Journal

10/15/99

At first I thought I must have been dreaming. Around me I heard muffled screams, howls of wind, felt the bitterness of the frost. I must’ve been half-asleep, but the pain was too much to rest peacefully. Then there was someone staring down at me. I saw behind him nightmares of black clouds and things speeding by..just colours. He leaned over me and I don’t remember any more.

When I woke again I was in my roommate’s bed in my old dorm room; bones still chilled from what I figured must have been a dream. I rose and went through the open door into the hallway and through a group of people I know from down the hall. At that point, I stopped and looked back in surprise. I called out a good morning, which they all ignored. In curiosity, I reached out to the nearest girl’s shoulder, but I didn’t touch it like I should have. My hand went through her shoulder, and she continued talking as if nothing had just happened. I tried to shake it off and went back into my dorm room and to my own bed in an attempt to fall asleep (or wake up, as I supposed then).

The next time I became aware of my surroundings, there were policemen bustling around my room. I recognized a couple of them from times in the past when…my memory failed me and I closed my eyes against the pain the thought brought. The chief of police walked in, bags under his eyes as if he hasn’t slept in days, and I threw myself at him in a desperate attempt to find some comfort. Instead I continued through him and out into the hall where I saw a police line and the drowsy overworked students staring at it. The tears in their eye made me break down myself and just start running.

I tried the elevator, but the button wouldn’t push. The stairs took me down the four floors to the lobby, but that was the end of my journey. Outside was the horror that I remembered from the first time I woke. I felt dizziness and smelled a familiar sweet perfume right before a hand grabbed my arms to keep me from falling. I jerked back and looked at the stranger. Under his dark mask, I could see fair skin and light eyes. He reached out, this time to offer his hand, and I accepted it.

After a while, I found we were heading down the stairs that led to the sewers. My companion no longer held my hand, instead only continued walking alone confidant that I would follow. His voice was heavy, musky, like thick cologne on a winter day. My thoughts were filled with poetic verses, but I was able to shake myself from the wonder of actually being spoken to (or rather, as it seemed, spoken at) in time to hear him talking about a trial I was going to attend. Then we were there. He held the door for me, giving me directions to follow, and I couldn’t help wondering why he wasn’t going to come with me.

The directions led me to a large attendance hall where incoming people with strange glows around them would walk in and actually look at me as if they could see me. And others without glows came….baring fangs. At that sight, I nearly fainted, sitting heavily in the chair I had chosen. Well, who knows where this will lead…?

10/15/99

It was not long ago, but I cannot remember it clearly. I think it was just yesterday, maybe a few days. I’ve never been one to oversleep, but who knows how time passes when you’re dead. Maybe I don know and my memory is protecting me like it did so long ago, on my seventeenth birthday, when I had everyone believing how sweet, how innocent I was. On that date, we went out driving after the movie and my therapist spent months afterwards trying to get me to talk about it. It ripped me apart; a shell of myself, with no one to turn to but the person I knew was getting paid to listen to my problems. Not to say she didn’t love me. She might have. I’ll never know. But once she found out about that night she took me to a friend of hers, who is now the chief of police, and with his help, we had my rapist jailed and out of my nightmares. You think I’d learn after the first time. After all, it took nearly a year of heavy couching to get me to go on another date. My therapist said it was such a pity that it had to happen to me on my first date. I found a friend of a friend who was a perfect gentleman that I couldn’t say no to. But I should’ve learned. I mean, I was prepared. But as prepared as you think you are, when you are outweighed by more than twice your size, you don’t have time to rummage through your purse for the pepper spray. But at least I didn’t waste time in telling people. I even joined a group sponsored by my school against date rape. We would have walk-a-thons and stuff that raised minimal funding. As confident as I was after a while, I never went on another date again. Not that I had much of a chance. I wasn’t even twenty. I was so young and smart and beautiful…but I wasn’t even twenty.

10/16/99

The trial was for a ghost like me. A member of the Hierarchy. That’s what they said. I guess I’m a part of that. No one’s ever told me I have to do anything to be part of it. I mean, there haven’t been any papers I have to sign yet, but it’s not like I can even hold a pen, anyway. The nice ghosts, the ones that have helped me, they belong to it. So I guess I want to also.

They say there are bad things around. Things that will hurt me if they get the chance. They talk to me like I’m a child, but their knowledge exceeds mine far enough I do not mind. They say there will be voices in my head soon. They say I am lucky to have not heard them yet. At first it seemed like they were mocking me, but the way they said it was not degrading. It was matter-of-fact and sometimes kind of fearful.

