I once read a quote that said, "the more we know, the more we fear." I believe this quote to be true. Pretend you never heard of ghosts; and you were standing in the middle of a graveyard under a full moon and a branch snapped somewhere out beyond your sight. Probably you would ignore it and think that it was some kind of nocturnal creature scavenging around. However, having been exposed to ideas that paranormal activity exists here on Earth... the heck with finding out whether it was only an animal... you would run faster than Usain Bolt the hell outta there!
I've been scared of my own shadow since I was big enough to have one. As a child and still until this day, I run to my bed and leap before the "bad guy" under it grabs my foot. Its silly really. But the dark is no place for this chicken. Sometimes I feel things. As if someone was watching me. The majority of you can probably relate to walking home alone at night and peeking over your shoulder every now and then, eyes peered on every bush and ally. Ears perked for the sign of any footsteps that are not your own. And believe me, I've run from the sound of my own footsteps before!
I believe that sometimes we see things without acctually knowing it. Its the my mind is playing tricks on me theory. -- Something goes whoosshh out of the corner of your eye, you ask your best mate if he saw it, he says no, and you lead yourself to believe you were "seeing things". Well gorgeous...you probably WERE!
I've made mention that I am a chicken. And I am. As soon as its dark and the sound of silence overwhelms my mind. I literally grow bright yellow feathers, and begin clucking. I'm afraid of many things...spiders, drowning under ice, and free-falling, among others. However those "forces in nature" can all be explained and controlled. *Dont go bungee-jumping, stay off of frozen lakes and ask my dad to kill the spider on my ceiling.* But when something goes bump in the night, I turtle under my bed sheets and curl into feotal position and hold my breath. When I am not priveledged to be in the safety of my bed, I can't seem to pry my eyes away from the dark corners of the room, holding whatever is around me as a weapon (as if it could defeat something already dead.)
I've lived in the same house or over 12 years. I make my dogs walk through it with me at night when I'm alone and turn on every light in every hallway and room as I proceed. I can blame this on conditioning from horror flicks. I once saw a scene of a girl in a bathroom, I don't remember which movie it was from, but it was showing her washing her face and as soon as she looked up into her reflection, the audience saw a creepy shadow move swiftly in the background along with hearing one of those violin screeches for effect. NOW, sometimes when I wash my face before bed and I feel a presence behind me, I reflex and look into the mirror blinking the blur and stinging of soap out of my eyes until I believe the coast is clear. Its the little everyday (I can relate to that) things in horror movies that creep me out. Not a guy in a hockey mask poping out of the bushes with a chainsaw. The scary, gorey movies have no effect on me really. Its the creepy, eerie situations that really put the pulse on a tredmill. At the end of the day dude....
So before I take off I'll share with you one personal story that is a reason for me never venturing to my furinished basement again. This story however, as creepy as it is, seemed more like a gift from God.
I used to have a Shetland Sheepdog named Lacey. She was beautiful. Basically she looked like the star dog "Lassie" except miniature. My parents bought her for me when I was only five years old and lost my baby sister. After that, I wasn't ever going to have any siblings, so they decided on a canine companion. (Bless them). As a puppy she LOVED to chew the laces out of our shoes, which is how she got her name "Lacey". In order to break her of eating our expensive shoes, we began giving her rawhide shoes to fill her void. ( See Picture). My Lacey lived for ten years, happy and healthy. The summer before her eleventh birthday I was taking her for her daily walk, when she was maliciously attacked by a Pitbull-mix. We watched my baby get thrown around like a stuffed toy until hitting the ground with a whimper once my dad batted off the Pitbull with a shovel. We rushed her to Guelph where some of the best Vets around are, and left her in their care. She was there only a few days when the Veterinarian caring for Lacey called us up around 10PM one night and said that we needed to make the decision if we wanted to put her down because she was suffering. We told her to wait until tomorrow, so that we could see her...just one last time.
2:28 that morning we recieved the call. Lacey was on the outs naturally, so we bundled into the car to get out there and say goodbye.
2:55AM we were halfway there. Another phonecall on my mom's cellphone.
She was gone.
It wasn't too long later when we decided to fix up the empty basement into a family room. We put the carpet and the floor down, and we added a big screen, fireplace and all couches and lamps we needed to make it a cozy one. My mom and I didn't necessarily like the way the funiture was placed in the room, and the day after Leon's came, we decided to change up the way the couches were positioned. So we pushed and pulled piece by piece until we had the loveseat left. This one we would have to lift in order not to scratch the hardwood it was on. We had only walked a couple of paces before my mom screamed and dropped her side of the couch. "Impossible," she bellowed, "Impossible!!" I dropped my side slowly directing my eyes into the spot my mom couldnt pry hers away from. There it was, sitting so silently staring back up at us. A rawhide shoe. Without the laces.
* . krystle KAY