Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Monday, May 30, 2016
Sunday, May 29, 2016
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Friday, May 27, 2016
Thursday, May 26, 2016
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Monday, May 23, 2016
Sunday, May 22, 2016
I feel the exact SAME WAY!! :) :)
https://t.co/QafXNJPhMD This is probably weird, but I can't stop re-listening to this poetry I made a video on. So haunting. So delicate. :)
— Atticus Jackson (@TheAtticus) May 23, 2016
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Friday, May 20, 2016
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Monday, May 16, 2016
Sunray Venus
Life is a series of tragedies. I'm always waiting for the next shoe to drop. For the phone call. The people I love are like ghosts floating before my eyes. Here now, but gone soon. I try to remember every look and word. The little things I know I'll miss when they are gone. How long can things go on the same way? Not long. People die. Everyone dies. So everything hurts. I watch knowing that it is temporary. Everything is temporary.
I spent a few years wishing I would die. A quick and painless death. I'm in pain all the time. I've been sick for a long time, but now it's getting progressively worse; and it's hard to take. I prayed for death over and over. During one of my MRIs, I found out I have a small aneurism. That was interesting. It seemed that my prayers were being answered. Interesting. I wanted to die until the night I saw Jesus. Don't laugh. I know how it sounds. But once that happened, I stopped praying for death. It cured that in me. But it didn't cure me from seeing death all around me, from being constantly afraid of who is going to die next. Somebody has to. I'd rather it was me for purely selfish reasons. But I'm not praying for that anymore.
I'm like a shell. I see that now. I haven't enjoyed being alive in years. Why? When did I stop? I partied my 20s away. There were mistakes, and waste, but also fire and life. I felt the fire of life burning in me. Dancing, screaming, crying, laughing. I felt alive. Was I? I don't know. Feelings lie. I did stupid things and woke up in pain more than twice, more than a hundred times. So was that living? I wonder sometimes when it really ended. How do we go from being children who care about everything to adults who can't care about anything? Or do we do that? Or is it just me. How did I do that?
Too many broken dreams? No job no kids no relationship. Such a different life.
Jesus what am I supposed to do? How do I get back to living? The pain is constant and exhausting. The doctors say there's no cure for it. Is that true? Can you heal me? Will you? Do I believe you will? What is this suffering for? Can you heal my unbelief? Will you? Please?
I see a smiling dancing life in these shadows. I don't know how to find it.
I spent a few years wishing I would die. A quick and painless death. I'm in pain all the time. I've been sick for a long time, but now it's getting progressively worse; and it's hard to take. I prayed for death over and over. During one of my MRIs, I found out I have a small aneurism. That was interesting. It seemed that my prayers were being answered. Interesting. I wanted to die until the night I saw Jesus. Don't laugh. I know how it sounds. But once that happened, I stopped praying for death. It cured that in me. But it didn't cure me from seeing death all around me, from being constantly afraid of who is going to die next. Somebody has to. I'd rather it was me for purely selfish reasons. But I'm not praying for that anymore.
I'm like a shell. I see that now. I haven't enjoyed being alive in years. Why? When did I stop? I partied my 20s away. There were mistakes, and waste, but also fire and life. I felt the fire of life burning in me. Dancing, screaming, crying, laughing. I felt alive. Was I? I don't know. Feelings lie. I did stupid things and woke up in pain more than twice, more than a hundred times. So was that living? I wonder sometimes when it really ended. How do we go from being children who care about everything to adults who can't care about anything? Or do we do that? Or is it just me. How did I do that?
Too many broken dreams? No job no kids no relationship. Such a different life.
Jesus what am I supposed to do? How do I get back to living? The pain is constant and exhausting. The doctors say there's no cure for it. Is that true? Can you heal me? Will you? Do I believe you will? What is this suffering for? Can you heal my unbelief? Will you? Please?
I see a smiling dancing life in these shadows. I don't know how to find it.
Sunday, May 15, 2016
Saturday, May 14, 2016
Friday, May 13, 2016
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Icing
She’s icing.
Enchiladas on an empty park bench.
She’s all things.
She is one girl that I won’t soon forget.
It’s one thing to be your friend I like you more I want you more
It’s one thing to be your friend
I like you
More
I want you
More
Enchiladas on an empty park bench.
She’s all things.
She is one girl that I won’t soon forget.
It’s one thing to be your friend I like you more I want you more
It’s one thing to be your friend
I like you
More
I want you
More
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Monday, May 9, 2016
Hypnotic
The nature of the illusion is that it is hypnotic.
That is part of the game.
For the game to be worth playing it
had to be all consuming,
addictive,
completely immersive,
it had to be hypnotic.
The game hypnotizes you into thinking it is real.
Even when you wake up into those moments of clarity, absolutely remembering that
you are playing a game, that you are in an illusion, you are caught up in its swirl and the reality of the game
starts slipping through your fingertips.
You are consumed again into its trance.
The game hypnotizes you in all directions.
Its architecture is huge and multi-layered.
It is breathtaking in its scope and direction.
The moments of clarity are drops in the pool of its ocean.
The trance is adorable, it is melancholy and memories.
It is your heart
and everyone you've ever loved.
It is a security blanket.
There is no machine perpetrating the game, no conspiracy of punishing gods or angels.
The driver of the machine is your own self, and mine.
And all of our selves moving through time making colorful, noisy ripples in the ocean of our now.
Our ever changing, swirling, dirty, wonderful now.
We are in love with the illusion.
It is the one thing we did not count on when we decided to play the game.
Our logical, adventurous minds.
We didn't count on falling in love with the illusion.
It is the thing non-realized guiding beings and gods cannot understand.
We are in love with the game.
We never want to leave it.
We never want to let it go.
There is exquisite sweetness in suffering here. There is blood here, and bones and hearts and longing.
They can't remember because they have left the game, but it is what makes the illusion so compelling.
It is what they can not remember.
My broken heart,
my failures and memories.
My childhood.
The majesty and mystery of my creation, my illusion.
The footprints I've left on my heart, my soul, Mine. Me.
My dancing spinning yearning dreaming girl.
My long blonde hair and freckles. Me.
The nature of realizing the illusion is that it sets you free from the bondage of your self.
I am in love with the bondage of myself.
I am in love with my broken sweet dancing girl self.
Leave behind the ribbons streaming, backyard bubbles, party dresses, green grass, picnic tables...
leave behind my dreams of being a star.
The nature of the illusion is that it is hypnotic.
That is part of the game.
For the game to be worth playing it
had to be all consuming,
addictive,
completely immersive,
it had to be hypnotic.
The game hypnotizes you into thinking it is real.
Even when you wake up into those moments of clarity, absolutely remembering that
you are playing a game, that you are in an illusion, you are caught up in its swirl and the reality of the game
starts slipping through your fingertips.
You are consumed again into its trance.
The game hypnotizes you in all directions.
Its architecture is huge and multi-layered.
It is breathtaking in its scope and direction.
The moments of clarity are drops in the pool of its ocean.
The trance is adorable, it is melancholy and memories.
It is your heart
and everyone you've ever loved.
It is a security blanket.
There is no machine perpetrating the game, no conspiracy of punishing gods or angels.
The driver of the machine is your own self, and mine.
And all of our selves moving through time making colorful, noisy ripples in the ocean of our now.
Our ever changing, swirling, dirty, wonderful now.
We are in love with the illusion.
It is the one thing we did not count on when we decided to play the game.
Our logical, adventurous minds.
We didn't count on falling in love with the illusion.
It is the thing non-realized guiding beings and gods cannot understand.
We are in love with the game.
