Saturday, May 7, 2011

Flu Week

Title says it all.  Tuesday evening I started getting nauseous, and by midnight I'd puked out most of my stomach.  The next day wasn't much better.  Fever, fatigue, inability to eat anything except applesauce... it was a real blast.  I was feeling a little better by Thursday, but I didn't want to leave the house.  Same with Friday.  I guess being cooped up inside gave me this sense of security that I didn't want to lose so quickly.  I know I'm not really safe anywhere, but I can at least feel like I am.

Still, I'm not going to let this completely get me down.  The Cultural Festival is today, and I'm going.  I've missed school, I missed The Taming of the Shrew, and I'm not going to pour black paint over my life and shut everything out because I'm paranoid.  Alright, admittedly, I'm terrified.  I'm not going to let it defeat me so easily, I can't.  It's bright outside, I'll be surrounded by people, and it's such a great experience.

I'm still wary though.  If I see any of my friends, I don't want them to start asking questions.  I've had to deal with enough 'worry' and 'care' from my parents.  I don't trust them anyways.  They're pretenders.  I saw them laughing at me on Tuesday when I was leaving school... before I got sick.  Like they knew.  They were laughing.



I'm sorry I haven't posted to you for so long.  I was sick... I wasn't exactly fit to pour out my thoughts to a computer screen.  But I missed you.  I'll be back later tonight.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

It's Hard

My last post... I wasn't in the best state of mind when I wrote it.  That should be obvious.  I'd go back and clean it up, but I don't want to change the record of what this entire situation has been doing to me.  I didn't know a person could get this way.

I guess I should start with what actually happened on Thursday.  I was a little out of it... I suppose I'd have to be to want to go to Iverson.  I was just tired of sitting and waiting for something to happen, I guess.  I wanted to make it happen.  I took my rosary because, honestly, I thought it would help somehow.  It comforted me, it helped me feel like I had some security leaving the house.  I didn't feel safe, but...

Whatever.  The trip there was uneventful.  When I finally did get into the parking lot, I could feel this... oppression.  The air itself had a weight that made it hard to breath.  It made my heart race.  I walked past the playground to the closest building, because I wasn't quite ready to go into the woods yet.  They seemed shifty.  Untrustworthy.  It turns out it wasn't just the woods.

The wind grew still as I approached, and all noise seemed to die away.  In the window I could see the reflection of the playground, a few little kids hanging around it and running after each other on the wood chips.  After a moment, I stopped dead in my tracks.  I hadn't seen anyone on the playground.  The sharpest of chills went through every bone in my body as my eyes locked on the window, afraid to look anywhere else, afraid to confirm my suspicion that I was seeing something not there.  The silence grew more absolute in my stillness, and then cutting through it all was the sound of children's laughter.

I felt like breaking down then and there, but I couldn't move.  I'd lost all control of myself, helpless, able only to watch as the figures moved as one toward the edge of the window, staring at something that was not reflected back to me.  I could only see their faces, a mixture of curiosity and fright, as they inched closer and closer to the edge.  Then an arm slid barely into the picture, an arm longer than any human arm could be, and wrapped itself around those poor souls.  As they were pulled off, I knew that I was the last person who would ever see them.

A scream shook me to my very core and gave me the scared energy I needed to take command of my legs and turn around, but the source was hiding itself from me.  It was only a scream.

I took a deep breath and made my way toward the woods.  I remembered reading in a book.. maybe Frank Herbert's Dune.. fear is the mind-killer.  I wasn't about to let fear of a thing conquer me.  I was going to face it.

The next few minutes are a mess in my mind, like trying to remember a night of one too many drinks.  Images of the trees coming closer and closer, then surrounding me... and then one of the trees was not what it seemed.  It had a suit and a form, and.. and I think it reached out to me.  Then that horrible fucking laughter again.. I tripped and fell backwards in my haste, dropped my rosary, scrambled to get up...

In nightmares, a lot of people say that the ground starts to rock underneath them.  They fall, try to get up, and fall again.  They know something is coming, they know they have to get up, but they can't, and that's the part that's the nightmare.  This is all I can remember until I got back to my car.

I didn't have my rosary.  I didn't care.  One of my most prized possessions, and I had no desire to go back for it.  What has this done to me?

The weekend's been keeping me busy with homework and graduation stuff.  I haven't had much of a chance to think about it, but I had to get this out eventually.  I had to.  Sometimes I feel like this blog is the last thing I have left.