Portrait of A Cat Since Faded

I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. -Hamlet

5 am

I am not a big fan of 5 am.
Not at all.  It's like the last song on Low.

Subteraneans, All deep oo oo ooos.
And oo ee ooos. Caroline Caroline
Caroline Caroline Rhyming me Shelly
Shelly Shelly ooom.

and the ripples of dreams and consciousness
at five in the morning. the booms of time
echoing. echoing.
our brains have more power than we give them
credit for.

Have you heard what the internet was saying?

About that feeling at 5 am,

When you wake up in a cold sweat

and that chill feeling on your spine

where you know

just know

someone's watching you.

But nobody is awake

in the whole damn continent.

Because it's five in the morning. And two in LA.

Still the chill creeps up your neck

and pokes at your toes.

Wake up from a nightmare

into the fire.

A flash in the dark

Blond girl, white dress.

Help me, she says

The darkness.

A flash in the mirror

burned flesh and blue eyes.

Open your eyes and you'll see her.

She's waiting for you, don't you know?

Feel the press on your chest

hear the quiet inside

focus on your breathing

and the God you don't know

wait until the morning

when the sunshine arrives

to cut through the darkness

the demons the devils.,

You'll bask in the warmth, 

as the sun's only child

if you wait until morning

and not die in the night. 

The Creature Inside Me (a poem)

This woman came to haunt my dreams.
She looked sad and tired,
We tried to hug her and show her love
But slowly her features would morph
her face would rot off
her hair would sprout tentacles
her lips would pull back in a snarl
revealing sharp and rotting teeth.
We tried to hug her and show her love
but every time it wasn't enough
and she turned into this monster.
Then we would flee from the room,
close the door and hold it fast against her
as she pounded on it and tried to get out.
We would baracade the door
and flee to a different room
where she would appear, whole
though tired and sad, again
and again we would try to hug her
and show he love so she wouldn't change
and again we failed
and again and again she turned
into that strange, horrific creature.
Every time we would see her cheeks caving
in we would feel sad
we would pity this unfortunate creature
then, fully cold and disfigured,
she would turn her head toward us
and we could feel our souls escaping through our eyes,
locked in her cold dark eyes,
and we would flee
flee or die
to another room,
where she would appear again
whole again
to start all over.
Unloved forever.
Forever trapped forever chasing.
I wish we could fix her
with enough love and kindness,
but I fear her soul is too rotten.
Too rotten to be loved and whole.
The poor creature.
Like Frankenstein's Monster I created her
and now I flee from her.
My ghastly little creation,
the dark wolf I feed.

House in the Catskills (fiction)

Once upon a time this traditional, nuclear family from New York City moved up to the Catskill Mountains, to a house below the road, to “escape from it all.”

The Father, Bob Dedsen, had killed a man and embezzled great deals of money. He was now “retiring to the woods to treat his wife’s alcohol problem.” His wife, Nancy Marie Dedsen, had been sober for 7 years. She attended AA programs in the West Village almost daily. Those weren’t the only support groups she frequented.

Having retired from business at the age of 29 to marry Bob Dedsen and raise a family, Nancy Marie Dedsen found a giant gaping hole in her life when her kids started school. She befriended other mothers in her same situation and started the “Rainy Day Arts Club” where she and the other mothers met, usually daily, and planned arts and craft activities to do with their kids. They even took up home improvement projects for a while; every woman in the group had a quilt they had worked on together. They attended pottery class and went to “Color Me Mine” so their houses were filled with hand made every day objects. Then they burned out. Soccer practice and Little League on Saturday mornings was just too much for them. Laundry and the cleaning lady and their children’s ADD or OCD or whatever the fuck it was. They fell to drinking every day. Up at six, breakfast for everyone, drop kids off in the schoolyard at 8, brunch with the girls at 9. Sometimes they would still be at the bar at 3 pm when the kids were waiting to be picked up. Nancy asked Bob if they could hire a nanny to pick the kids up from school. Or at least $40/day to pay a HS kid to play with them in the park and get them snacks. “What are you staying home all day for? I would pick them up but I have a job. We want our kids to be raised by us, not some stranger.” Bob said. So Nancy drank harder and her friend Carol started bringing cocaine to Brunch to get them ready to pick the kids up. Sunglasses and hoodies, all of them now 40. Oh, and Tuesdays at the Beauty Parlor. Their husbands expected them to look good. Nancy was always late. She got her first child, Lisa Marie, to pick her little brother Timothy up from school every day. They would come home and play video games all afternoon. Now Nancy is 7 years sober but she still doesn’t pick her kids up from school, or even hang out with them in the evenings. When Carol died of an overdose and was found holding the “Rainy Day Arts Club” disbanded, blaming each other for their sink into lechery.  Nancy discovered AA and quickly latched onto the idea of support groups in general. She attended AA, Ala-non (for the families of alcoholics),  Debtor’s anonymous (“It’s how I balance my checkbook!”), Rageaholic’s Annon on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Sexaholics on Friday mornings. And on the fourth Wednesday of every month she attended Reverend Jen’s anti-slam, where the weirdest, most honest and dirty people in NYC get up on stage and channel their emotions therapeutically through performance art. She even joined a church, two actually. She attended Catholic Mass on Wednesdays and a Lutheran young adult service on Thursday evenings, and on Sunday she made waffles and attended an evening rock and roll church on 23rd street. She liked to think she was that hip milf you’d seen hanging at these places on TV, like Nancy Botwin in NYC. She certainly had the cool routine down and lots of “friends” who she kept in touch with for support.

