Into the never
The child’s imagination strays
Chasing the shadows
That always go away
Drifting through the closet realms
In and out of the grey
Trying to be the predator
Instead of the prey
Armed only with fear
To keep them at bay
He falls into the sleep
Where
shadows
always
slay.
SHHhhhhhh…….
Stillness of the wind
Fading of the light
The crescent moon brings out
The creatures of the night
Stay inside your dwelling
Keep the doors locked tight
All they need is a scent
To bring forth their might.
She laid down atop her king size memory foam mattress, eager to get a good nights sleep.
The day was long but productive.
A 10 mile jog along the shoreline.
A busy day at the beach bistro she owned and managed.
Record sales for a cool day in May.
She longed for the sandman to guide her in her journey.
The ceiling fan blades turned silently.
She watched them go around with the aid of the blue lights emanating from her digital alarm clock and began to fall into a deep sleep.
As her drifting commenced, her nasal passages caught the faint but distinct aroma of cigarette smoke….Lucky Strikes to be exact. She knew the smell well, as she was a 2 pack a day smoker of them up until 4 years ago.
She opened her eyes and envisioned a tall dark figure at the foot of her bed…only visible by the blue light and the fiery cherry of a lit cigarette.
She fearfully spoke,
“Who are you and what do you want??”
The figure replied after a deep inhale,
“SHHH…quiet child….it is I, The Sandman. You wished, therefore I am here….but I am only in your mind. Go ahead…pinch yourself awake….and I will be gone.”
In her fear, and without realizing it, the thumb and index finger of her french manicured right hand reached up and pinched her left arm.
“OUCH”
She was shaken awake.
The room quiet.
The fan blades turning in the blue light.
The figure gone.
The faint smell of Lucky Strikes hung in the air like a transparent curtain.
1979.
I was around 10 years old and was living my “normal” childhood.
By “normal”, I mean, I had no other to compare it to….so to me it was normal.
School, soccer, and playing with my friends were all I did.
Too young to get a job, too old for a babysitter.
It was a good time to be a kid.
Every once in a while, I would hang out with a kid I knew.
His parents and my parents were in the bar business.
Lets call him born2bebad.
He was my rebel buddy. His parents were always gone. So he did what he wanted and only had to answer to his 2 older sisters. They were 17 and 16.
I would stay at his house every once in a while.
One Friday night I stayed over. He fell asleep about 11 p.m. I always stayed up late to watch the scary shows, so I was wide awake watching ‘The Twilight Zone”.
Around midnight the oldest sister came home.
She came in and saw her brother asleep on the floor. She looked at me and said,
“You are up late.”
I replied,
“Yeah, I’m not tired so I am just watching TV.”
She smiled and said,
“You wanna play a game with me?”
I looked up from the show and said,
“Sure, should I wake born2bebad up?”
“No,” she replied, “he is a heavy sleeper. This is just a you and me game. Follow me.”
I followed her…..
Right into her parents bedroom.
She shut the door behind us and preceded to take the covers back on the bed.
She completely undressed and got under the covers.
I was 10. The only naked females I had seen were when I sneaked a peek at a nudie mag in the convenience store while with her brother, born2bebad.
I froze. She looked at me and said,
“Don’t be afraid. Just take off your clothes and get in bed with me. Then I will tell you what to do.”
I did not know what was going On. All I knew, is that his sister was always nice to me and never tried to harm me.
I did as she asked.
Then she positioned me on top of her and began to gyrate.
I was still frozen.
Naked but frozen.
She would tell me what she wanted me to do in between her moans and I would do them.
After it was over she helped me put my clothes back on and asked me to keep this a secret. Maybe we could do it again if I did that.
Then she laid a kiss on my mouth.
And not the kind of kiss my Mom would give me.
Keep it quiet? Who would believe me if I told them?
I did keep the secret. Every time I stayed over there, after that, I fought to stay awake until she got home.
Sometimes we played. Sometimes she already had a playmate who was her age.
________________
Fast forward>>
2007.
I am in AA and working with my sponsor at the time.
He says, “Have you ever done a moral inventory?”
I look at him with my best sour face and reply,
“I don’t have any morals…what do you think got me here? Aren’t you supposed to help me find them?”
“No…you are going to find them.”
“Uggghhhh.”
The dreaded 4th step.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Followed, by the even more dreaded 5th Step.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Every one I know who is working or has worked the steps has a secret that they believe is going to the grave with them.