I know something they don’t, though. My mother died just after me. I never knew her in life, but God makes the meetings in the afterlife too, I guess. She’s able to talk to me and help me. She’s been able to keep the voices, the "shadow" as they call it, away from me. I don’t understand. I just wish she’d let me tell someone about her so that I can get them to go find her and bring her out of the storm. It worries me that she is so close to it.

Rows and flows of angel hair

And ice cream castles in the air

And feather canyons everywhere

I’ve looked at clouds that way.

But now they only block the sun

They rain and snow on everyone

So many things I would’ve done

But clouds got in the way.

I’ve looked at the clouds from both sides now

From up and down and still somehow

It’s cloud illusions that I recall

I really don’t know clouds at all.

Moons and tunes and Ferris wheels

And dizzy dancing where you feel

As every fairy take comes real

I’ve looked at love that way

But now it’s just another show

You leave them laughing when you go

And if you care don’t let them know

Don’t give yourself away.

I’ve looked for love from both sides now

From give and take but still somehow

It’s love’s illusions that I recall

I really don’t know love

Tears and fears and feeling proud

To say I love you right outloud

Dreams and schemes and circus crowds

I’ve looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange

They shake their heads and say I’ve changed

Well, some things lost, but some things gained

I’m living every day

I’ve looked at life from both sides now

From win and lose and still somehow

It’s life’s illusions that I recall

I really don’t know life

I’ve looked at life from both sides now

From up and down and still somehow

It’s life’s illusions that I recall

I really don’t know life.

10/17/99

I always thought I would live to regret love. I wanted that moment when you realize you are so in love you are blind to all of the horrible things that the one you love is doing to you. I thought I’d wait up at night wondering if he was going to come home that night, or if he was too caught up with the other girl he was with. I thought I’d feel the hate, the bitterness that came with loving too long, too hard. And I thought once I died I’d go to heaven where I’d know that I was loved.

Now I’m dead. I’m nineteen and I’m dead. And I never fell in love. And I never waited for anyone at night and I never hated. And now I’m not in Heaven.

I guess God knew this, and he wants me to feel that paid before he takes me to live with him. I guess you have to truly hurt before you go up with him so you appreciate His love for you. Because once I go up there, I’m not going to look back. And I guess He wants to get me to the point where I hate everything the world has to offer and freely join Him without ever having or wanting to look back. Then, why did He take me from Earth? Unless he wanted me to face things that I would not have been able to in life. Such as the death of my mother only to have her returned as a ghost to help me. But that could’ve happened in life….unless He now plans to take her away from me with this storm.

I MUST get her out of this storm. Somehow. She is not yet hurt. I CANNOT let her be hurt.

10/18/99

It is a school day. I stayed in my dorm today and watched the storm outside. Mother tried to get me to go to classes, but with the storm outside I cannot. I do not know the sewer system well enough yet. She doesn’t understand the way of the storm yet. I don’t fully understand it myself, but I know that it will hurt me. I think the storm must be fine where she is..or at least a lot calmer.

She is good to me, my mother. A bit pushy, but that’s understandable after the transition. She’s trying to control what she can, since she probably feels out of control. Much like I do right now. Staring out at that storm…I found tears rolling down my cheeks at the incredible pain that is held inside it. I wish I could do something to help those out there…or to somehow calm the storm so I can go out and meet others and to find my mother. She says she was working in the garden last, and she doesn’t know what happened after that. Much like me.

I feel so sorry for her. She just woke up and has been living in my head and meeting only who I meet, never being able to express her own voice. I wish someone would go and find her, so she no longer has to be alone. I’m sure she was just as surprised as I was to find herself in her long lost daughter’s head.

The funny thing is, she never wants to talk about Dad. I never knew him either, and I wish I could learn some more about him so I could know where I came from. She will never tell me why she left either. I think maybe Dad might’ve taken me and ran away from her and then put me up for adoption when he couldn’t support me or maybe even died and no one knew who I was so they put me in an orphanage. That would explain her silence on both parts. Maybe I can convince her to tell me later, after we’re both safe from the storm and able to talk face to face.

10/18/99

It is the evening of the day I last wrote. Mother has been overly pushy today and I do not appreciate it. If I had anything else besides this typewriter, I would certainly have destroyed it by now. She is always in my head. She hears my thoughts. I barely drove her away to let me type this. And when she returns, she will know what I wrote. I will hear it then.