Now her husband Bob had ripped her out of that life she loved and driven her three hours upstate into the wilderness and desolated communities of the lower Catskill region, a mountainous area below the state park, notorious for devil and alien sightings, as well as secret military operations. Not known for its support groups. There was a church in Woodstock that offered AA and such, but that was over an hour away, 45 minutes if you took that dangerous shortcut and drove fast.  That wasn’t good enough. Bob said she should join the little church down the road in Claireville. Nancy drove past once or twice but they didn’t seem very inviting.

And how, you may ask,  did Timothy and Lisa Marie feel about this move their father had inflicted on them? Well, there was a school about 45 minutes away and a traditional yellow bus that came to pick them up every morning. The just had to walk up the long, wooded, driveway to the road and wait in the rain and the fog and the snow for the bus to come. It wasn’t usually sunny in the morning. Their mountain was almost always covered in fog. At least in the mornings and at dusk. The house lay below the road. The first day they got on the school bus, which served kids of all grade school ages, this know-it-all second grader with brown pigtails, a turned up nose, and an old Monkeys lunch box to match her vintage wool sweater, had pointed out that a house that lies below the road, like theirs, is full of sorrow. “I should know, she said, Wednesdays child is full of woe, that’s me, Wednesday, born on Wednesday, pleased to meet you. Did you know it’s awfully foggy on your road? I live on the other side of the mountain, its sunny there this morning.”

Timothy and Lisa Marie did not like this new house. They missed their friends and their hangouts and Lisa, now 16, had just started smoking pot with her friends, which she thought was pretty cool. Timothy, 13, was into skateboarding and was disappointed that there were no busy sidewalks he could ride his skateboard on and frighten pedestrians. Neither of them expected to make any friends at their new school because they thought that, being city kids, they were too cool to hang out with mountain laurels.

Bob, anxious to give his wife something to do and knowing there was no way they could move back to the city, knocked her up as soon as they got out there.  He decorated the house with guns and taught Timothy and Lisa Marie how to shoot.  They built lots of fires and had family game night. They only had a television for movies. This TV would be left on all the time because the screen appeared dark, only Timothy’s ears were sharp enough to hear the faint whine of the TV and turn it off.

Lisa Marie armed herself with the latest Adventure Girl clothing and Adventure Girl magazine and trudged off into the woods every Saturday to escape her mothers weekly “cleaning time.” The woods were often dark but the trees were thin and the ground was crisp. She walked around, stopped to read, and smoked a little pot she scored off a boy at school. She was laying in a patch of wild grass she found in a clearing when someone walked up to her. She looked up and saw a handsome man, vaguely resembling a young Tom Riddle Jr. Black hair, mysterious smile, all black and white and sleekly dressed. Her heart started pounding. She sat up, “uhh hello,” she said. He gave her his hand and pulled her to her feet.

“I’m sorry if I frightened you,” the mysterious sexy young man said. “My parents told me you had moved to the mountain so I figured I’d come by and say hi. Your mom told me you were here (in the woods). Lisa, right?”

“Lisa Marie, actually. Marie is a family name.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, my name is Daniel. My family and I live one property over. You’ve probably driven past my house.”

Their romance builds. They only meet in the woods, in secret. Nancy knows something’s up by the way her daughter is smiling at happy to be here. Lights are left on. Doors open. The TV whine grows less faint.

It’s a gray Sunday morning. An old brown Pontiac drives down the road to the house and a handsome but pimply young man with Jimmy Page hair wearing a brown corduroy jacket steps out of the car. He says he’s come to take Lisa Marie to church with him. Says the Church is in the town of Neversink, nearby. Nancy says that’s a wonderful idea and goes with them. The church is small and white, in the New England style. Most of the congregation is old. The young man, Nathan, introduces Nancy and Lisa Marie to his granny, Mrs. Franklin, a short squat old woman with one bulging eye and one normal eye. Before leaving church Granny warns Lisa Marie to “be careful who you talk to.” Nathan drives them home and this becomes a regular thing. Nancy Marie pushes Lisa Marie to hook up with Nathan (date) because he is such a nice young man. Lisa thinks only about Saturdays with Daniel and visiting him in the woods every day after school. Daniel never shows up on Sunday.