We never want to leave it.
We never want to let it go.
There is exquisite sweetness in suffering here. There is blood here, and bones and hearts and longing.
They can't remember because they have left the game, but it is what makes the illusion so compelling.
It is what they can not remember.
My broken heart,
my failures and memories.
My childhood.
The majesty and mystery of my creation, my illusion.
The footprints I've left on my heart, my soul, Mine. Me.
My dancing spinning yearning dreaming girl.
My long blonde hair and freckles. Me.
The nature of realizing the illusion is that it sets you free from the bondage of your self.
I am in love with the bondage of myself.
I am in love with my broken sweet dancing girl self.
Leave behind the ribbons streaming, backyard bubbles, party dresses, green grass, picnic tables...
leave behind my dreams of being a star.
The nature of the illusion is that it is hypnotic.
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Check out the NO SLEEP PODCAST on twitter!
I recommend getting a seasons pass to the @NosleepPodcast! It's awesome. You can also check out my story on Reddit! https://t.co/fTsEqPAVRY
— Onyx O (@OnyxOlivia) May 8, 2016
Saturday, May 7, 2016
Friday, May 6, 2016
Thursday, May 5, 2016
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Darkness is Soft
Darkness it is soft and encompassing pressing in like pressure on a wound slowing the blood flowing out and out in the dying
Soft you can feel like the absence of everything of right of wrong of winning of losing of success of failure
The responsibility of illness the ailing body a disappointment to the ones who saw greatness in you and now see only surrender
The fight the fight!
Oh how nobly you've fought and lost the ribbons and tears of the spectators sucking vicariously through your valiant battle oh the fights you've won, the strength super-human the accolades the amazed
An entire youth spent battling and winning the little victories while losing the war
Who are you now, this shell.
How dare your ambivalence.
Flat and gazing the spark extinguished deflated abandoned
They worry about you now for their own sakes
What will become of them when they can no longer live and win through you
They never see you, never have seen, you do not exist in reality you are an idea a concept a cause
The flames of passion that ignited your flashing mind, the outrages: the lines numbers and science of your theories to set the world free
It is an already death existed but forgotten in an abstract
Bloated and erased in the floods from the hurricane real life fulfilling the prophecy of neglect
Gone now like everything like you gone erased flat breathing worming all the way inside to oblivion
Soft you can feel like the absence of everything of right of wrong of winning of losing of success of failure
The responsibility of illness the ailing body a disappointment to the ones who saw greatness in you and now see only surrender
The fight the fight!
Oh how nobly you've fought and lost the ribbons and tears of the spectators sucking vicariously through your valiant battle oh the fights you've won, the strength super-human the accolades the amazed
An entire youth spent battling and winning the little victories while losing the war
Who are you now, this shell.
How dare your ambivalence.
Flat and gazing the spark extinguished deflated abandoned
They worry about you now for their own sakes
What will become of them when they can no longer live and win through you
They never see you, never have seen, you do not exist in reality you are an idea a concept a cause
The flames of passion that ignited your flashing mind, the outrages: the lines numbers and science of your theories to set the world free
It is an already death existed but forgotten in an abstract
Bloated and erased in the floods from the hurricane real life fulfilling the prophecy of neglect
Gone now like everything like you gone erased flat breathing worming all the way inside to oblivion
If I could die without leaving a body behind I would choose that today
If I could die without leaving a body behind I would choose that today
I don't always want to die
But the nightmares and pain
Unrelenting shaking wracking shriveling
I'm trying something new
For the past few months I've stopped fighting
I haven't moved from this spot on the couch not even to shower or brush my teeth
I've been on the edge of it for years but what pulls me back? Something
Obligation? Hope? Necessity?
I don't know
Something scarier than the pain has taken over me
The pain has brought me to the place of wanting to end it but I fight the pain.
I am not fighting this
It doesn't seem fair to leave a body behind
I wouldn't want to find the body of a person I love
I didn't like watching my grandfather turn into a body before my helpless eyes
It's too much to manage heavy and bloated bloody or blue it doesn't seem fair
I don't know what it is like to be dead
I have no guarantee it would be better
I do know what this is like though and don't know how much longer I can bear it
I don't want to leave the people who love me in my wake
But I am doing that already and it may be easier to not have to watch.
That's selfish? It is selfish to hurt others
Is it selfish of them to want me to stay in a world that is torture to me every second of every day
I love my dog she is laying on me right now she feels it when I need her and she presses into me
She is my lifeline
It doesn't mean I love her more than everyone else just that her constant presence and palpable love keep me latched in to a world that has gone otherwise cold
But I am not the only one who loves her
If I died she'd be loved
She'd still have a good life
I'm curious about what happens
I'd like to see how my nieces and nephews do in the world
But there will always be little ones we will never get to know the fate of
My grandfather will never see what becomes of his great grandson
That's just the way it goes
I see his blue eyes so clearly there and then
Gone
I was waiting for them to become a memory and now they are
The Grammys are on right now
I can not stand the bizarre false world of celebrity
It congratulates itself so mightily for so little
I am waiting
I have been waiting for months
Waiting for the cold to pass
I just decided to stop fighting
To stop trying
Pretending
I just stopped
It's not helping
I don't know if it will make it worse or if I'll be able to go back to pretending again once the waiting is over
My niece said she was so happy I was coming home but I'm
Not home and I haven't seen her
I guess I'll teach anyone to love me count on me or want me around
Finally
Will it make it easier when I die if I make everyone hate me while I am alive?
Is that why I am so miserable (nasty) sometimes?
Is it the long con part of my ultimate suicide plan
Or am I just a miserable person now?
Did the fun me melt away into this cacophony of incurable pain
I just started working with a healer two weeks ago
Maybe she got me just in time
I spent my life believing in everything knowing my cure was around the corner
I stopped believing that
But since working with her things are shifting things are diving down
The seizures are way way up, nightly
My moods are a wilder pendulum than I can ever remember and the swings dizzyingly violent:
Laughing crying angry silly terrified
From joking and teasing to a monotone monster of meanness in the blink of an eye
I wake up not knowing who I'll be that day
Not that I care
It's not bothering me either way
So am I moving backwards through time, energetically unwinding the madness, heartbreak, innocence, dreaming, wishing, betrayal, shock
Am I recovering from the lies and sickness from the sick manipulation and control
Am I in an epic battle for my soul or am I just dying
It will be interesting to look back and see
My healer says I am a healer
That was my dream once
I don't know if I'll ever get there maybe I've gone too deep down the rabbit hole maybe I haven't
I guess we'll see
I don't always want to die
But the nightmares and pain
Unrelenting shaking wracking shriveling
I'm trying something new
For the past few months I've stopped fighting
I haven't moved from this spot on the couch not even to shower or brush my teeth
I've been on the edge of it for years but what pulls me back? Something
Obligation? Hope? Necessity?
I don't know
Something scarier than the pain has taken over me
The pain has brought me to the place of wanting to end it but I fight the pain.
I am not fighting this
It doesn't seem fair to leave a body behind
I wouldn't want to find the body of a person I love
I didn't like watching my grandfather turn into a body before my helpless eyes
It's too much to manage heavy and bloated bloody or blue it doesn't seem fair
I don't know what it is like to be dead
I have no guarantee it would be better
I do know what this is like though and don't know how much longer I can bear it
I don't want to leave the people who love me in my wake
But I am doing that already and it may be easier to not have to watch.