The story I started this post with was my secret.
As I grew from a child to a man. That event altered from just a secret into
Guilt
Shame
And
Embarrassment
As the years went on, the black hole it created in my soul just….I don’t know, it just.
I wasn’t telling fucking nobody this.
But….
If I truly believed that the steps could and would change me….then I had to be honest with everything.
And I did believe.
So I admitted it to God and my sponsor during the 5th Step process.
And because of that. I found out some truths about myself.
I can tell that story because it holds no power over me and maybe….just maybe someone who reads this might need to hear it.
Secrets made me who I was.
The longer I keep past secrets, the less chance I have to recover from alcoholism.
Alcohol is but a symptom.
The disease centers in the mind.
Revealing them to God and someone I believe is there to help, me made me who I am today.
Don’t fear the steps.
Trust the process.
___________
It’s good to be sober.
I’m still good2begone.
Link to daily prompt click here.
I woke up this morning and dragged myself out of bed.
Went to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee.
Sat down to enjoy it and to read a bit of the news.
I open CNN.com on my iPhone 4 (with the cracked screen).
The top story was this-
Florida Man Swallowed By Sinkhole in Bedroom
(CNN) – A man swallowed by sinkhole under his bedroom in Florida is believed dead, authorities said early Friday, after monitoring equipment found no signs of life.
The 36-year-old “is presumed dead” after the incident Thursday night, according to Jessica Damico, a spokeswoman for the Hillsborough County Fire Department.
“It’s not confirmed, but I think it’s safe to presume,” she said.
Engineers used monitoring equipment to search for signs of life without success. Some of the equipment went missing in the process.
“There is no evidence of him being alive,” she said.
The victim cried out to his brother for help as the hole that opened up under his bedroom in Brandon, a suburb of Tampa. The brother tried frantically to pull him out.
Rescuers had to take the brother away from the edge of the chasm as it continued to grow, with the lost man nowhere in sight.
Using radar, engineers determined the sinkhole is about 100 feet in diameter, but it is not visible above ground except from inside the house.
The ground covering the massive cavity is mostly intact, but it could buckle, taking the entire house down with it — as well as neighboring homes.
Authorities have evacuated the neighborhood.
I wanted to shut off my phone and go back to bed….but after reading this I didn’t think it was a very viable option.
Fear of sleeping in bed because a sinkhole might swallow me is new on my list of ever expanding phobias.
I will call it floordrainaphobia
Truth is (once again) stranger than fiction.
Final word-
I either need to quit reading the news or sleep on a hammock.
If the word “impossible” is in your vocabulary…than this video is not for you.
If the phrase “anything is possible” is involved in you repertoire of daily life than this video will only enhance your belief system.
Dream Big.
Achieve.
Smile.
Avoid confrontation and exaggeration on this holiday. The “karate man” inside all of us is not as tough as we would like to think.
“YEAH”
The fear is rising as the day turns to night
For the one night of the year has come when the costume brigade is my plight
They knock at my door and their sizes may vary,
What they want is the last bit of sanity that my mind clings to…barely.
They come in small packs but soon go away
Im afraid to answer because I cant afford to pay .
I beg for the daylight I cant bear their screams
I dare not fall asleep…. They may attack in my dreams
So here is sit in the corner, knees pulled up to my chest
Hoping they dont barge in ,And demand my mind to arrest.
Beads of sweat from my brow, Begin to pound the wood floor
Or maybe its the ghost from the shower That spoke to me before.
Its the one day of the year When I dont dare make a sound
I pray they don’t find me for my sanity they will steal…. if ever I am found.
September 2, 2012-4 am
Dear Diary,
Being a closet monster ain’t like it used to be. I’m giving serious thought to trimming my claws and sending my scare tactics out to pasture. I remember when I started out on this journey, straight out of the Fear Academy, the future was bright for we, the bringers of the fear…… By bright, I mean we were given all the tools we needed to scare the piss out of adolescents the world over. Sometimes by just making the closet door eerily, slowly squeak open. Simple yet quite effective. When that ceased to get the little brats hair to stand on end, the claws on the side of the doorway and a peeking of glowing eye sockets got their urine flowing unexpectedly. My dead heart would get great joy from the aromatic whiff of freshly stained bed sheets.
Sadly times have changed. The kids have changed. The Fear Academy had its doors shut long ago. My species is dying out. When children cease to be afraid….we cease to be relevant and disappear.
Once they became more afraid to go to school, church or even to those picture shows…we became irrelevant.
