Ephemera

The story so far. 

Fata Obscura

Sorry for the recent lack of posts, but I've been busy since the Fates have decided it's time to complete the project mentioned here. I suppose they thought 7 years was more than long enough to procrastinate.

This and Every Evening

When your hobby is trying to make art out of things that can't be seen, the results are going to be a little...unusual.

By the way, I finally came across the picture that inspired the name of this project/blog many years ago. I'd been looking for it for ages. It was a handbill advertising "phantasmagoria, this and every evening."

I still think it fits perfectly, whether I live in Victoria or not.

Erinyes

I don't talk about it much here, as I'd like this blog to be nice or pretty, or interesting at the very least. PTSD is none of these things. Talking about it doesn't help anyway. It only feeds the slavering maw.

But I've had a hell of a week. Oh, nothing happened, not as such, but then nothing really needs to happen. It was just a matter of taking an unexpected detour through a certain neighborhood at a certain time on a humid, drizzling morning. Suddenly I was back there, or rather back then, 23 years disappearing in less than a blink, a nerve twitch in a bloodshot eye.

I think it was the bird song that did it this time. There must be different birds in that neighborhood, some kind that prefer the sprawling dark of the magnolia trees. It had been a long time since I'd heard those birds calling out, in that way, in that weather.

I shuddered three times, full body shudders. That was my warning. I laughed it off, except not really. I told myself to laugh it off, because my flashbacks are stupid and dumb and meaningless. They aren't, of course, but I see it through other people's eyes. Stupid girl, dumb girl. Can't get over it, always grieving. As if it were real grief. What a fool.

This is before time disappeared, like the ocean pulling back before a wave. I never catch it in time, but then, I never think I should. It's something that doesn't come up in support groups - who's to say I don't deserve this? Perhaps these Furies live in my head because the punishment is just?

Given the oft-quoted principle of what you would say to a friend suffering this condition, if this was said to anyone else - and understand, I am a pacifist who abhors violence of any kind - I might feel inclined to punch the one who said it. Such a suggestion is beneath human dignity. It is plain wrong. But the Furies in my head are not so forgiving. The Furies want to kick my ass.

So there I am, woefully young again, on the precipice of losing. I'm about to lose so big that the  damage will spread to those around me, like a prairie fire or a row of dominoes. The man shakes me, calls me names. His cruelty makes me want to disappear. I want this to stop, yet I will have to relive it again and again, years into the future. The Furies aren't only vengeful, they're ironic. Their memory for nasty details is impeccable.

After the flashback, there's nothing to do but continue to exist, through the fatigue, through the brain-fog.  Put on my smiling face, even though it's a miserable fake. Draw a big X on my mental map, and write "here there be monsters." Or Erinyes, to be exact.

Call me a coward, but I have no wish to venture into their territory again. Some things are not worth the price.

Self Portrait Self

The Grave Dancer

 Dream archive - May 24, 2009

In the dream, we are driving home late at night. The only light is the full moon, and I can see the silhouettes of  palm trees lining the road. Nearing home,  my  husband says, "there's someone outside the house".

I look up and see a glimpse of a veiled woman underneath my window. We know it is the grave dancer.

My husband pushes me down and says "hide, hide!"  He stands guard at the window, but we know she's out there. There are bells attached to the grave dancer's veil, and we can hear them outside in the dark.

Lone Oak Cemetery, Part 3

It was nearly 17 years ago that my brother told me of something strange at Lone Oak. He had been visiting our aunt's grave late one afternoon, when his attention was caught by a headstone with a woman's photograph. The year of her death was 1919. He was completely alone in the cemetery, so I suppose he was unconcerned about being overheard when he spoke aloud: "Huh. I wonder if she died in the flu epidemic."

According to him, he immediately heard a buzzing in the air. It sounded like a lot of people whispering at once..Out of these sounds, he said, a distinct voice said "yes". It came from the left, from the grave of the woman's daughter. The whispering died away, and he was suddenly aware that the sun was very low in the sky and the wind was picking up. To hear him tell it, he couldn't get out of there fast enough.

It certainly sounded creepy. "Well, if you go out there, just don't go at sunset" he said.

It really was happenstance that the sun was beginning to set when my cousin and I wound our way to the cemetery gates later that year. It had been a long trip, we had spent hours at the library doing research and come all this way. It was less than fortunate timing, but we weren't going to not stop just because of that. Besides, we had  fresh cut roses to bring to our aunt, it would be a shame to waste them.

It was June, the grain was high in the fields. It felt so isolated, with only a few houses and a church across the road. The sun was on the horizon, but never mind, there was plenty of light left to do what we came to do. We laid the flowers for our aunt and decided to search out the grave where my brother heard the voice. It wasn't far - the grave of  a woman named Elsa, next to her daughter, Alma. Alma's photo plaque was sadly broken, but Elsa looked to be a sensible lady, not so scary. We heard no voices, but perhaps it  was at that point I began to feel a little strange.

I said nothing to my cousin, but  kept seeing movement out of the corner of my eye. There was nothing there of course, but even seeing nothing I could swear there was something.. I turned it over in my mind - the movements of trees, shadows? Perhaps those little flags placed on veteran's graves being whipped about in the wind. Nerves. Then again, this cemetery was peaceful. It didn't feel threatening. But why did I keep mistaking the shape of the headstones for people? Why did I feel so sure we were being watched?

We continued walking, my cousin reading out the women's names on the headstones: Mitta, Lille, Alamina.... "such pretty, old-fashioned names"  she said. It was dark enough that we noticed that the cross on the church opposite was lighted. We were nervous enough to feel comforted by it. The wind was really picking up.

