The Topiary Angel

I was the last to notice that something was wrong about the woman in the corner apartment. She was only very aged, I thought, and maybe a bit out of touch with reality. Lawrence said she gave him the creeps, though, he didn't like walking past her door. Angela said she was crazy, but when I asked how she knew, she just said, "I know."

The first time I understood was when the topiary angel appeared, set up in the garden facing the woman's windows. I should say, it was once a topiary angel. Now it was something else, and we felt cold when we walked by. It still had the vague shape of wings at its back, covered in ragged greenery like the rest, but its face was greyish with mold.and its crown was a triad of spikes. It was no longer the thing it was meant to be, but had become something chilling and strange.

We could see the angel's dark shape beyond the ash trees, and learned to circumvent that part of the garden. Sometimes we'd forget though, and realize too late that we would have to cross its path.We'd hurry as quickly as we could, feeling the gaze from its eyeless, moldering face.

The woman watched from the window. At night, she would creep into the garden to talk to the shape in a low voice. Sometimes she would place objects inside its frame; marbles or bits of colored foil. Then she would take them away again.

Stephanie said, I want to get rid of it, just run by and snatch it and hurl it into the nearest dumpster. But I can't stand the thought of touching it.

The woman on the corner muttered and whispered. She talked about poison, how they all wanted to poison her. There was a strange smell in her apartment, in the vents. They had killed her dog, she said. But the angel was watching them.

She disappeared one night, the woman, along with the angel. Only the crown of spikes remained, wedged in the boughs of the ash tree. We all stood, staring, wanting to take it away but too afraid. Eventually, the crown disappeared too, and the fear at last began to fade from the garden.

This is the last I know of the topiary angel.

Little Pink House

One night, I dreamt of a little pink house. I lived there in blissful solitude, under a starry sky.

Moments later, my friend Theo busted through the door carrying a watermelon, but that part of the dream didn't make it into the painting. ;)

My Other Car Is A Broom

 

New Years Eve. Time to sweep away the misfortunes of the old year.

Random Strangeness Strikes In The Housewares Deparment

In keeping with the previous post, Thanksgiving week brought a moment of  unexpected department store oddness.

We were at a Target store in Houston, hunting for cans of Sterno. Everything was as you'd expect - one Target store being much like another Target store. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, I was struck by a weird feeling, a sort of dizziness and many-layered deja vu. I said aloud, "jeez, that's weird" and the spouse said "yeah, I feel dizzy." We agreed there was something weird about just this one little spot, but could come to no conclusion about what it was.

While we were waiting for a worker (lovely man, very helpful) to find the Sterno, I snapped a photo of the deja vu inducing area, because, erm, that's what I do. Just in case there might be some clue there that would only be evident with study. As you can see, it's a photo of....coat hooks.

Nothing much exciting going on there. No obvious cause of odd sensations striking us in the housewares department. Maybe the stark black and white color scheme had something to do with it, or perhaps all the little holes in the pegboard caused some sort of visual overload.Who can tell? It was just one of those brief down-the-rabbit-hole moment that crop up seemingly just to keep you on your toes.

We paid for our cans of Sterno and left, and nothing else strange happened at all. Well, except the person in the next stall in the restroom unexpectedly shouted "whoo-hooo!" but probably that was nothing supernatural. ;)

The Arcana Of Shopping Centers

It's one of those things that most people don't notice, or if they do, they don't mention it. Assuming, of course, that it exists, which some would say it doesn't.

Walking down the big shopping center on the edge of town, I told my companion to stop.
"Do you feel that?" I asked, hopefully.
He looked around, considering.
"yes" he said.
"well, what does it feel like?"
"like something important happened here."

There was nothing special about the place where we were standing. It was a nondescript spot toward the far end, somewhere between Petsmart and Ross dress-for-less. The shop-space nearest us was empty, and being that this was a fairly new shopping center, may never have been occupied at all. It was an unlikely place for happenings of importance, past or present.

I've long been fascinated by shopping centers, and it's nothing to do with shopping. There is something about them that haunts me. Maybe it's all the sharp edges and corridors and odd empty corners. One feels (well, I feel) some immeasurably distant past is there. Some sort of lost hope, maybe. An eternal lonely longing that settles in the eaves, regardless of all the people milling about below.

 

Perhaps it's the geometry of the place that evokes this feeling. Architecture that suggests hidden needs that might be fulfilled. There is a reason that psychologists are used to help design shopping malls. It's all meant to direct and disorient, whatever will lead the customers to buying and spending more. Personally, though, I've had my doubts about this being the reason for my own reaction, as these mysterious feelings never lead me to think about shopping. They only make me question the nature of reality instead. 

I know from working at one of the big retail centers that they are prime places for unusual happenings. We'd get vertigo walking down the hallways or get lost coming back from lunch. There would be portentous conversations with complete strangers, flickering lights, ghosts in the storerooms. Mannequins would stare at us blankly. Outside, on those slow, hot days when the only sound was the echo of pigeons' wings, one of the payphones might ring as you walked by. If you answered, god only knew what you might hear; someone singing, or a staticky robot voice reeling off numbers.

One evening not long ago, I stopped to peer though a moon-shaped structure, not too far from where we'd had the conversation at the beginning of this post. There was a small breeze blowing dust and leaves around the sidewalk. I looked down and noticed half a dozen small leaf-devils whirling at the base of the wall - the angle must have been just right for it. I remembered that dust devils and whirlwinds create their own electrical and magnetic fields, and I wondered how many other odd little winds were bouncing around all these spaces, invisible to the eye, but affecting our minds and bodies in unexpected ways.

Then again, I also remembered the old tales that whirlwinds are wandering spirits, passing through on their travels.

Either way,  all I know for sure is that the world (and the occasional shopping center) can be mysterious and infinitely strange.

The Value Of Writng Things Down

It's been a year now since I posted "the girl who was witched away".  It wasn't easy to write, nor was it very informative or even very good, but it seems to have been enough. Which is what I'd hoped for, after all.
When an icy wind cuts across the fields and the sky is a certain color,  the familiar twinge of anguish bites. Then I remember, I already wrote it. It's over, it's done. The twinge is only the remnant  a 30 year-old habit. It can be dismissed, sent off to the past where it belongs. It no longer lives and breathes.

The story doesn't have to belong to me any more. I no longer have to be haunted by it. It's just another damn thing on the internet now.

Thank heavens.