Bob has become a writer and a phony carpenter in the basement. He thinks these pursuits are manly. The only time he spends with his family is mom-forced family games, and evenings where Lisa Marie is wearing next to nothing. When not forced by his wife into family games he spends all his time in the basement-garage “working” ie- smoking pot he buys off the same dude as his daughter (unawares), working out, masturbating to internet porn, building something. He is a sexy older man by the time his baby is born, although Nancy has become more pear-shaped. Their sex life is booming for a while until the baby is born and they have to stop doing it. Then Nancy is tired and old looking so he ignores her completely and starts frequenting the local diner where the waitress has a wicked tongue. He says he goes there to write and always brings back a sandwich for Nancy Marie.

Nancy and Bob’s baby is a boy. They name him Second Samuel because he is the second son. Nancy starts inviting Nathan in for lunch after church once the baby is born. It helps to have some company. Nathan pretends he’s there for Lisa Marie still but Lisa Marie slips off into the woods looking for Daniel. She calls for him, finally he appears. This is the first time he’s appeared on a Sunday, but Lisa realizes it’s past midnight now so it’s Monday. She goes to the little lean-to her father built in the woods with Timothy. She had decorated it with a bed and some wooden chairs. When Daniel comes to this, “their spot”, she stands up to greet him, all aroused. He kisses her and she sits on the arm of the chair. Daniel leans over so their lips never part. She breathes heavily. He slides his fingers under her skirt. She wraps her legs around him and moans before he hoists her up and over to the camp bed. It’s good, it’s hot, it’s what she wants, but the next day she’s sick. The more they fuck in the woods the paler she grows. Wrapping herself up in scarves, arm warmers and shawls. One night she doesn’t come out. Daniel is waiting in the field. He knocks on her window and she invites him in. This time, when he comes she stops moving. Still and cold on the bed he covers her up and laughs, glowing with power.

The baby monitor comes on in Bob and Nancy’s room. “This fucking bullshit,” Bob says and leaves the room, Nancy hears his footsteps on the stairs and the “dddawwwn” sound of the computer turning on. She grabs the baby monitor and goes to check on Second Samuel, who is sleeping in a small bedroom next door. She goes into his room but he is sleeping quietly. She fixes his blankets, gives his mobile a twirl, and leaves the room, partially closing the door behind her. She hears coughing coming from Timothy so she opens his door and looks into his room. Next to his bed there is a huge black shadow leaning over him and choking him. Nancy shrieks and turns on the light. The demon vanishes and Tim wakes up, annoyed. Bob, hearing his wife’s scream, runs upstairs. He tells Nancy and Timothy to go back to sleep and he goes back to his computer which he stays glued to for the rest of the night and the whole next day. PICTURE: Daniel’s face barely illuminated by the computer, standing behind Bob.

Lisa Marie never wakes up for school the next day. Tim catches the school bus and Nancy says she’ll let Lisa sleep because she’s been so sick lately. After Tim leaves up the driveway she goes to wake Lisa up. Lisa is dead. Nancy screams and panics and Second Samuel starts crying. She grabs her baby and runs to call the paramedics. Bob doesn’t come upstairs. The paramedics make her check the girl’s pulse. The body is cold. They tell her they’ll be there in half an hour. Nancy hangs up the phone and starts to cry.

She hears slow, heavy footsteps on the stairs. Bob has a crazy look in his eye and is holding a shotgun. He sees her and starts firing. Nancy throws her tea in his eyes and he screams and goes blind. Now he is shooting in all directions. She dodges and weaves, puts on her raincoat and her rain boots and runs outside, wrapping the baby up in a baby quilt she made once upon a time. She runs into the wet woods, Bob follows her out but goes back inside to grab a jacket and boots. In the woods she runs into the clearing where Lisa Marie first met Daniel. Daniel has Nathan tied to a chair. We hear a story about how Daniel and Nathan were brothers. Nathan was at his Granny’s the day their house burnt down killing Daniel and their parents. Granny told him never to speak of it because she had set the fire to kill the demon that she suspected possessed them. Nathan had assisted her.  There had been a demon and it had henceforth manipulated Daniel’s body so it could continue its path of destruction. “We now have your husband,” he said as blind Bob stepped into the clearing with his puffy jacket, boots, pajamas and shotgun. All seems lost as Nancy is tied up and the baby is put in padded cage. Suddenly Granny and her friends from church come stepping into the clearing waving magic items and praying for deliverance from the demon. They circle around the players in this drama chanting and praying fervently. Daniel screams but his voice changes to a roar as his body is ripped apart. Bob’s heart bursts into flames. Then everybody is invited back for coffee and Nancy and her sons (Timothy arrives home after school to find his father and sister dead) return to their unsold apartment in NYC where Nancy writes a bestselling book about the story, resumes her support groups where she meets influential people who take her in and give her a good job. Timothy goes to college and Second Samuel is raised by Portuguese Nannies.