That's selfish? It is selfish to hurt others
Is it selfish of them to want me to stay in a world that is torture to me every second of every day
I love my dog she is laying on me right now she feels it when I need her and she presses into me
She is my lifeline
It doesn't mean I love her more than everyone else just that her constant presence and palpable love keep me latched in to a world that has gone otherwise cold
But I am not the only one who loves her
If I died she'd be loved
She'd still have a good life
I'm curious about what happens
I'd like to see how my nieces and nephews do in the world
But there will always be little ones we will never get to know the fate of
My grandfather will never see what becomes of his great grandson
That's just the way it goes
I see his blue eyes so clearly there and then
Gone
I was waiting for them to become a memory and now they are
The Grammys are on right now
I can not stand the bizarre false world of celebrity
It congratulates itself so mightily for so little
I am waiting
I have been waiting for months
Waiting for the cold to pass
I just decided to stop fighting
To stop trying
Pretending
I just stopped
It's not helping
I don't know if it will make it worse or if I'll be able to go back to pretending again once the waiting is over
My niece said she was so happy I was coming home but I'm
Not home and I haven't seen her
I guess I'll teach anyone to love me count on me or want me around
Finally
Will it make it easier when I die if I make everyone hate me while I am alive?
Is that why I am so miserable (nasty) sometimes?
Is it the long con part of my ultimate suicide plan
Or am I just a miserable person now?
Did the fun me melt away into this cacophony of incurable pain
I just started working with a healer two weeks ago
Maybe she got me just in time
I spent my life believing in everything knowing my cure was around the corner
I stopped believing that
But since working with her things are shifting things are diving down
The seizures are way way up, nightly
My moods are a wilder pendulum than I can ever remember and the swings dizzyingly violent:
Laughing crying angry silly terrified
From joking and teasing to a monotone monster of meanness in the blink of an eye
I wake up not knowing who I'll be that day
Not that I care
It's not bothering me either way
So am I moving backwards through time, energetically unwinding the madness, heartbreak, innocence, dreaming, wishing, betrayal, shock
Am I recovering from the lies and sickness from the sick manipulation and control
Am I in an epic battle for my soul or am I just dying
It will be interesting to look back and see
My healer says I am a healer
That was my dream once
I don't know if I'll ever get there maybe I've gone too deep down the rabbit hole maybe I haven't
I guess we'll see
My Sister's Laptop
I don't know how to start...I'm freaked out, like I'm having a weird dream or something. I guess I'll just start by saying that... Shit. This is so unreal, it has to be fiction? A writing project? But Jennifer's brother? And all the details? How? Ok. Calm Down. Get a grip. Breathe.
Sorry.
Ok I'm starting over again. First I'll say that I love nosleep. Such amazing writers, and the most supportive community. You all were the first people I thought of after reading what I just read. So now I'm sitting at my sister's computer, staring at the screen, trying to figure out how to explain what's going on.
I'm at my sister's place because she collapsed at work with what the doctors are calling a thunderclap headache. She was screaming, and in and out of consciousness, and eventually had to be sedated and admitted. The doctors are running all kinds of tests and it doesn't look like she's getting out anytime soon, so I'm here to take care of the cats.
The cats are sweet and it was easy work filling the food and water bowls, and scooping the litter into the litter genie. I don't know why really, but when I was done I decided to sit down and surf the web a little. Her MacBook was propped on the arm of the overstuffed chair in her living room. I sat down in the big fluffy chair, opened up the computer, and covered myself with her quilt while the screen brightened. I had this feeling come over me like, "I wonder if this is how she feels when she sits in this chair." My sister is smart and funny and brave but also unknowable somehow, and sitting in her chair made me feel close to her. When the screen blinked to life I noticed a document on the desktop. It wasn't hidden or anything, it was right there on the desktop called, "The Mute Quiet Open Page". The title was so weird but also mysterious, and inviting? I ignored the document and went online, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. I figured that it couldn't be private, or she would've hidden it. Right? Part of me knew that, no, this was NOT right but the other part of me was too curious to care.
You have to understand that she has always been such a mystery to me. She is so alive, but so contained. I wish I could say that I let the document sit there for days while I went about my business of taking care of her cats, but I didn't. I'm sitting here now, today, my first day here, and I've already read it.
This is where you come in, nosleep readers: I need your help. I don't know what to do. I don't know what I just read. If it's a piece of fiction, it is creepily autobiographical. The details about our childhood all line up. If it is a journal... I wouldn't even know where to start. Maybe it's a fantasy of some kind? About how she wishes things were, but aren't?
Anyway, here it is:
The Mute Quiet Open Page
I'm telling you because I have to tell someone. It's bursting at my seams, this story pressing to get out. I'm telling this to you, the page. The mute, quiet, open page. I'm telling you this since you can't possibly judge me or tell another soul. You are only a page. Synapses of light and dark whizzing through your screen light the thoughts in my mind, buzzing, blinking, alive yet mindless.
I try to remember when I first realized I was different. Different from most but not all. No not all. It is mostly men though that think like me, that behave like me, so that does make me special, I think. I may have been three the first time I killed something on purpose. The feeling of power and presence and gleeful meanness was a drug first tasted and from that moment on consistently desired. I remember jumping on a fallen nest of baby birds. I could hear their little screams and it thrilled me utterly, completely. I jumped and jumped until there was only silence, and stillness. When my daycare teacher saw what I had done she grabbed my arm and yanked me hard, yelling "No! What have you done!" She tried to explain that it was wrong, that I must never-ever hurt a living thing. Well she did teach me something that day. She taught me that I must never be caught.
And I haven't been.
You see, I need to do it. I need to, to survive. It is more than air to me. Can you understand that oh blank and silent page? My only true friend. My only confidant. Why is it so wrong? Why. We are bags of blood and bones so messy and fragile. Why is it so wrong to delight in the destruction of that? I watch my cat Star stalk his prey and see the blood lust shivering through him. I watch his eyes glaze and sharpen simultaneously. He becomes something completely other than a pet. He is a sleek, gorgeous, instrument of death, and he delights in bringing me his headless prey. He doesn't kill for food or necessity. He kills for fun. Like me. I think sometimes how sweet it would be to have someone to deliver my prey to. Someone who would delight in my kills. I envy my cat his pride. I do feel pride but I have no one to share it with. No one but you, blank page. No one but you.
I think in many ways being a woman makes it easier to find prey. If I believed in God I would thank him for the gorgeous body and face that makes my pastime, no, my passion, possible. Sex is of very little interest to me but it is interesting to my prey, and so I am interesting to my prey. I look like a very good thing to fuck. Or so I've been told. That is marvelous to me because it makes me a magnet. I have an endless array of choices before me. It's intoxicating! I can hardly stand it some nights.
Imagine me as you will, and the reality of me would shatter your imagination. I am breathtaking. My beauty is lethal and undeniable. It is so difficult for me to understand sometimes why what I do is wrong. Why? When I was so obviously made expressly for this purpose: attract and destroy. If I wasn't meant to live this way, why would our imaginary God have made me so perfect for it? I imagine sometimes that I am more than human. That I am the evolution of humanity. The weeder of the weak perfecting and uplifting our species. Maybe you think I am making too much of myself. Building myself up. I promise you I am not. But then that's the beauty of you isn't it? That you can't think at all. That is why you are the perfect one to talk to. The only one.
I realized young that I would have to build a second-life to cover up my real life. There are so many important things to remember. It is such a delicate game but so worth it. In my second-life I live alone with my cats, Simon and Star. I am quiet, sweet and responsible. I pay my bills on time. I never wear makeup and I wear comfortable, sensible clothes. I wear glasses and ponytails. It is a cliched persona but no one ever questions me. I work part time at [redacted] and the work is very boring but I am good at it. I am efficient and innovative and indispensable. But I am not ambitious. I do not want to get ahead. I want the hours to pass in a blur. I want to paint my disguise easily, like the hours my cat Star spends napping on my couch. Looking at his sweet, furry, sleeping body one would never guess the glee he derives from hunting at night. I am the same way. Looking at my life, no one would ever guess the glee I derive from hunting at night.