Why does she torture me? I wish she had never returned. I was fine my whole life without her. So what if I didn’t have parents? It’s not like the kids knew unless I told them!!! Now she thinks I need her! She knows less about this life than I do! (And trust me, that’s a hard thing to accomplish). If she knew how she angered me…but she can hear my thoughts…so she should know, right? Maybe she can’t sense feelings. That would explain as to why she continues talking when I am overly taxed and urges me to do more. I know she just wants me to do my best, but it’s too much for me. There are some things I just can’t do. Like go out in the storm. She’s trying to convince me it won’t hurt me. But she hasn’t talked to the others like I have. She hasn’t seen it first hand, sensed the fear and pain that is out there.

And the Hierarchy…she has something against them. I don’t quite understand that. I think it has something to do with whipping that poor boy and sealing his mouth so he couldn’t scream out…that disturbed me too, but I don’t have the maternal instinct that she does… DAMM! Why am I defending her? She’s made my unlife hell…but she’s only trying to do what’s best for me…I think she’s back again. I’m leaving now.

Don’t talk to me, don’t lie to me

Just save your breath

Don’t look at me, don’t smile at me

just close your eyes

I was so impressed by you

I was running parts

I would fall for every trick

every twist and bar

open your eyes, fall inside

it’s hard to believe

I was so in love with you

don’t say your prayers, don’t build your oaths

just walk away

don’t phone me now, don’t hang around

don’t waste your time

you were so in awe with me

you were so divine

you would do just anything

to still be mine

open your eyes

fall inside

it’s hard to believe

I was so in love with you

all the things you said to me

I was so upset

you were always talking, talking

god, I did my best

10/19/99

Last night after I got in a fight with my mother and sent her away….it came. She hadn’t liked what I had typed and tried to assure me that what she was doing for me was for my own good, but I just lashed out at her. So she left. She got out of my mind. And it came. The Shadow, as they called it. It was horrible. It knew me, it knew my feelings, my past, my life, my mother…oh, god, it threatened her. And I couldn’t get rid of it. It wasn’t nearly like they said…the said I could get it to go away. I couldn’t. I was helpless.

I don’t know how much time passed. I know I was scared and huddled in a corner and that strange perfume came back, and the pain from every being outside in the storm and from my death cam into me….

Mother’s voice came into my head, soothing. She chased the nightmares away and held my mind in comfortable warmth. I told her it threatened her, but she said it could only harm me. I asked her if she has a Shadow yet, but she told me not to worry about her. She said the connection between us was strong enough to keep away the evils. If I ever doubt her again I hope God strikes me to Hell. She is a savior God sent me. She is what keeps me from looking back,

10/20/00

Between Mother and I, we’ve not gotten much contact with the outside world since Friday. I don’t know the sewers, the storm continues raging on, and none have been to visit. Mother keeps urging me to do chores or something instead of sitting her on this old typewriter or staring out at the storm. I guess she’s home cleaning, cooking and is still able to have physical contact with inanimate objects in her home. She doesn’t have to learn how to, but I have no one to teach me, nor do I even know it is a teachable ability or if it is just something some people..well ghosts (or wraiths as mother says we are called) can do. For not claiming any mentors, so is learning quickly.

I have started having nightmares. It’s odd, because I don’t remember sleeping at all. that perfume is always there when I wake. it doesn’t mater if no one is in the room..it’s as if another breath is causing it. but I can’t see other wraiths and I can’t think of others. I mean, when I was alive I could never see ghosts. so maybe there are things farther along the path of death that we can’t see. but wouldn’t that be the society of vampires? after all, they are so dead they don’t have an aura. but we can still see them. it’s all very confusing to me. perhaps Friday if someone comes to get me again, I can get someone to explain.

Where do we go from here?

This isn’t where you intended to be

we had it all – you believed in my

I believe in you

certainties disappear

what do we do for our dreams to survive?

how do we keep all our passions alive

as we used to do?

Deep in my heart I’m concealing

things that I’m longing to say

scared to confess what I’m feeling

frightened you slip away

you must love me

why are you at my side?

how can I be any use to you now?

give me a chance and I’ll let you see how

nothing has changed

Deep in my heart I’m concealing

things that I’m longing to say

Scared to confess what I’m feeling

Frightened you’ll slip away

you must love me

you remember in the fell of moonlight

about what tears your last day had been

while the monotonous hues cast by starlight

reflect sunlight to you, in years, haven’t seen

the leaves around you fall to the ground

and tears take shape in your eyes

paranoia gives way at every sound

shapes and items break through and you cry

be at peace, my dear, know I love you

although words you may not believe

take care, my love, I will find you

for my heart won’t let you just leave.