The End

(oh wait, is Second Samuel possessed???)

-LA

Jackson Heights

I went to Jackson Heights Queens a couple weeks ago for an Indian lunchtime buffet. My friend was late and I couldn't find the place so I wandered around the neighborhood for ten blocks or so. I was walking down 74th street where business in those numerous shops was booming. People were milling around the street. I was inconspicuous with my bright hair and lack of a beautiful shall around my head. Or maybe because I exude an awkward, auspicious act.
I noticed a man a few yards ahead of me. He was dressed in a long white linen robe and had a white hat on. I was walking along the edge of the sidewalk, near the street, to avoid the crowds. He was standing on the edge. As I approached he handed me a car. I pocketed it, as I usually do, and walked on.
I'm living in the lower Catskills upstate New York for a little while. I have a job up here and that makes it easy to stay positive. I believe that evil spirits are (possibly) an illusion brought on by negative energy in your brain and in your life. Ways to alleviate that energy include cleaning your house, thinking constructively instead of destructively, practicing some sort of spiritual belief, and seeking help. Since coming upstate, being employed after the longest period of rejection and fear for the future, I find it easier to keep my head above water; but I find that fear and horror still find a way to creep into my day to day life. It is an evil energy that I cannot escape.
About a week ago I was cleaning my new apartment and organizing my papers when I found the card that man in white had given me. It was for a psychic in the neighborhood. The back of the card listed all the areas in which this mystical man could help you. Love, astrology... the list ended abruptly "Evil Spirits."

Now I don't know who this man was but I have this vision of a man sitting in a dark room feeling the energy in his neighborhood when suddenly this dark cloud enters his vision and he sends his man out to reach out to her. It's just an idea. I won't know until I meet him. It did seem suspicious that the man didn't hand out any cards to the people walking around me. 

Get Behind Me Satan

Did I tell you about the time

when I was making cereal

(that is, combining cereal and milk in a bowl 

in the appropriate order 

for coolness and freshness.)

When I noticed how loud the TV was 

in the office. 

I noticed I could hear TV people talking.

Then Alice was behind me.

Or at least it looked like Alice. She was a brunet. 

She was behind me.

She said, "LILLY!"

I screamed and threw my Honey Nut Cheerios into the air.

Cheerios went everywhere. 

I had to get out the dustpan when I'd recovered. 

Sweep up the cheerios.

Do you ever think,

when you're washing your face

and your head is down in the sink,

that when your head is upright again

there's going to be someone

            Something 

in the mirror behind you?

Late August Lights

I don't know how to write these anymore.

I want to write fiction-sounding real horror stories but how can I fictionalize shit that's really going on? 

I was at my mothers house last night and the lighting was all funky. I had to change a light bulb and point it at the wall so this sickly green light bathed our faces. Then I brought in a tall, three legged lamp and stood it in the corner. The outlet I used was funky and the lamp had a rough time getting into my room. 

So we're sitting in my room.

Three of us. The light starts to flicker. 

I say, "Lights always flicker around me."

They say, "Huh."

I take a puff of my cigarette and move to pass it to my friend.

The light shuts off.

I reach behind me to the wall and flip on the light switch. 

A friend of mine stands up to adjust the light bulb-- see if that makes a difference. He's reaching for the lamp when suddenly

the light comes back on.

Shining solidly and bright. 

In the dark

Juan says, "Did that really just happen?"

In the dark I say, "Lukas can you fix the light please? I'll turn on the overhead."

LIGHT

That was creepy. 

NEW MISSION: Learn how to describe that chill you get in your spine when you come to understand you're not alone.

Pills (The real nightmare.)

Some people just have a propensity for wandering into the twilight zone. It always happens by accident. You'll be driving along late one night and suddenly Dark Side of the Moon will come on the radio. Time will progress as in a bubble. Space and dimensions a mere figment of your imagination. Syllables drip from the stop light as you pass it at the same intersection over.
and over.
Four times maybe? Before you pull over and search the GPS.
Thank God for GPS.

Those people are lucky. They escape. In the TV show almost nobody came out alive. Well, it seems my life has slipped into the twilight zone. I wish they made a GPS for life.

Maybe I'm just going crazy.

They say I should take something for that.
They always want you to take something. Pills pills pills. Every day pills. Pills for depression, pills for motivation, pills for energy, pills for ADD, pills because your body hurts, pills because your soul hurts, pills because the state of the union is crashing down upon your back account and extinction the lifestyle of the middle class is looms around you-- making the walls press in on you while you sleep

       always moaning (groaning)

               We're coming for you.
                         The end is near.
                                                         You can only pretend it isn't.

Visions of purgatory and nightmares of the future. I should take something for that. 