But know this: I'm not dumb. I am not a slave to killing or an addict. The slaves and addicts get themselves caught by building distinguishing rituals. It is a stupid thing. It is short sighted. I build my rituals around my second-life. Predictability is my mask. It will never be my hallmark, or my downfall. I do not have an M.O. It is important to always be new. It is essential to my craft. Anyway the "how" isn't the important thing. The important thing is that I be free to continue.
I have told you a lot about my beauty. I suppose there are people who would say I am only beautiful on the outside. That what I do makes me ugly on the inside. It is a platitude I hear often about people like me. It is so far from the truth, though! I wish people could see that. As beautiful as I am on the outside, I'm even more beautiful on the inside. The power of my beauty is a pulsing, living thing. I only have to hide it because the rest of the people out there are so small and scared and blind. They have been hypnotized. They don't know the true meaning of beauty. When I watch a man die it is the most beautiful, the most sacred thing. I'm confounded to be living in a world that doesn't embrace this reality.
My childhood was a very interesting time. I learned so much by watching people. I learned when they laughed and when they cried and I learned how to laugh and cry too. It seemed so strange to me at first the things that made people laugh or cry. It took a while to understand. For example, I remember when my father would stand over me yelling and threatening to hit me, with his eyes bulged out and the veins throbbing in his forehead and neck, at first I would always laugh. His red boiling rage was so funny to me, and laughing made him angrier, which made him funnier... My mother would sit quietly like a frightened mouse until my father stumbled away to drink more. Then she would tell me, beg me really, "don't push his buttons. It's your fault he acts this way, you do this to him don't push his buttons." I was so confused. Then as my sister got older, I noticed that she would cry when he raged at her. She would cry, which was the right thing to do. Laughing was wrong and crying was right. It didn't matter to me either way. I loved watching his eyes bulge, and feeling my power to make his rage grow and grow. I never cared if he hit me, or threw plates and TV remotes at me, or smothered my mouth to make the sound stop. I never cared if he threw me down the steps, or kicked me across the room. But other people did, and so I learned that laughing made me seem wrong; it drew attention to me. I learned to cry to make them happy. To make them stop looking at me sideways. By about the age of 11 or 12, I was finally very very good at doing and saying the right things. My days of confusion were over. I realized that fitting in was important, it made me invisible. So I fit in. I still fit in. Beautifully.
Once I killed those birds, the desire to keep killing moved in me constantly. I didn't kill constantly, of course. I just wanted to. It became my mantra, and my secret. Anything and everyone I looked at, my thought was always "I could kill you." I learned early on that it was something I knew that they didn't. I could kill them. It is a power like absolutely no other. It is also the truth. I could kill any one of them. It has made it so much easier over the years to laugh and cry at the right times. Just knowing that one, comforting truth.
There were so many things to crush and crunch as a child too that it kept me satisfied. I wasn't like those fools I read about who spend their childhoods murdering their neighbor's pets and calling attention to themselves. There are plenty of wild things to kill in the woods. But at a point I wondered what it would feel like to kill one of the noisy, pointless humans. There are so many of them.
I don't decide who to stalk. They decide. Let me tell you what I mean. I was fourteen when I decided it could be better to kill things bigger than me rather than small things. It would be more difficult and therefore more satisfying. I can't say that I had friends at that age, or any age, but I was well liked and had many of my classmates jockeying to be by my side. They liked me. I never understood what that meant, or what it must feel like for them, this "liking". I am interested in people, yes, but I have never understood what it meant to like someone. Anyway, they liked me and made constant efforts to spend time with me. One of those girls was called Jennifer. Actually most of the girls in my school were called Jennifer - it's funny how names can be so connected to certain decades. This Jennifer had a brother called Mark. Mark liked to play doctor with Jennifer and her friends. This meant that Mark liked to hold Jennifer and her friends down and poke them with objects, including his body parts, in all kinds of places. When we were 11 Jennifer told me in class that she was scared she was pregnant because Mark came to her every night and put his penis inside of her and we had heard the kids whispering about how babies were made. She said she didn't really mind that he did that but she didn't want to have a baby. She didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to tell her to do. Humans are such strange and curious creatures.
I never played doctor with Mark. Mark wanted to very badly; I could see it in his eyes whenever I came to play with Jennifer. He watched me and always made excuses to be near. Finally, when I was 14 years old, Mark started following me on my walk home from school, but only on the days I was walking alone. It was interesting. It occurred to me that he might be stalking me. That was interesting. If he was stalking me then he would be keeping that a secret. He would want to be able to play with me with no one knowing. So his secret could be my secret. If no one knew he was stalking me, no one would know he was giving me the opportunity to play with him my way. I thought about it for a few weeks, and I watched him. I understood from reading books that killing humans could be difficult and messy. I needed something clean and simple. I knew the woods very well from my childhood hunting days. Slowly an idea began to form in my mind like a living thing giving birth to itself. I would let him follow me into the woods. We could play together there.
The morning of my plan dawned with a yawning electricity. The sky seemed bluer that day. The air felt thick and dense charged with a power that could only be emanating from within me. I was the source of that electrifying, delicious power. The knowledge of that was a new drug, better than any other thing that had come before. This was my destiny. It had to be, or the natural world would never meet me with such an eager intensity. I could feel that everything about my plan was right, and that the natural world approved. It was exhilarating. It was difficult for me to contain myself that day so I practiced my breathing and my bored looks, and focused on being the perfect invisible everybody. That day seemed to stretch into an eternity while also flying by in the quickest blur. There was no way to know if he really would follow me that day, but I felt that he would. And I was right.
I walked slowly towards my route, smiling and waving goodbye in a breezy, happy way to the other girls leaving school. I made my way towards my 20 minute walk home. I was at least seven minutes in before he appeared behind me, and I sensed him before I caught him through my peripheral vision. I saw him in a way that he would never know he had been seen. I'm very good at that. I stopped to fiddle with my bag, and seemed to "decide" to take a shortcut through the woods. The woods were beautiful in those days, and wild, and I had to be careful not to lose him. Today they are threadbare and sad, but back then they were dense and majestic. A perfect partner in crime. I stopped at the top of the rocky bluff and turned to face him through the trees, making eye contact for the first time. I saw his eyes flash with some unknowable emotion. "Come here", I told him. He walked towards me slowly as I started unbuttoning my shirt. I could see hunger in his eyes, and uncertainty? I'm not sure. But hunger, and it drew him towards me despite whatever other emotions he might be feeling. He came close to me and put his mouth on mine in a wet rush. He reached for his pants to unbutton them and I pushed him, hard, over the blush. The look of surprise on his face was so funny and I was free to laugh because I was alone with no one to watch me. The laughter was so sweet and natural and it felt so good to laugh when I wanted to, instead of being forced to cry. He fell so quickly. I waited and watched to see what would happen. Would he live? Would he die? His crumpled body fell in a crooked heap to the bottom of the bluff halfway in and out of the beautiful little creek that ran at its base. The angle of his bones was far too unnatural to sustain life. Especially the angle of his neck. A feeling like a volcanic vortex, like a huge wind blew up and through me, echoing off of everything. I had killed my first human. And it was easy. I buttoned myself back up and sat for a while studying the beauty around me and the beauty I had created. The joy bubbled up through me like wind chimes.