Fear in the mind of imagination is no longer scary. It is the fear of the daily reality in their world that has brought fear that I, for one, cannot compete with.
Kids killing kids. Guns are more real that I have ever been. I have become afraid to creep out of the closet. In fear that I may be a victim of their rage…..
A scared closet monster. That is the reality of my existence. My soon to be extinct existence.
If I am too scared to be scary, then I have become a monster to my own profession.
Of course, I keep these thoughts to myself. The few of my kind that are left need to keep strong. Somewhere out there, beyond the closet door, there is a child who believes that it is safe to turn off the lights after their parents have tucked them into bed.
It is that simple premise that baits me to keep my claws sharp and my tactics fresh.
The card that was slipped under the door of the hotel room had one word on it.
Chosen
It was written in fancy cursive and raised a little off the paper. The word glistened.
My Dad turned the card over. On the back it said,
To compete, be in front of the hotel at 9 pm.
That was all.
My Dad read it, raised his brow and said, “I’m intrigued. You feel like seeing what this is all about?”
” Sounds cool. Like a mystery movie or something. Let’s do it!!”
We ventured out to the front of the hotel and sat on the bench and waited.
My digital calculator/watch said 8:57 pm.
At precisely 9 pm a really long, dark, black limousine pulled in front of the hotel. The expressionless driver got out and came over to the passenger side of the luxury car. It had to be our ride. He wore a t- shirt with one word on it-
CHOSEN
My Dad shrugged his shoulders and said, “I guess this is for us. Time to go.”
We got in. The door closed. The driver returned to the driver’s seat and started the car.
The limo was cool. Lots of buttons, compartments, fancy stuff. My Dad rode in silence as I opened and closed pretty much everything.
After what seemed like forever, the car stopped. Our door was opened. We got out into what seemed like a parking lot…only it was filled with limos. The biggest mansion I had ever seen was at the other end. The driver motioned us to head toward the house.
We got to the house and rang the bell. It echoed loudly….like a scary movie.
I looked up at my Dad and smiled with anticipation.
The door opened. Another man stood there wearing a t-shirt with that one word on it.
Chosen
He led us on a tour of the house. It was awesome. Room after room after room of awesomeness. When the tour was over we were led to the dining area where all the other chosen ones were located.
We were fed the meal of Kings. Anything I had ever thought about eating was on the table. It was….awesome.
After dinner. Who I guessed was the host, stood out on top of the spiral staircase and spoke.
“Each of you were sent an invitation to compete. You were “Chosen”. You are here. You will all compete for 1 prize. The winner of the competition will receive the deed to this mansion, all of its belongings, and the grounds which surround it. Each of you is a team comprised of a Father and a Son. You may compete as a team but there will be only 1 winner. The game we will play- Hide and Seek. The winner will be the last one alive. You will be given 1 hour to find your hiding place. Then I will come for you. If found, you will die. Your hour begins…….Now.”
The scrambling began. Father’s dragging sons to find there place of hiding. Inside….outside…wherever they could hide.
My Father and I ran outside. He stopped and looked down at me. He then knelt down to look me in the eye and said,
“Son, our best chance to win is to split up. You are smaller and quicker than I am. When we used to play this game I could really never find you. You can win and have all this for yourself. Hide. Win.”
He ran off into the trees. I was left by myself.
The first place I hid was under one of the limos. So many cars. I thought it gave me a shot.
Soon I began to hear short screams in the distance. The hour was up. The seek was on.
I stayed put for I think 4 or 5 screams. I thought they sounded closer each time. I couldn’t stay here.
Death was happening quick. Some of the chosen weren’t lasting very long. But this was the seekers house. He probably knew every hiding place there was!
Open area was no good. I dashed into the house.
I chose the largest, darkest room I could find. And I waited……..and I listened…..
I closed my eyes tight and prayed that my Dad was ok. The screams were now muffled but I could still hear them.
I opened my eyes. Looked out into the room. My heart was racing. I was sweating. Eyes darting back and forth looking for movement.
I thought I saw….I saw…..where am I? Why am I in my pajamas hiding behind the living room couch? I’m not in a strange mansion…. I’m at home…yup, I’m at home. I can hear my Dad snoring.
Stupid nightmare.
I get up from behind the couch. Still watchful….just in case. And go back to bed.
This has been a story of a recurring
dream I have had since childhood. Maybe, since I have finally written about it….it will stop.
Good2begone 