              The lighted cross on the church opposite, July, 2012

We were walking toward the west corner - drawn by its relative isolation - when a car sped down  the narrow road through the cornfields. A young man out for a joyride perhaps. The car disappeared into the distance. We kept walking, but my cousin had become remarkably quiet. I wasn't feeling so chatty either. I wasn't scared exactly, but something was becoming very wrong. A strange thought came to me: "That was the first alarm."

 The sky was still streaked with pink but the sun had set.. The sound of the wind in the fields was not comforting. I hadn't realized the way wind can blow across flat land, that constant hollow rushing. It went on and on.

The man in the car sped past again. We saw him through the gates. That was the second alarm, I thought. My cousin kept looking  toward the lighted cross. I was beginning to feel real fear now, the kind that was like an outside pressure forcing my body to move. Five minutes later, the man in the car sped by again, and my cousin who looked  very white in the face, said. "I think we'd better go now." As we started to move toward the gate, the fear came upon us so strong that we began to run. It was a blind panic, terror. It seemed more than the fear that some guy might harass us on a country road at twilight, though that was bad enough. It seemed like something else. It was as if something had begun to yell at us to run.

We didn't speak for a while. When we did, we tried to think what happened. Well, that man in the car was unsettling, no? It could have been him who caused us to panic. But maybe not. There was something else there. We could feel it. That lighted cross on the church seemed almost as if it had a specific purpose, facing the graveyard that way. The next time we went, we made sure we brought a male friend, so we wouldn't have to worry about strange men on country roads. We went even later, at night. We wanted to know what it was that frightened us- maybe it was just that man, after all. Our friend was very jovial, out for a lark. I can't even say what happened - only that one moment we were walking down the lane in the pitch darkness, Jeff chuckling that we'd need a guardian for this - and the next we were all scrambling into the car, scared out of our minds. Even Jeff  was so frightened he couldn't open the simple latch on the gate - we jumped it instead.

A year later, I gave it another try, with another companion this time. I had brought him to show him this place where my some of my family had settled. Once again, we didn't mean to come at sunset, it was bad timing. Again, I felt safe enough not to forgo the visit. Probably I had exaggerated the fear in my mind. We walked about as the sun was setting. It was he who first pointed out the cradle boards around the grave in the west corner - I hadn't yet had the nerve to make it back there on my own. We crisscrossed the grounds, splitting up to examine things on our own. The sun had dropped below the horizon and the wind had begun to pick up the way it always seemed to do as night was falling. Again, I was amazed at how far sound carried there. There was no one to be seen for miles, but I could hear the sound of people working, building something perhaps, shouting to each other and banging away on something metal. .The sounds made it feel less lonely. It was getting quite dark and the wind was howling by then. I was back in the west corner, taking a closer look at those odd, out of place burial sites. They really were intriguing. The fear I'd felt must have been my imagination, it wasn't bad here at all....

I hear a faint sound - my companion is shouting my name into the wind. He's coming across the grounds, very fast, and says come on, we have to go, we have to go. I ask him what's up and he only  takes my arm and says "we have to go right now."  He's taking me back to the car - is prepared to carry me bodily if he has to, he says - when the fear hits me full on. My knees are so weak that I can barely get myself into the passengers seat. We go as fast as possible away from there. Finally my companion says "everything was fine one minute, the next there was a voice in my ear saying "get her out of here, now, run, RUN!'" It wasn't the sort of voice you could argue with.

On the long drive home, I said, "it surprises me the way sound carries - those people working must have been miles away". He looked puzzled. I said, "all those people shouting and banging; it was pretty loud. didn't you hear it?' He says, appalled, "honey, there wasn't any sound out there but the wind"

It would be a long time before any of us went back, but finally, we did. At twilight again, but this time on purpose.

.

Picnic Area #17 or, The Horror of Home

When you have been a strange child, nostalgia is a double edged sword. Walking through the park where you once spent so many hours is fraught with emotion. It's all fine one moment, recalling this bend of the road, the gravel beneath the swings, the water fountain where your hot and tired classmates lined up for a drink. Everything smells the same - the grass, trees and river still have the same sweet scent and you are amazed how much you remember despite having forgotten. When you have been a strange child, though, alongside comes an upwelling of old miseries.

Depression and alienation have effects that are hard to put your finger on. It's not so easy as cataloging a series of events. It means nothing to say. "I felt lonely in this spot" or "the bank of this creek is where I sat crying in despair". These are only expressions of things that happened The real horror is one of perception. Depression is like a wound in the mind

Amid the the sunnier memories, the feel of a nightmare emerges. The dense mat of live oak leaves crunching under my feet makes me nauseous. The webby light coming through the trees feels prickly. There is a yawning horror somewhere that I can't name, only sense its presence. It's here though, and comes back to haunt me in vague, uninterpretable dreams.

I had forgotten about picnic area 17. Reservations Only. It's always been there under the trailing oak branches, despite my forgetting. Snippets of far-off memory emerge - my sister's friends hoping to hide from prying eyes. My schoolmates in our Kindermaskenball costumes playing and clinging to branches like little monkeys in fancy dress, or sharing sodas with other girls whose names have been lost to me. It hardly matters. These are all just descriptions of things that happened. I had forgotten all of that long before yesterday as I was making my way to the springs, when suddenly it was there in front of me. The light coming through the branches was as it had always been, catching me in its sickening web.

There is no reason I can give, only that the wound in my mind makes it so.

Burning Down One Side

No, the title makes no sense. The song just happens to be stuck in my head. ;p