PaHoeHoe

I rarely wake up at two or three am. Sometimes when I go to sleep late I feel eyes or hear rustling; and sometimes I wake up at five in the morning. It's getting brighter outside and the light is diffusing through my room in a bluish purple haze. Someone is there. She stands above my bed and she tries to hurt me. One week I bashed my head playing on an exercise ball and the next week, still in my weakened state, when I awoke at five in the morning something grabbed by head and slammed it into the bed side table. I started crying from shear inability to cope with the pain and fell back asleep. The next day I fainted and hit my head again. Another time the being took the form of a Yuri, the female japanese ghost. She wears a white robe and has long black hair. I did not see this woman's face because she was thrashing her head about so much her hair was flying around like crazy. She was screaming at me. She usually screams at me. At five am a disappointed parent or employer shows up and yells at me or explains how disappointed they are. I have woken up fully clothed when I went to bed naked because the apparitions made me feel ashamed.
I wish I could say I didn't know where they came from or how they had so much power over me; but I have a pretty good idea. When you believe in something you give it power. When I expect this person to show up or I express belief in her I give her the power to become real.
Well, fortunately for me there are other things I believe in too. I took some rocks from the Big Island in Hawaii back in 2007. They were two small pieces of pahoehoe and two small pieces of a'a- both types of volcanic rock. It is illegal to take rocks from Hawaii. It is illegal for your protection. I took those rocks to the island of Oahu for a couple years and everything was fine; but when I brought the rocks back to New York City I ran into trouble. That yuri figure I saw-- the woman with the long angry black hair-- could have just as easily been Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes. Is it possible that Pele was traveling six thousand miles every night just to scare the shit out of me? Yes. People's gods are still significant and powered by their people's belief even if the culture has been decimated and overpowered by imperialism.
So I did the only thing I could think of to do. After two years of suffering Pele's curse I went back to Hawai'i and I took the rocks with me.
The first night back I thought things were going to be better. I thought there was no way my "ghosts" could follow be all the way across a continent and an ocean; but they did. As soon as I started thinking about them I heard something in the other room and my blood went cold. I was sitting with a good cat named Zoey at the time. Zoey looked at the doorway to the other room and her fur stood on end. I thought I saw a shadow move. I decided to turn my attention elsewhere. The next morning Zoey peed on my sleeping bag. It was a dick move, but it's likely her pee warned off ghosts because I wasn't haunted again for a month, until I saw those shadow people.
I took the rocks to the ocean. I walked out onto the rocky beach and opened the case I kept them in. Before I had a chance to say a few words, offer up an apology of sorts, a large wave splashed me on the rocks and swept the contents of my case back into the habitat in which they belong.
I haven't been personally haunted since returning those rocks. Unless you count my cousin Hank's underground family. 

Shadow People

What makes someone perceptible to the other realm? What is it even? Last February I started seeing shadow people in my peripheral. I looked in the mirror and there was a face in the shower curtain or grinning at me from the darkened apartment behind me. I'd see long, skinny shadow people walking into rooms. I'd see the glint of grinning teeth in the shine of a plastic cabinet in the back of a dark room.

What do you do when shadow people are stalking you? Who do you call?, as they say. I called Wikipedia. 

Shadow people are supernatural shadow-like humanoid figures that, according to believers, are seen flickering on walls and ceilings in the viewer's peripheral vision.^[1] They are often reported moving with quick, jerky movements, and quickly disintegrate into walls or mirrors. They are believed to be evil and aggressive in nature, although a few people consider them to be a form of guardian angel.^[2]In 2010, the apparitions were described as one of the most regularly reported paranormal phenomena in the United States. This is attributed to occasional reports on the Coast to Coast AM show, where paranormal researcher Heidi Hollis has been interviewed several times on the subject of shadow people. Hollis believes that shadow people have always existed, that they feed upon emotions of fear, and that they can be repelled by thinking positively.^[2] Others believe that shadow people may be the extra-dimensional inhabitants of another universe.^{[citation needed]}The stories of shadow people have been compared to those of the Raven Mocker, a witch from Cherokee mythology who sometimes appears as a shadowy phantom, and the Islamic Jinn.^[2]Several scientific principles can be used to explain reports of apparitional experiences such as shadow people. These include optical illusions or hallucinations brought on by physiological or psychological circumstances, drug use or side effects of medication, and the interaction of external agents on the human body. Another reason that could be behind the illusion is sleep deprivation, which may lead to hallucinations.

NOTE: They feed upon emotions of fear, and they can be repelled by thinking positively.
I took a pair of scissors and snipped off a lock of my hair. Then I got a piece of red string because red is supposedly lucky. I tied the string around the lock of my hair and hung the string from the top of the door where I kept seeing those spooky apparitions. I then focused my energy in a positive direction. Channeling my thoughts away from spooky evil faces and visualizing instead peace and harmony. For as long as that room remained empty that red string and lock of hair kept the menace out. Not, probably, from any magic in the thing, but from the reassurance it gave me in pretending to believe. 

