ever seen. Flashes of lightning flooded the bare rooms of our house, imparting unpacked boxes with…

Identifying Exploding Head Syndrome (EHS) An uncommon phenomenon that causes a person–usually female–to suffer from sudden, loud, and unexplainable noises right on the verge of sleep. Noises which are jarring and can sound like the popping of fireworks, gunshots, the bang of slamming doors, and even loud explosions. In some cases, violent screaming or sobbing is heard. The most exceptional thing to note about the sleep disorder that is EHS, is that noises do not occur within the head. Sounds are out of body and can be heard anywhere up to a block away by both ears. Although very little is known, psychiatrists speculate that EHS occurs when certain synapses in the brain fire off rather than settle down. What…

Have you ever forgotten your phone? When did you realise you’d forgotten it? I’m guessing you didn’t just smack your forehead and exclaim ‘damn’ apropos of nothing. The realisation probably didn’t dawn on you spontaneously. More likely, you reached for your phone, pawing open your pocket or handbag, and were momentarily confused by it not being there. Then you did a mental restep of the morning’s events. Shit. In my case, my phone’s alarm woke me up as normal but I realised the battery was lower than I expected. It was a new phone and it had this annoying habit of leaving applications running that drain the battery overnight. So, I put it on to charge while I showered instead…

“The year is nineteen-ninety-nine.” That sentence brings me back to my senior kindergarten class when I was five years old, where we used to read out the date on the blackboard every single day. The year 1999 exists as a stain in my mind however, as a memory that will not go away no matter how I try to forget it. 1999 marked the year I lost my first tooth, my first time on a plane, and unfortunately the early loss of my childhood innocence. That one memory that refuses to be wiped, it all started with that new (or old) TV. At that time Pokémon was the latest fad to hit the school. Pokémon cards, games, stickers, and the…

When I was twelve, I came to the conclusion that everyone in the world, including my own family, was against me. I was never a problemed child, but my parents sure treated me like one. For example, I used to need to be home by 5:00pm every day. This clearly restricted my amount of “play time” outdoors. I wasn’t allowed to have friends over to play at the house, nor was I allowed to go over anyone else’s. I had to finish homework directly after I came home from school, no matter how long it took. My parents refused to buy me video games and forced me to read books and then write a book report on them to prove…

My eyes are in a ferverous affair with the clock, and my focus is none the wiser. The police dispatcher is pleading for me to humor her inquiries, if for no reason other than to keep my consciousness afloat. It is so late, and today has been so challenging. Nevertheless, I’ll gratify her with my story, because I am really in no mood to tell it again later. Mariam Cliffington happened into our photo center again today. These visits are becoming relentless, as are the innumerable poorly Photoshopped images on her SanDisk flash drive. Every day it’s the same process. She perches at our photo Kiosk, orders small batches of 5×7 and 4×6 photos, and crones over the photo printer…

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything related to the Disney Corporation, and I’m sure you can understand why. A lot has been going on since my last post. I’ve received a lot of questions and concerns from folks who read my first-hand account of Mowgli’s Palace… a resort that was built and abandoned by Disney. I want to thank everyone who mirrored by post. It’s been taken down from a few places, mostly corporate sites that were easily leaned on by a larger power. However, for every nuked topic or disappearing blog post, it seems like a hundred more have popped up. This is something they’ll have to face. There’s no turning back for them… none for me,…

God, I hope I’m just going crazy. You ever had one of those “how in the hell did I get here” moments? I mean those flashes of clarity where you really see your life. You look in the mirror and you’re so far removed from the person you dreamed of being when you were a kid that you’re stunned speechless. Mine happened about a year ago, a week or two before Thanksgiving, when I woke up in the hospital. I was incredibly disoriented; everything seemed unreal and distant, not really happening to me… like I was dreaming, or an avatar in a video game. Maybe it was because I already felt so disconnected… maybe it was the terrifying reminder of…

About five years ago I lived downtown in a major city in the US. I’ve always been a night person, so I would often find myself bored after my roommate, who was decidedly not a night person, went to sleep. To pass the time, I used to go for long walks and spend the time thinking. I spent four years like that, walking alone at night, and never once had a reason to feel afraid. I always used to joke with my roommate that even the drug dealers in the city were polite. But all of that changed in just a few minutes of one evening. It was a Wednesday, somewhere between one and two in the morning, and I…

Grandpa was 97 years old when he passed away. He lived far from where his three children had settled. Grandma died when I was a small child, and he ended up remarrying another woman a few years later who demanded that he move out west so that she could be nearer to her sons. She was a piece of work, was Grandma Hester. We all wondered how Grandpa could stand her. It turns out that perhaps he could not. We’re not precisely sure when he developed dementia, but it was probably years before we noticed it. He’d tell us about people he was speaking to, or visiting with, or a trip he took. Years later, after we learned he was…

