Have you ever played one of those silly Facebook games like the ones that tell you what kind of house you should have, what the next five years of your life will look like, or what color your aura is? Generally I shy away from those because they can be a security risk, but the other night a friend posted one that tells you where your soulmate is, so of course I had to try it—purely for entertainment purposes. I figured that if I didn’t like my first answer, I could always tap “Retry” until I found one that made sense and would give my friends a good laugh.
Here’s the first answer:
The second:
The third:
The fourth:
At that point I stopped playing. See, these answers would have been amusing except for one small detail: I was home alone.
I know I said I would write about my Worst Apartment Ever tonight, but I’ve been working on that entry for a few hours and it needs a good edit. I’ll post it tomorrow. Sorry!
Yesterday I watched Rose Red, a 2002 three-part mini-series about a haunted house. I can’t recommend it because the acting was so utterly terrible and didn’t do Stephen King’s screenplay any justice, but it did get me thinking about the vibes and weird events in some of the apartments I’ve had over the years, so I’ll share a few of my experiences over the next few entries.
For instance, when I lived in my second apartment on Long Island, I still had a landline on my desk and occasionally the receiver would fall off of the cradle and crash to the floor.
At first I thought it was because of the cord, which was long enough for me to walk across the bedroom from the desk and therefore somewhat heavy as phone cords go. But then it occurred to me that the receiver would only fall while I was alone in the bedroom. It never happened when I was in another room or not home, and it never happened when my then-boyfriend was over—and he could have some heavy footsteps at times.
After the fourth or fifth time the receiver fell off the cradle I got annoyed and replaced the long cord with a shorter cord from the box of miscellaneous cords and wires I had amassed over the years. I also started covering my (rather small) desk with a bath towel after shutting off my laptop for the day because sometimes the receiver would fall off the cradle at night and scare the crap out of me as I was drifting off to sleep, and I figured that the weight of the towel would hold it in place.
But that didn’t stop the receiver from falling off the cradle during the day. It happened again, and again, and again.
Finally I picked up the receiver to tell whoever it was go to the light, but as soon as I touched it I got the strange feeling it was my mother, who had died in 2000 after a long illness. Right before she died my father had called my phone at work to tell me she was about to receive last rites. The priest came in while we were on the phone so we hung up. My father then called a few minutes later, while I was in the ladies room composing myself, but he didn’t leave a message. He called again right after that and left a message that she had died, along with a number at the hospital to call him. Looking back on it now, I wonder if the second call, the one where he left no message, was for me to talk to my mother one last time, and even if he held the receiver to her ear so she could hear the voice of one of her daughters one last time (and ugh, heard my voicemail message instead), but I suppose I’ll never know because he died in 2005.
So there I sat, holding the receiver to my ear.
“Mom?”
Just a dial tone.
Of course.
I hung up, curled the cord so that the cord was entirely on the surface of the desk, and sat on the edge of my bed staring at the phone.
And so help me, the cord uncurled and slipped off the edge of the desk.
“Go to the light!” I barked. Oh, it came out so harshly in my fright, and I regretted it the second I said it.
“I’m sorry. Mom, if that’s you, I know you’re here, and I love you and miss you. Thank you for watching over me, but it’s okay to go to the light,” I said, this time more gently. “And if you’re not my mom, you should know that you’ve died and we can’t talk on the phone. I can’t help you. You need to go to the light.”
I lived in that apartment for almost three more years after that, and the receiver never fell off the cradle again.
Ah, October. It’s my favorite month of the year, fiery with autumn leaves and early sunsets, bountiful with the fall harvest, and blissfully cooler, at least at night while the D.C. area embarks on its second summer.
This year October is a wee bit extra special to me, as I’m feeling a pull back to the spooky and creeptastic. During the pandemic lockdowns I lost much of my taste for things frightening or dark. Even though Inigo kept me company—and oh, how I miss him so!—it seemed a little risky in terms of mental health to stare into the abyss while cooped up. Besides, the abyss was already staring back at me, what with the worst of humanity unleashing its lizard brain and throwing tantrums left and right about things like being asked to wear a mask, get vaccinated, and accept the outcome of democratic election.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine, thus pissing off pretty much the entire world, including Russia’s own people. Being an early Gen-Xer, I watched the Berlin Wall come down when I was 22 and then spent the following two decades of post-Cold War thawing working on deprograming myself of all the crap and propaganda I learned as a kid, so I was hoping we’d never come back to brinkmanship again. So much for that.
Then it became undeniable (to rational people at least) that all of humanity’s environmental abuse has come to its full and ugly fruition. Way to go, homo sapiens: The planet is simultaneously burning, flooding, choking, and collapsing.
Well, to me all of that is far more terrifying than any fiction the human mind can dream up. Indeed, vampires, ghosts, werewolves, fallen angels, and other creatures of the night now often strike me as preferable company to human primates, at least in a general sense.
And so here I am, giving Horrordailies a go. This month I’ll be writing about everything from scary movies to myths and legends to cemeteries to misunderstood birds and animals that people often associate with bad luck but really shouldn’t. I’ll probably throw in some photos and vampire poetry, and whatever else grabs me in a moment of nocturnal musing. To borrow the words of a friend and blogger who died a long time ago, thanks for being here.
zenzalei 