Link(sys)

True Life: http://9gag.com/gag/2946280

Isn't this photo creepy?

Scary Lady at Fishs Eddy

Last night I went over to a friend's apartment near NYU to hang out and watch a movie. On the way back home I walked through Union Sq, up Broadway and passed Fishs Eddy, a remarkablely overpriced store filled with cups and bowls and matching dinnerware sets. While I would rather not waste my money on cutlery when I am so miserably underemployed the lure of the window displays reeled me into a standing, mouth agape position admiring the fine cut and colored crystal. Through the glass I could see the whole store laid out with cute end tables stacked high with porcelain mugs and plates and all sorts of things I don't need.
I tried to look at everything. I tried to look past the tables to admire the merchandise on the shelves near the back. That's when I saw her. Tousled black hair, sharp greyish teeth jutting out like a large British Parana, and coming straight at me. I blinked, startled, and stepped back from the shop. At once thankful it was closed and I could not enter; but I would not have seen that fearsome apparition had the shop been occupied. I didn't see anything, I said to myself and looked again through the shop window. There she was again! I caught a glimpse of the female apparition just as she darted back below that display of mugs I had first admired.
The cold December night got colder as a harsh wind whipped down 19th street. I turned by back to Fishs Eddy and began to walk quickly down the block. Over on 5th and down the next. No street was small enough. You would think being downtown the streets would be nice and small and comfortable but these awful streets were wide, lined with tall, ominous prewar buildings, garage loading doors and, worse still, more storefronts. Could they be filled with more ghosts like the one I was witness to? Who was she anyway? Upon further reflection I think maybe she could be some low-life cretin living in her favorite store and shopping at night while no one's looking. That would explain her ducking behind that stand of porcelain mugs. The doesn't explain the fearsome apparition I saw of her coming right at me. My best guess is she is some lost, lonely spirit haunting Fishs Eddy and displaying her fearsome self only to those who look into her windows at night.

Blame it on the closet.

Feeling like a lazy slop I mustered my strength this afternoon and got out of bed. 

The morning had been glorious; full of dreams with epic narrative and adventure and peaceful, cool fall sunshine 

(reflected off the window across the alley).

Breakfast was toast and coffee. Then back to bed.

Nuked chicken pot pie leftovers for lunch with two root beers. The sudden sugar and calories rush got me up and dancing to a post-work playlist I made last spring titled MGMT. Shuffle. The most depressing songs came on first. 

(Is all of this playlist so melloncholy?)

Now playing: My Body is a Cage by Arcade Fire.

The song was wrong. All wrong. No song could have been worse at that moment. With the aid of those melodic tones and suspenseful beats the darkened bedroom doors began to look like decaying gaping maws, yearning for me, their stench making it tough to breathe, toxic hands reaching out to pull me in. 

I pulled the doors closed.

(Don't approach it!)

(...not all the way closed...let some air in)

The first door pulled closed easier and had nothing obscuring it. 

My doorway had the stereo cord running through it. I couldn't unplug it. I'd lose my morose music. 

My room was dark. I had turned off the lights and gotten dressed before turning on the music. As I pulled the door closed I saw part of my room faintly illuminated in what must have been the florescent glow the closet makes when you open the left hand side of the closet's double-doors.

(I didn't leave that open.)

The door closed

(most of the way).

I tried to dance. Tried to exercise. 

(I must have left it open.) 

Song change. Five more song changes. 

Nor playing: Golden Years by David Bowie.

Much more relaxing. 

(That door is still open.)

With the brightest lights in my apartment on I tried to dance. Five songs later I couldn't take it anymore. I had to tell somebody about that door. First step to closing it is ackgnolegding that there is nothing scary going on here

(it's just your stupid negligence. There are no Ghosts here).

I start to type and instinctively glance over at the door to my bed room. As I'm looking at it a breeze runs through it and the door gapes open slightly, welcoming me back. Weakly I close the computer, walk over to the room, and turn off the music. 

(Nothing is there.)

The other door slams shut.

(wind)

I push my door open.

(There is nothing there.)

I turn on the big light.

(See? I told you.)

My room is exactly as I left it. I looked toward the light coming from my closet, to my right

(wasting electricity). 

 I walked over and closed both doors at once. A gust of wind rushed past me from 

(somewhere)

inside the closet as the doors shut with a click.

(They could just as easily click open again.)

(No they can't.)

I have homework to do. I'm supposed to be writing a business plan for my possible future goat dairy. I can't be obsessing over a closet that isn't haunted.

(then why the fear?)

It isn't haunted. That's a stereotype. It doesn't matter that every time I see it ajar a chill runs down my spine. I'm sure the reason I advert my gaze every time I close it is that I'm a coward. That must be it. There's no way my closet is inhabited with evil

(sucking my lifeforce).