When the news of Mark's disappearance spread through town, I held Jennifer's hand and cried with her. Crying was the right thing to do. All the girls cried in the gymnasium when the school had their assembly. The school counselor wanted to be sure we all knew we could talk to her at any time. The dads formed search parties and the moms cried, held vigils, and served brownies and coffee. It took more than two weeks for the search party to find what was left of his body. The woods were full of hungry things. They ate his fingers and eyes and most of his face, but it was clear from the clothes he wore that they had found him, and that he had suffered a terrible fall.
There were whispers around town about Mark's "ways" and some of the girls had begun telling the school counselor stories of his doctor "games". But no one had seen him go into the woods, and no one knew why he might've gone to the bluff. There were no signs of struggle. It was strange, to be sure, but it appeared he had gone into the woods for unknown reasons and had taken a fall. They called it a tragic accident.
It was glorious.
It was like riding a smooth, perfect wave to shore. The feeling of power and peace stayed with me for a long time. It carried me. I knew that I was lucky, though, and that luck was not a safe hunting partner. I had to be smarter, much smarter, if I wanted to try that again.
First, like I've said before, I let my prey chose themselves. I like to hunt men who like to hurt women. It is absolutely exhilarating to watch them realize it is their turn to hurt. I don't have any ideas of justice and I have no desire to save or protect anyone. That is not what I'm about. I don't care that they are hurting women. I am not seeking revenge or retribution. No, I like hurting them because it is fun to see their arrogance turn to agony. I love the surprise in their eyes when they realize it is over, I've won. It's the thing that makes life worth living, those moments of triumph. I have heard it said that each kill gets less thrilling and so killers must "escalate" in order to continue to derive pleasure from their acts. For me, this isn't true. Each one is sweet and perfect and pure. Each one is absolutely beautiful.
I started in the days before DNA and blood splatter experts, so I am fortunate that I have been meticulous over the years. My first time taught me that I couldn't leave details to chance. My first time also taught me that I prefer a more hands-on approach. I like to be close enough to watch their eyes go cold and turn to glass. I take the deepest breath right at that moment and feel as if I could steal whatever animating force is escaping them. I feel as if I could breathe it right out of the very air surrounding us. It is the most intimate moment.
I wish you could feel it the way I do.
Ok it's me again. There's more but this post is already getting way too long. It goes on for a few more - what would you call it? Chapters? Entries? IDK.
When I say I don't know what to do, mean I don't know if I should talk to her about this, tell her that I found it? Please don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about going to the police or anything like that. No way in hell. Family first. It's just that maybe, sometimes, she might like help hiding the bodies?
Click here to give me advice about this situation on Reddit.
Sorry.
Ok I'm starting over again. First I'll say that I love nosleep. Such amazing writers, and the most supportive community. You all were the first people I thought of after reading what I just read. So now I'm sitting at my sister's computer, staring at the screen, trying to figure out how to explain what's going on.
I'm at my sister's place because she collapsed at work with what the doctors are calling a thunderclap headache. She was screaming, and in and out of consciousness, and eventually had to be sedated and admitted. The doctors are running all kinds of tests and it doesn't look like she's getting out anytime soon, so I'm here to take care of the cats.
The cats are sweet and it was easy work filling the food and water bowls, and scooping the litter into the litter genie. I don't know why really, but when I was done I decided to sit down and surf the web a little. Her MacBook was propped on the arm of the overstuffed chair in her living room. I sat down in the big fluffy chair, opened up the computer, and covered myself with her quilt while the screen brightened. I had this feeling come over me like, "I wonder if this is how she feels when she sits in this chair." My sister is smart and funny and brave but also unknowable somehow, and sitting in her chair made me feel close to her. When the screen blinked to life I noticed a document on the desktop. It wasn't hidden or anything, it was right there on the desktop called, "The Mute Quiet Open Page". The title was so weird but also mysterious, and inviting? I ignored the document and went online, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. I figured that it couldn't be private, or she would've hidden it. Right? Part of me knew that, no, this was NOT right but the other part of me was too curious to care.
You have to understand that she has always been such a mystery to me. She is so alive, but so contained. I wish I could say that I let the document sit there for days while I went about my business of taking care of her cats, but I didn't. I'm sitting here now, today, my first day here, and I've already read it.
This is where you come in, nosleep readers: I need your help. I don't know what to do. I don't know what I just read. If it's a piece of fiction, it is creepily autobiographical. The details about our childhood all line up. If it is a journal... I wouldn't even know where to start. Maybe it's a fantasy of some kind? About how she wishes things were, but aren't?
Anyway, here it is:
The Mute Quiet Open Page
I'm telling you because I have to tell someone. It's bursting at my seams, this story pressing to get out. I'm telling this to you, the page. The mute, quiet, open page. I'm telling you this since you can't possibly judge me or tell another soul. You are only a page. Synapses of light and dark whizzing through your screen light the thoughts in my mind, buzzing, blinking, alive yet mindless.
I try to remember when I first realized I was different. Different from most but not all. No not all. It is mostly men though that think like me, that behave like me, so that does make me special, I think. I may have been three the first time I killed something on purpose. The feeling of power and presence and gleeful meanness was a drug first tasted and from that moment on consistently desired. I remember jumping on a fallen nest of baby birds. I could hear their little screams and it thrilled me utterly, completely. I jumped and jumped until there was only silence, and stillness. When my daycare teacher saw what I had done she grabbed my arm and yanked me hard, yelling "No! What have you done!" She tried to explain that it was wrong, that I must never-ever hurt a living thing. Well she did teach me something that day. She taught me that I must never be caught.
And I haven't been.
You see, I need to do it. I need to, to survive. It is more than air to me. Can you understand that oh blank and silent page? My only true friend. My only confidant. Why is it so wrong? Why. We are bags of blood and bones so messy and fragile. Why is it so wrong to delight in the destruction of that? I watch my cat Star stalk his prey and see the blood lust shivering through him. I watch his eyes glaze and sharpen simultaneously. He becomes something completely other than a pet. He is a sleek, gorgeous, instrument of death, and he delights in bringing me his headless prey. He doesn't kill for food or necessity. He kills for fun. Like me. I think sometimes how sweet it would be to have someone to deliver my prey to. Someone who would delight in my kills. I envy my cat his pride. I do feel pride but I have no one to share it with. No one but you, blank page. No one but you.
I think in many ways being a woman makes it easier to find prey. If I believed in God I would thank him for the gorgeous body and face that makes my pastime, no, my passion, possible. Sex is of very little interest to me but it is interesting to my prey, and so I am interesting to my prey. I look like a very good thing to fuck. Or so I've been told. That is marvelous to me because it makes me a magnet. I have an endless array of choices before me. It's intoxicating! I can hardly stand it some nights.
Imagine me as you will, and the reality of me would shatter your imagination. I am breathtaking. My beauty is lethal and undeniable. It is so difficult for me to understand sometimes why what I do is wrong. Why? When I was so obviously made expressly for this purpose: attract and destroy. If I wasn't meant to live this way, why would our imaginary God have made me so perfect for it? I imagine sometimes that I am more than human. That I am the evolution of humanity. The weeder of the weak perfecting and uplifting our species. Maybe you think I am making too much of myself. Building myself up. I promise you I am not. But then that's the beauty of you isn't it? That you can't think at all. That is why you are the perfect one to talk to. The only one.