Some of you may have heard that the Disney corporation is responsible for at least one real, “live” Ghost Town. Disney built the “Treasure Island” resort in Baker’s Bay in the Bahamas. It didn’t START as a ghost town! Disney’s cruise ships would actually stop at the resort and leave tourists there to relax in luxury. This is a FACT. Look it up. Disney blew $30,000,000 on the place… yes, Thirty Million Dollars. Then they abandoned it. Disney blamed the shallow waters (too shallow for their ships to safely operate) and there was even blame cast on the workers, saying that since they were from the Bahamas, they were too lazy to work a regular schedule. That’s where the factual…

In 1983, a team of deeply pious scientists conducted a radical experiment in an undisclosed facility. The scientists had theorized that a human without access to any senses or ways to perceive stimuli would be able to perceive the presence of God. They believed that the five senses clouded our awareness of eternity, and without them, a human could actually establish contact with God by thought. An elderly man who claimed to have “nothing left to live for” was the only test subject to volunteer. To purge him of all his senses, the scientists performed a complex operation in which every sensory nerve connection to the brain was surgically severed. Although the test subject retained full muscular function, he could…

“The year is nineteen-ninety-nine.” That sentence brings me back to my senior kindergarten class when I was five years old, where we used to read out the date on the blackboard every single day. The year 1999 exists as a stain in my mind however, as a memory that will not go away no matter how I try to forget it. 1999 marked the year I lost my first tooth, my first time on a plane, and unfortunately the early loss of my childhood innocence. That one memory that refuses to be wiped, it all started with that new (or old) TV. At that time Pokémon was the latest fad to hit the school. Pokémon cards, games, stickers, and the…

The devil on the fiery porch. He was back again that year, the same as he had been for five years running, keeping the majority of Trick or Treaters behind an imaginary line of uneasiness drawn at the edge of the curb with his Hell-red grin and burning cauldrons. It was a scene from Faust, only this was no play; this was my neighborhood. It wasn’t just kids who lingered apprehensively in the street, but parents as well. In a place where the definition of Halloween was more like cardboard skeletons and plastic jack-o-lanterns, a guy with a penchant for fire and pitchforks could be extraordinarily scary. Really young children were hurried past the residence altogether via lawns on the…

I just want to start off by saying if you want an answer at the end, prepare to be disappointed. There just isn’t one. I was an intern at Nickelodeon Studios for a year in 2005 for my degree in animation. It wasn’t paid of course, most internships aren’t, but it did have some perks beyond education. To adults it might not seem like a big one, but most kids at the time would go crazy over it. Now, since I worked directly with the editors and animators, I got to view the new episodes days before they aired. I’ll get right to it without giving too many unnecessary details. They had very recently made the SpongeBob movie and the…

I first met in person with Mary E. in the summer of 2007. I had arranged with her husband of fifteen years, Terence, to see her for an interview. Mary had initially agreed, since I was not a newsman but rather an amateur writer gathering information for a few early college assignments and, if all went according to plan, some pieces of fiction. We scheduled the interview for a particular weekend when I was in Chicago on unrelated business, but at the last moment Mary changed her mind and locked herself in the couple’s bedroom, refusing to meet with me. For half an hour, I sat with Terence as we camped outside the bedroom door, I listening and taking notes…

In June 1972, a woman appeared in Cedar Senai hospital in Los Angeles, California in nothing but a white, blood-covered gown. Now this, in itself, should not be too surprising as people often have accidents nearby and come to the nearest hospital for medical attention, but there were two things that caused people who saw her to vomit and flee in terror. The first being that she wasn’t exactly human. she resembled something close to a mannequin, but had the dexterity and fluidity of a normal human being. Her face, was as flawless as a mannequins, devoid of eyebrows and smeared in make-up. There was a kitten clamped in her jaws so unnaturally tight that no teeth could be seen,…

In 1999, my family visited Disneyland. We happily rode the Small World ride. I was 12 at the time and my sister was 6. We loved every moment and our parents smiled with nostalgia. At one time near the end, some lights suddenly shut off and rear lights illuminated the ceiling. The moving display parts shut off and crew members wearing red overalls walked along them to help passengers in the boats onto the stages to direct them out of the building via emergency exits. A voice came over the loudspeakers. “Disneyland thanks you for your visit. Please evacuate the attraction in an orderly fashion. Keep looking foward and follow the directions of staff. Thank you.” The staff wouldn’t tell…

I’d actually seen him on our way home from school. He looked dirty and disturbed, and stared straight at us as our bus went by. We even made jokes about him, probably as our way of pretending we weren’t afraid. He was incredibly out of place in our middle class suburb, so his mere presence felt threatening… thus our panic when the three of us got off at our stop and saw him at the corner, about to look in our direction. He was between us and our houses, and the bus had already pulled away, so we bolted for the bushes of a nearby yard. We weren’t sure if he had seen us, but we peered through the leaves…

My brother was a whopping eleven years older than me, so I don’t remember much of when he was still living with us during his college years. I was only thirteen when he moved out. But he was always weird. His self-professed hobby was to watch people. I remember there were times when he would pick me up from school, and, as we drove home in the afternoon sunlight, we would see something like a group of children walking home in their uniforms, and those little mundane scenes–old ladies feeding birds, shops closing down for the day–were heartbreaking to him. He took pictures of seemingly innocuous things. He was very nostalgic about things that had never happened to him. I…