There's just no way.

Faces

I may be the only person you've ever heard of who has a haunted coat. My memory keeps trying to protect me by making these images lost to the dark recesses of my mind only to resurface in the depths of night when the cold sweat of fear starts to creep up my lower back. It's then that you have to slow down. If you run or act panicked they will know and give chase. If you keep your cool they think they have the upper hand and allow you time to crawl back under the covers. Pull them up over your head.

I've been seeing faces. Then they disappear and I forget them. This is important--proof-- I need to remember.

Last Sunday I was up at my friend Scott's apartment in that giant old building on the corner of 72nd and Amsterdam/Broadway. You'd know it if you saw it. Huge and old and towering over the intersection. We were overcome by a longing for french onion soup so we took an excursion out to Fairway a couple blocks north. We came back, set the groceries down and took off our coats. It was cold this weekend. We needed our winter coats. Mine is this big gray thing with an intensely high collar I can get lost in. The inside of the sleeves is silky. I pulled my iphone out of the pocket and held it pressed against my palm, unaware of pressing any buttons. Suddenly the device sprang to life. The camera+ app opened and the flashlight turned on (I didn't know it could do that). Then the camera focused and refocused on the inside sleeve of my jacket. A sign kept popping up "Cannot take photo" or something like that. No explanation why not. When I saw what the camera was focusing on I wanted to take a picture but the button was grayed out.

There, in the crook of the sleeve inside the big gray winter coat was a face. A man's face. With a big gnarly nose and angry beady eyes. I tried to save the frame but pictures had been disabled. I blinked. The face was still there, glaring at me through the camera. All his features mysteriously in beige beneath my flash.

"Hey Scott," I said. "There's a face."

Scott looked and paled slightly. "V," he said. "I think you're the only person in the universe with a haunted coat."

I let that incident slip out of my mind a little. For the purpose of mental stability (a futile effort). Then last night I couldn't sleep. My head would droop into the book I was reading (The Shining) and I would snooze and drool a little on the page, wake up, wipe my mouth, turn off the light, and stay awake. Forty-five minutes later I'd switch the light back on and resume reading/snoozing. Around dawn the light was off and I had no plans of turning it back on until morning; but there was enough light to see by from the city's glow through my semi-opaque blinds.There was a woman in bed with me. Her face on the pillow next to mine. She was tan, brunette, and she smiled slightly when our eyes met. I blinked rapidly and she disappeared-- melted into the folds of the purple throw blanket she had possessed. Melted into the recesses of my memory to be forgotten as a dream.

I never had any dreams of being in my own bed before we were haunted.

As I'm writing this right now the cat ghost is staring at me. Her head turned, her ears pricked. I go over to look at her and she's back to normal. Floating in the center of her black canvas. Looking ahead. Blurry.

My Ghosts - a poem

Lucas says

I got my ghosts from the Chelsea.

I suppose that could be true.

I can't remember

(the trouble sleeping)

before the Chelsea.

I am sure (I had nightmares 

before my 

(divorced)

father moved us to the Chelsea Hotel.

It was in elementary school that I became aware

and obsessed

with ghosts.

Wonder how many kids

made their stories up?

(Mine were true.)

We would huddle in the closet.

Swap stories.

Then one time in college

we were five of us

(in a bed.) Telling ghost stories.

and Hawaiian Ledgends.

This one guy says "Wow,

You must have a Dark

---spirit

following you

or something. 

And it hit me.

I have ghosts.

Must have picked them up in the Chelsea.

"May I come in?"

In honor of the holiday I am going to share with you a story I just heard tonight.

Last year or so my friend was standing on some scenic cliff near Santa Monica taking pictures. This woman appeared while he was photographing the scenery and stood in his view. Shot after shot she insisted on being in. Finally she comes right up close to him and says "Listen, I've really been having a rough day. Can I come home with you?"
My friend looks at her and says "I've got four guys living back at my place. I'd love to invite you over but there's no room." and he leaves. Couple days later he's going through his film of that day. All the shots of rocky scenery are there but no shots of that lady existed.
So tonight my friend tells me this story, then he says "So you see, I was taking pictures of Jesus."
Without even thinking I said "That wasn't Jesus." The room went cold. My friend stiffened slightly. "Jesus would never have to ask to be invited in," I said. "Jesus is always here. He is everywhere. What you saw was something else."
Notice: only servants of Satan need to be invited in. You can invite them in directly, where they appear harmless and ask you straight out, or it can be something as simple as believing in a Ouija board and providing the spirits in your house a doorway into your reality. Even believing in the ghost of my dead cat come back to protect my family from evil spirits allows the spirits room to exist in my reality. Damn. I'm screwed...

Is it called a tourniquet if it's used for torture?