I realized young that I would have to build a second-life to cover up my real life. There are so many important things to remember. It is such a delicate game but so worth it. In my second-life I live alone with my cats, Simon and Star. I am quiet, sweet and responsible. I pay my bills on time. I never wear makeup and I wear comfortable, sensible clothes. I wear glasses and ponytails. It is a cliched persona but no one ever questions me. I work part time at [redacted] and the work is very boring but I am good at it. I am efficient and innovative and indispensable. But I am not ambitious. I do not want to get ahead. I want the hours to pass in a blur. I want to paint my disguise easily, like the hours my cat Star spends napping on my couch. Looking at his sweet, furry, sleeping body one would never guess the glee he derives from hunting at night. I am the same way. Looking at my life, no one would ever guess the glee I derive from hunting at night.
But know this: I'm not dumb. I am not a slave to killing or an addict. The slaves and addicts get themselves caught by building distinguishing rituals. It is a stupid thing. It is short sighted. I build my rituals around my second-life. Predictability is my mask. It will never be my hallmark, or my downfall. I do not have an M.O. It is important to always be new. It is essential to my craft. Anyway the "how" isn't the important thing. The important thing is that I be free to continue.
I have told you a lot about my beauty. I suppose there are people who would say I am only beautiful on the outside. That what I do makes me ugly on the inside. It is a platitude I hear often about people like me. It is so far from the truth, though! I wish people could see that. As beautiful as I am on the outside, I'm even more beautiful on the inside. The power of my beauty is a pulsing, living thing. I only have to hide it because the rest of the people out there are so small and scared and blind. They have been hypnotized. They don't know the true meaning of beauty. When I watch a man die it is the most beautiful, the most sacred thing. I'm confounded to be living in a world that doesn't embrace this reality.
My childhood was a very interesting time. I learned so much by watching people. I learned when they laughed and when they cried and I learned how to laugh and cry too. It seemed so strange to me at first the things that made people laugh or cry. It took a while to understand. For example, I remember when my father would stand over me yelling and threatening to hit me, with his eyes bulged out and the veins throbbing in his forehead and neck, at first I would always laugh. His red boiling rage was so funny to me, and laughing made him angrier, which made him funnier... My mother would sit quietly like a frightened mouse until my father stumbled away to drink more. Then she would tell me, beg me really, "don't push his buttons. It's your fault he acts this way, you do this to him don't push his buttons." I was so confused. Then as my sister got older, I noticed that she would cry when he raged at her. She would cry, which was the right thing to do. Laughing was wrong and crying was right. It didn't matter to me either way. I loved watching his eyes bulge, and feeling my power to make his rage grow and grow. I never cared if he hit me, or threw plates and TV remotes at me, or smothered my mouth to make the sound stop. I never cared if he threw me down the steps, or kicked me across the room. But other people did, and so I learned that laughing made me seem wrong; it drew attention to me. I learned to cry to make them happy. To make them stop looking at me sideways. By about the age of 11 or 12, I was finally very very good at doing and saying the right things. My days of confusion were over. I realized that fitting in was important, it made me invisible. So I fit in. I still fit in. Beautifully.
Once I killed those birds, the desire to keep killing moved in me constantly. I didn't kill constantly, of course. I just wanted to. It became my mantra, and my secret. Anything and everyone I looked at, my thought was always "I could kill you." I learned early on that it was something I knew that they didn't. I could kill them. It is a power like absolutely no other. It is also the truth. I could kill any one of them. It has made it so much easier over the years to laugh and cry at the right times. Just knowing that one, comforting truth.
There were so many things to crush and crunch as a child too that it kept me satisfied. I wasn't like those fools I read about who spend their childhoods murdering their neighbor's pets and calling attention to themselves. There are plenty of wild things to kill in the woods. But at a point I wondered what it would feel like to kill one of the noisy, pointless humans. There are so many of them.
I don't decide who to stalk. They decide. Let me tell you what I mean. I was fourteen when I decided it could be better to kill things bigger than me rather than small things. It would be more difficult and therefore more satisfying. I can't say that I had friends at that age, or any age, but I was well liked and had many of my classmates jockeying to be by my side. They liked me. I never understood what that meant, or what it must feel like for them, this "liking". I am interested in people, yes, but I have never understood what it meant to like someone. Anyway, they liked me and made constant efforts to spend time with me. One of those girls was called Jennifer. Actually most of the girls in my school were called Jennifer - it's funny how names can be so connected to certain decades. This Jennifer had a brother called Mark. Mark liked to play doctor with Jennifer and her friends. This meant that Mark liked to hold Jennifer and her friends down and poke them with objects, including his body parts, in all kinds of places. When we were 11 Jennifer told me in class that she was scared she was pregnant because Mark came to her every night and put his penis inside of her and we had heard the kids whispering about how babies were made. She said she didn't really mind that he did that but she didn't want to have a baby. She didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to tell her to do. Humans are such strange and curious creatures.
I never played doctor with Mark. Mark wanted to very badly; I could see it in his eyes whenever I came to play with Jennifer. He watched me and always made excuses to be near. Finally, when I was 14 years old, Mark started following me on my walk home from school, but only on the days I was walking alone. It was interesting. It occurred to me that he might be stalking me. That was interesting. If he was stalking me then he would be keeping that a secret. He would want to be able to play with me with no one knowing. So his secret could be my secret. If no one knew he was stalking me, no one would know he was giving me the opportunity to play with him my way. I thought about it for a few weeks, and I watched him. I understood from reading books that killing humans could be difficult and messy. I needed something clean and simple. I knew the woods very well from my childhood hunting days. Slowly an idea began to form in my mind like a living thing giving birth to itself. I would let him follow me into the woods. We could play together there.
The morning of my plan dawned with a yawning electricity. The sky seemed bluer that day. The air felt thick and dense charged with a power that could only be emanating from within me. I was the source of that electrifying, delicious power. The knowledge of that was a new drug, better than any other thing that had come before. This was my destiny. It had to be, or the natural world would never meet me with such an eager intensity. I could feel that everything about my plan was right, and that the natural world approved. It was exhilarating. It was difficult for me to contain myself that day so I practiced my breathing and my bored looks, and focused on being the perfect invisible everybody. That day seemed to stretch into an eternity while also flying by in the quickest blur. There was no way to know if he really would follow me that day, but I felt that he would. And I was right.
I walked slowly towards my route, smiling and waving goodbye in a breezy, happy way to the other girls leaving school. I made my way towards my 20 minute walk home. I was at least seven minutes in before he appeared behind me, and I sensed him before I caught him through my peripheral vision. I saw him in a way that he would never know he had been seen. I'm very good at that. I stopped to fiddle with my bag, and seemed to "decide" to take a shortcut through the woods. The woods were beautiful in those days, and wild, and I had to be careful not to lose him. Today they are threadbare and sad, but back then they were dense and majestic. A perfect partner in crime. I stopped at the top of the rocky bluff and turned to face him through the trees, making eye contact for the first time. I saw his eyes flash with some unknowable emotion. "Come here", I told him. He walked towards me slowly as I started unbuttoning my shirt. I could see hunger in his eyes, and uncertainty? I'm not sure. But hunger, and it drew him towards me despite whatever other emotions he might be feeling. He came close to me and put his mouth on mine in a wet rush. He reached for his pants to unbutton them and I pushed him, hard, over the blush. The look of surprise on his face was so funny and I was free to laugh because I was alone with no one to watch me. The laughter was so sweet and natural and it felt so good to laugh when I wanted to, instead of being forced to cry. He fell so quickly. I waited and watched to see what would happen. Would he live? Would he die? His crumpled body fell in a crooked heap to the bottom of the bluff halfway in and out of the beautiful little creek that ran at its base. The angle of his bones was far too unnatural to sustain life. Especially the angle of his neck. A feeling like a volcanic vortex, like a huge wind blew up and through me, echoing off of everything. I had killed my first human. And it was easy. I buttoned myself back up and sat for a while studying the beauty around me and the beauty I had created. The joy bubbled up through me like wind chimes.
