In the last installment of Early Writings, I discussed my early fascination with horror. I wrote a short, and frankly, very disjointed book with some friends at the time, about the Sawyer family and their battle with the supernatural.
I am learning a lot about the person I once was from all of my childhood possessions, including my early writing, which arrived in the boxes of items sent over by my mother this summer.
The book about the Sawyer family does not seem a million miles away from my recent obsession with reality TV programs such as Ghost Hunters and Haunted Collector. So why do these things intrigue me? The best answer I can come up with is that I love stories about real life, and so often in these programs they are digging into the past, finding out the histories of the people who lived (and sometimes died) in the houses before them. Sometimes the stories are tragic, but often they are just littered with ordinary everyday details, like the ghost in the hotel who whistles while still going about his daily work.
And of course, like so many people, I'm sure there is a part of me who wants to think that the people I want to stick around do -- at least in some sense or the other. Or maybe it's just that I can't believe there are people who make their living from ghost hunting. I mean, how do you get jobs like this? (Not that I would want to do it. My imagination is in overdrive as it is.)
So with that, I will leave you with another random chapter from the book. At the end there's a chapter called The Conquering (not written by me) that kind of ends it, as one member of the family goes through the mirror into the "human spirit world" and basically tells the ghosts to go away. But before that we have... Horrifying Dream*.
Tara danced into her room humming a soft quiet melody. She flounced into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. After a while she was snoring. Mrs. Sawyer peeked into her room and smiled. But only if she knew what she was dreaming!
First, Tara saw a long neverending graveyard. Her mind focused in on a small corner of it. She could see all her family except herself. Where was she? Then all of a sudden she saw the grave. It said "Tara Sawyer. Died November 23, 1987."
"No! No! No!" she screamed. "What's wrong?" said a voice. Tara looked it was her mother. Tara didn't want to tell her mom what happeded so she just said "I had a bad dream."
During breakfast she realized something. Today was November 23, 1987. She gulped.
After breakfast she went around telling everyone that they should leave the house. Her mother thought this was unusall for Tara so she gave her an aspirin and a puzzle book and sent her to bed.
While she was concentrating on her puzzle she started thinking about her fathers death. Tara started to get dizzy. The room spun around fast. Voices echoed in her ears. Leave this house, go away. A female voice screamed at the top of her lungs and suddenly everything went black.
When she woke up all visions of this were gone. She told her family about it and they belived her. Mrs. Sawyer was getting a little trobled by these happenings.
I would be troubled too. I might need to take an aspirin now and go to bed with a puzzle book.
*As usual, not corrected for spelling and grammar.
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