There are two ways to tell this story. One is considerably more exciting than the other.
I almost died this week. First I slammed my head into a shelf while playing around on an exercise ball, then I woke up and slammed my forehead into my sturdy orange bedside table, and finally, twenty-four hours later, I fainted at the 116th Cathedral Parkway number one train station and landed on my face.
I feel like an idiot. More than that, I feel like I have the worst headache and my nose won't stop running. If I die in the next few days, blame the United States health insurance system for making me afraid of hospitals.
Or blame something way more exciting.
The exercise ball was my fault. I wasn't thinking clearly that day. It was nearly impossible to think clearly after that though. Making me prime for possession. Dostoevsky includes a character in Crime and Punishment who rambles and raves about the ghosts he has seen. He says you can only see the other side when you are close to death yourself, because why would you need to see it were you not in need of hope.
After the first head injury I was weak. When that female presence who frequently appears at dawn to yell at me showed up she found me thus weakened and was empowered to force my head to collide with the bedside table. I woke up due to the force of movement and then passed out again with my new concussion. That Lady, feeling triumphant, vanished for the night.
The next evening at choir practice something drew my attention to the balcony that sits above the front door. Earlier in the evening two men had been walking around up there but they had packed up and gone. For a second there was a woman standing there. She was garbed all in black with a black veil, holding the banister. I blinked and she was never there. 
When she appeared later I was out--sleuthing around Columbia with a friend. A little after 3 am we bid good night to each other and I went down into the one train station. 116th Street Cathedral Parkway. I had just missed a train. Fourteen minutes until the next South Ferry bound one. There was an odd number of construction workers and a man sitting on the opposite platform.
"The next South Ferry bound one train will arrive in seven minutes," the automated message reported after what felt like twenty.
I was beginning to get warm. There was no ventilation in that tunnel like platform. Tomb. She showed up and waited. Watched.
I looked at my phone. It was half passed three. Sent a text to my friend saying "14 minute wait b" because I couldn't correct the b to a period as the world swam and I pocketed my phone.

I was sitting in a tall backed wooden chair in a dimly lit chamber. They had a thick leather strap around my head and it felt like they were tightening it.

"Ow, You're hurting my head," I said and the sound make me come to.
"Miss! Miss! Are you all right?" people were screaming at me from fifty feet away.
"Oh shit," said to myself then "I'm sorry!" to everybody else.
"Did you fall asleep or do we need to call for help?" the man from across the platform yelled.
"Fell asleep! Sitting down now," I called back. "I'm fine," to the construction workers down the platform. I wasn't fine, though.
The subway rattled into the station and I scrambled onto it. The doors closed on my shadow and we rumbled off. I removed my hat and scarf and sat sweating. My head felt like something had bashed it into the wall and the floor. Half the route later I was home. Tired and weakened for another attack but on guard. Today I will burn sage and drink lots of water and tomorrow I will go to church.

Out.
V.

#13 W. Crack-In-The-Universe Street, New York.

Big Moose Lake

I don't know how haunted the lake is. It tops the list of most haunted places in the state, but I think that's just because it's in the Adirondacks, which starts with A. My father used to take me and my brother up there every summer to stay at the last great American lodge.

My father and I were always friendly with the waitresses. One of them, Emily, lived across the lake and commuted to work in her own motorboat. When the dining hall was closed she would sit on the docks and draw the loons. One time she took my family out for a ride in her boat. She took us to the gas station dock where we got Sugar Daddy's and then she drove us all the way to the other end where there appeared to be a creepy lagoon. I remember there was always a fog over the lake and it seemed to originate in that part. Emily drove us into the very middle and shut down the motor.

Then she told us a story. In 1906 this scumbag, Chester Gillette, was two-timing a lot of chicks when one of them, the poor one, Grace Brown, got pregnant. So, being the scumbag he was, Chester took his pregnant girlfriend for a peaceful boat ride on Big Moose Lake one day. She never returned. In one account he hit her over the head with a tennis racket and pushed her over the edge, in another it was an oar, in one story the boat capsized by accident and Grace couldn't swim. Sources say her body washed up on shore the next day. Emily told us she was never found-- still in the lake, she said. The story has been made into at least two novels, one movie (staring the late Elizabeth Taylor with her huge doe eyes and Montgomery Cliff as the troubled Gillette) and an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. 

I looked out at the fog as she was talking. And then down at the murky green water and tried to see Grace down at the bottom. 

That night I had a dream. I was sleeping in my bed at the lodge when a fog started rolling in. The lamps along the sidewalk that ran along side that part of the lake started going out, one by one as the fog hit them. The scene turned eerie, cold, dark, cast in blue. At the far end of the sidewalk from our house a woman appeared. She was in a long light dress, made pale green from the lake. She started walking slowly. The fog proceeding her with each step. Lamps flickering off as she approached them. Until the whole lake was dark, silent, and her face was in my window. 

That is the only nightmare I ever had at that lake.