When the news of Mark's disappearance spread through town, I held Jennifer's hand and cried with her. Crying was the right thing to do. All the girls cried in the gymnasium when the school had their assembly. The school counselor wanted to be sure we all knew we could talk to her at any time. The dads formed search parties and the moms cried, held vigils, and served brownies and coffee. It took more than two weeks for the search party to find what was left of his body. The woods were full of hungry things. They ate his fingers and eyes and most of his face, but it was clear from the clothes he wore that they had found him, and that he had suffered a terrible fall.
There were whispers around town about Mark's "ways" and some of the girls had begun telling the school counselor stories of his doctor "games". But no one had seen him go into the woods, and no one knew why he might've gone to the bluff. There were no signs of struggle. It was strange, to be sure, but it appeared he had gone into the woods for unknown reasons and had taken a fall. They called it a tragic accident.
It was glorious.
It was like riding a smooth, perfect wave to shore. The feeling of power and peace stayed with me for a long time. It carried me. I knew that I was lucky, though, and that luck was not a safe hunting partner. I had to be smarter, much smarter, if I wanted to try that again.
First, like I've said before, I let my prey chose themselves. I like to hunt men who like to hurt women. It is absolutely exhilarating to watch them realize it is their turn to hurt. I don't have any ideas of justice and I have no desire to save or protect anyone. That is not what I'm about. I don't care that they are hurting women. I am not seeking revenge or retribution. No, I like hurting them because it is fun to see their arrogance turn to agony. I love the surprise in their eyes when they realize it is over, I've won. It's the thing that makes life worth living, those moments of triumph. I have heard it said that each kill gets less thrilling and so killers must "escalate" in order to continue to derive pleasure from their acts. For me, this isn't true. Each one is sweet and perfect and pure. Each one is absolutely beautiful.
I started in the days before DNA and blood splatter experts, so I am fortunate that I have been meticulous over the years. My first time taught me that I couldn't leave details to chance. My first time also taught me that I prefer a more hands-on approach. I like to be close enough to watch their eyes go cold and turn to glass. I take the deepest breath right at that moment and feel as if I could steal whatever animating force is escaping them. I feel as if I could breathe it right out of the very air surrounding us. It is the most intimate moment.
I wish you could feel it the way I do.
Ok it's me again. There's more but this post is already getting way too long. It goes on for a few more - what would you call it? Chapters? Entries? IDK.
When I say I don't know what to do, mean I don't know if I should talk to her about this, tell her that I found it? Please don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about going to the police or anything like that. No way in hell. Family first. It's just that maybe, sometimes, she might like help hiding the bodies?
Click here to give me advice about this situation on Reddit.
Three Earth Days
It's been a few earth days since I've gone to be with the Lord. At least I think it has. It is hard getting used to the no-time with a mind that still wants to count, and measure. And my mind still does want to count. And measure. They haven't found the body yet, my body, I suppose I should say, so there is still hope living in them. Such cruel hope. They are hoping I am still alive.
I don't mind being with the Lord. It's peaceful here. I am not really used to it yet, but there's nothing but time here, or rather there's no time here, which feels like the same thing, so I suppose I'll get used to it. I'm not a huge fan of peace, it's boring, but I'm sure I'll get over that. What choice do I have? There's no breathing here either, which is weird. Everything does breathe, but it's different. It's all breathing and no breaths. Like a vapor slipping through a membrane. I imagine things here and they appear, so I comfort myself by imagining clothes and shoes and regular things. The porch swing. I have to remember to make it squeak like it did.
I'm still alone here. I haven't figured out how to imagine company for myself yet. There are people of some sort here but I can't see them. I don't know how I know they're people, but it seems to me that I do, and they are. The interesting thing is the earth and the earth people. They're endlessly fascinating. They are so transparent from here! I can see all the way inside of them. It's interesting how seldom their insides and their outsides match. I suppose I should have guessed that from my own experience of life, but I never did. Not while I was out there. I just took angry people as angry and happy people as happy... I had no idea. I had no idea how much was always going on inside each and every one of them. It's fascinating that they don't seem to have any idea either.
I have a sense that as long as I stay fascinated by what's going on out there, I'll be stuck in this alone place in here. It's what I've begun to think of as an observation tower. Not that it's a tower. But an observation point. A place to sit and watch. I'm afraid too, to stop watching. I'm afraid if I stop watching, it will disappear. I don't think that's true, but still. It worries me. So I sit. And I watch.
There have been so many phone calls. Frantic calls, and crying, and praying, and pacing. Lots of pacing. So many people telling my parents not to worry, everything will be alright. Well it will be alright, but not like they think. I'd love to get a message to them, so they'd know it's ok, but I can't. I know that now. This is one of those things you come to know here. The worlds are in the same place, the very same place, yet they are separate. I can see them, but they can't see me. I don't know if everyone can see them or if I can see them because I'm still here, in the alone place.
I had always thought I would be greeted by all kinds of friends and family when it was my time to come here. Especially I thought Jesus would be waiting for me. But it wasn't like that. There was darkness, and the bad pain, and then a gray quiet. A completely full stillness. It sucked me in like an embrace and held me tight, then looser, then looser, until I was floating in it. And completely free. Then the light came and the wall appeared, like an IMAX screen wrapped all around. Then the lights turning into pinpricks and colors and then sound in the silence. Then the images of whoever I imagined. Watching the lives go by. That's why I think it has been three days that I've been here. I'm trying to follow the plot of what I'm watching. It was so disorienting at first though, I may be off by a day or two.
It's hard to watch because I know they'll be obsessed with who did this to me, and why. None of that matters here, but it will matter so much to them. It will steal so much of their time. The tragedy of this is not what happened to me, but what is about to happen to them because of what happened to me. At least it seems that way from my point of view. I'm not saying it's ok, what she did to me. I'm not saying anything like that. There don't seem to be words for what I'm trying to say. I'm saying she's lost, and should be stopped, but I'm ok. Everything would be different if they knew that. Does that mean I forgive her? It does. I have no idea how, and it doesn't matter.
There are things I would have done differently but that's so easy to say from this vantage point! Everything seems so real there, so serious and important. I'm not saying it's not real, it's just, different than I thought. It's just different.
I think the trick for me now, the next step in my journey, will be to want to know what's next for me, MORE THAN I want to know what's happening on earth. That's so hard! It seems almost selfish, because I know I'm ok, but I don't know when they'll be ok. I want to know! But then if I'm ok after what I went through, they'll be ok too, eventually, no matter what. Well that's true, there's that.
I knew they'd be ok. That's what popped me through! That weird and waggling train of thought. They WILL be ok. There's no other eventuality, and then: POP! Then sounds and movement and so much life! The screen of earth still there but so much smaller, like an old black and white TV up under the kitchen counter. Then the people came! The same but different but the same. Talking to me with their eyes instead of their mouths and laughing and so happy to see me. Laughing with their eyes. I was most relieved to see my pets since I always thought the people would be here but the pets? I wasn't so sure. Everyone is so young and happy here! It's a little strange, but beautiful. I'm glad to know I can still go watch that old dusty TV whenever I want to, though. Although I haven't wanted to as much, but I'm glad I can. I'm anxious to see the Lord. People tell me he's beautiful. I have an image of what he will be like, but I'm just not sure. Nothing here is like I thought it would be. I'm not saying I'm disappointed or anything, it's just an adjustment. That's all.
The Lord. The Lord. It sounds different in my head here. Whenever someone died we said, "They've gone to be with the Lord." It seemed simple and absolute but things don't seem that simple here. My grandfather (He's so young and handsome here!) told me that I'm looking at the Lord everywhere. That's so much like what he said on earth and I never expected to hear it here! At first people told me, "He's beautiful." Then people started adding, "She's beautiful." Then, "Isn't it beautiful?" So now I feel way more confused than I ever did out there. I don't get it. That would make me really angry if I could manage to be angry here. I was supposed to get all the answers here! Everything was supposed to make MORE sense not LESS sense.
The thing that does make sense is how I feel. I feel ok. That might not sound too great, but actually it is wonderful. It's amazing. It distracts me from that thought that I need to know. I have endless eye talks with everyone I love here: all at once and one at a time. However I choose. It is excellent. The insides and the outsides are the same here and it's good. It's good enough, which is amazing. It's hard to describe how it's amazing, and amazing doesn't do it justice. Knowing is becoming much less important to me. It seems lately there is nothing to know. Just being and being with and being and being with: is enough.
LOL it's so funny how things work here. It's so strange and funny. I was sitting with my grandfather on the porch swing I imagined for us. It was squeaking, I didn't forget. My grandfather hugged me and stood up and a young man sat down next to me. "Do you know who I am?", he asked me. I thought a bit and looked into his eyes. I felt that I did know who he was, but he was so young... "Am I what you expected me to be?," he asked.
"Not at all," I said, as we laughed together with our eyes.
I don't mind being with the Lord. It's peaceful here. I am not really used to it yet, but there's nothing but time here, or rather there's no time here, which feels like the same thing, so I suppose I'll get used to it. I'm not a huge fan of peace, it's boring, but I'm sure I'll get over that. What choice do I have? There's no breathing here either, which is weird. Everything does breathe, but it's different. It's all breathing and no breaths. Like a vapor slipping through a membrane. I imagine things here and they appear, so I comfort myself by imagining clothes and shoes and regular things. The porch swing. I have to remember to make it squeak like it did.
I'm still alone here. I haven't figured out how to imagine company for myself yet. There are people of some sort here but I can't see them. I don't know how I know they're people, but it seems to me that I do, and they are. The interesting thing is the earth and the earth people. They're endlessly fascinating. They are so transparent from here! I can see all the way inside of them. It's interesting how seldom their insides and their outsides match. I suppose I should have guessed that from my own experience of life, but I never did. Not while I was out there. I just took angry people as angry and happy people as happy... I had no idea. I had no idea how much was always going on inside each and every one of them. It's fascinating that they don't seem to have any idea either.
I have a sense that as long as I stay fascinated by what's going on out there, I'll be stuck in this alone place in here. It's what I've begun to think of as an observation tower. Not that it's a tower. But an observation point. A place to sit and watch. I'm afraid too, to stop watching. I'm afraid if I stop watching, it will disappear. I don't think that's true, but still. It worries me. So I sit. And I watch.
There have been so many phone calls. Frantic calls, and crying, and praying, and pacing. Lots of pacing. So many people telling my parents not to worry, everything will be alright. Well it will be alright, but not like they think. I'd love to get a message to them, so they'd know it's ok, but I can't. I know that now. This is one of those things you come to know here. The worlds are in the same place, the very same place, yet they are separate. I can see them, but they can't see me. I don't know if everyone can see them or if I can see them because I'm still here, in the alone place.
I had always thought I would be greeted by all kinds of friends and family when it was my time to come here. Especially I thought Jesus would be waiting for me. But it wasn't like that. There was darkness, and the bad pain, and then a gray quiet. A completely full stillness. It sucked me in like an embrace and held me tight, then looser, then looser, until I was floating in it. And completely free. Then the light came and the wall appeared, like an IMAX screen wrapped all around. Then the lights turning into pinpricks and colors and then sound in the silence. Then the images of whoever I imagined. Watching the lives go by. That's why I think it has been three days that I've been here. I'm trying to follow the plot of what I'm watching. It was so disorienting at first though, I may be off by a day or two.
It's hard to watch because I know they'll be obsessed with who did this to me, and why. None of that matters here, but it will matter so much to them. It will steal so much of their time. The tragedy of this is not what happened to me, but what is about to happen to them because of what happened to me. At least it seems that way from my point of view. I'm not saying it's ok, what she did to me. I'm not saying anything like that. There don't seem to be words for what I'm trying to say. I'm saying she's lost, and should be stopped, but I'm ok. Everything would be different if they knew that. Does that mean I forgive her? It does. I have no idea how, and it doesn't matter.
There are things I would have done differently but that's so easy to say from this vantage point! Everything seems so real there, so serious and important. I'm not saying it's not real, it's just, different than I thought. It's just different.
I think the trick for me now, the next step in my journey, will be to want to know what's next for me, MORE THAN I want to know what's happening on earth. That's so hard! It seems almost selfish, because I know I'm ok, but I don't know when they'll be ok. I want to know! But then if I'm ok after what I went through, they'll be ok too, eventually, no matter what. Well that's true, there's that.
I knew they'd be ok. That's what popped me through! That weird and waggling train of thought. They WILL be ok. There's no other eventuality, and then: POP! Then sounds and movement and so much life! The screen of earth still there but so much smaller, like an old black and white TV up under the kitchen counter. Then the people came! The same but different but the same. Talking to me with their eyes instead of their mouths and laughing and so happy to see me. Laughing with their eyes. I was most relieved to see my pets since I always thought the people would be here but the pets? I wasn't so sure. Everyone is so young and happy here! It's a little strange, but beautiful. I'm glad to know I can still go watch that old dusty TV whenever I want to, though. Although I haven't wanted to as much, but I'm glad I can. I'm anxious to see the Lord. People tell me he's beautiful. I have an image of what he will be like, but I'm just not sure. Nothing here is like I thought it would be. I'm not saying I'm disappointed or anything, it's just an adjustment. That's all.
The Lord. The Lord. It sounds different in my head here. Whenever someone died we said, "They've gone to be with the Lord." It seemed simple and absolute but things don't seem that simple here. My grandfather (He's so young and handsome here!) told me that I'm looking at the Lord everywhere. That's so much like what he said on earth and I never expected to hear it here! At first people told me, "He's beautiful." Then people started adding, "She's beautiful." Then, "Isn't it beautiful?" So now I feel way more confused than I ever did out there. I don't get it. That would make me really angry if I could manage to be angry here. I was supposed to get all the answers here! Everything was supposed to make MORE sense not LESS sense.
The thing that does make sense is how I feel. I feel ok. That might not sound too great, but actually it is wonderful. It's amazing. It distracts me from that thought that I need to know. I have endless eye talks with everyone I love here: all at once and one at a time. However I choose. It is excellent. The insides and the outsides are the same here and it's good. It's good enough, which is amazing. It's hard to describe how it's amazing, and amazing doesn't do it justice. Knowing is becoming much less important to me. It seems lately there is nothing to know. Just being and being with and being and being with: is enough.
LOL it's so funny how things work here. It's so strange and funny. I was sitting with my grandfather on the porch swing I imagined for us. It was squeaking, I didn't forget. My grandfather hugged me and stood up and a young man sat down next to me. "Do you know who I am?", he asked me. I thought a bit and looked into his eyes. I felt that I did know who he was, but he was so young... "Am I what you expected me to be?," he asked.
"Not at all," I said, as we laughed together with our eyes.
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