Nyctophobia

Happy Halloween!

For the final edition of Frightful Fiction Friday I have gathered some excellent inspiration for my final phobia story.

I took part in a

Ghost Tour of Niagara,

last weekend in Niagara On The Lake and if it weren’t for the guide with the candle, well I was pretty much in the dark the entire time anyway. Let’s see what I can dream up.

Check out my previous story,

Acrophobia,

and now…enjoy getting lost in the darkness.

***

5.
Darkness. Nothing tightens our breath or sends chills down our spine like the idea of walking through a dark forest, alone. We know it’s full of trees and timid squirrels, but we know that’s beneath the sunlight. The night tells a different story. The night is dark and quiet, and unknown. We hate when we have to trust that there’s nothing following us and we hate to be lost for we know there are times when the strength of our mind and the strength of our legs simply isn’t enough.

***

This historical ghost walk is going to be a peace of cake, she thinks. After all, she is in a fairly large group of people. What could possibly go wrong?

She wakes suddenly. Something is not quite right. Her head is swimming and she reaches out in the dark that surrounds her and in the blank part of her own mind. She can’t remember what happened, how she ended up here, or indeed where here even is.

It is dark. That is all she knows.

She stands unsteadily and fully takes in her situation. She had been exploring this historic site with a group of other curious people. Where had they gone?

She couldn’t stay here. The tree roots caused her to stumble as she began to grasp the fact that she was totally alone.

The others must have not noticed she was missing or they would have sent someone to find her. Surely those who knew this spot best would have found her, no problem.

As she moved slowly through the ever enveloping darkness she heard noises somewhere out there and shivered. Was this some bad dream she was having in response to her decision to go on that bloody, excuse the term, ghost tour that evening? She probably should have just stayed home. Lesson for next time: trust her instincts.

There was no more group of people surrounding her, allowing her to shake off her nervousness. No longer was there a confident tour guide with a candle to lead the way. The darkness felt heavy and seemed to weigh heavily on her limbs.

She spotted one of the buildings up ahead, a dark shape looming out of the rest of the darkness. She approached it with a mixture of relief and hesitancy. Something told her this building wouldn’t hold the safety and protection she hoped it would. It would be just as dark, or darker inside. Maybe she was better off staying out here.

She reached for the wall and slumped down, her back to it. Any strength she may have had was waning. What if she didn’t make it to morning and the relative certainty of rescue?

No no no. What a silly thought. Someone would be back and they would find her and apologize profusely for losing track of her like this. This definitely was not a part of the tour.

Suddenly a horrible moaning came from somewhere out there. It was a sound unlike anything she had ever heard. It was, undoubtedly, the sound of someone experiencing great suffering.

She had the urge to run to and from it. She wanted to help who ever that was in such agony, but at the same time she could not escape the darkness and wished to run in the opposite direction, even if it brought her into more unknown, pitch blackness. She could not go, and yet she could not move.

A figure came near then, running and dropping something as it passed her. It seemed to take no notice of her, but ran from the direction of the screams.

“Wait!”
The fleeing figure did not stop and appeared not to notice or hear her.
She stood in fear and picked up what the passerby had let fall.

She felt the sticky rag between her fingers, but could not see what this was in all the dark.

All she could do was smell the thick metallic odour and she knew it was the blood of the one letting out those terrible sounds, somewhere out there in the abyss.

The darkness seemed to take over than and the last thing she heard was more screams and moans and the scent of blood on the rag in her hand choked her as she slid down into a darkness so thick she felt like she would be trapped in this black pit for eternity.

***

So there you go and here we are at the end of October and the end of this series.

I don’t know if I frightened you with any of my stories, but I sure frightened myself. I wrote about fears I have had and I want to thank

Young And Twenty,

one more time for providing the blog post and the inspiration these last five Fridays, with her:

5 Fears and What They Say About Us.

Are you afraid of the dark?? I don’t require lights on to get around my house in the middle of the night. You’d think I had no fear of the dark if I had been so used to it, but depending on my circumstances I can be very jumpy.

What are you most afraid of? Do you have a phobia of some kind? How has it affected you?

Nuit Blanche

My brother’s only real glimpse of Toronto’s all-night art festival, Nuit Blanche, a big inflatable octopus in the subway station.

This did not help me understand this event and in fact it made me even more confused. He is an artist/photographer and even he couldn’t seem to explain it to any real satisfaction. Sometimes there are no words.

I drove away from the city as night fell and imagined all those people wandering through the streets of Toronto, all night, in the cold and the damp October chill.

Check out my friend’s experience with,

Some Untimely Thoughts: Nuit Blanche

She has studied art for several years and could sum it up better than most people.

I found her descriptions intriguing and curious and I think you will too.

All art is subjective. There is beauty in it all, whatever you make of it.

Arachnophobia

Last week I started the first of the five Fridays of October with a writing prompt from:

Five Fears and What They Say About Us.

My story:

Phasmophobia,

well it seemed to frighten some more than others.

Now, for Week Two, Young and Twenty makes a good point about spiders being a metaphor for the differences we shrink away from. A creature so different from us is likely to give us the creeps and it does for so many. This can easily be turned into the nightmares of horror movies or dark dreams.

When I think of spiders, I don’t think of the little guys crawling on my arm. I think of the giant spiders in Harry Potter or the evil female spider and her descendants from Tolkien’s Middle-Earth.

Then I try to write from what would be my nightmare, something that could happen in what might seem like everyday life. When you can not see one little spider is nothing really to freak out over. The texture of walking into a web or brushing up against one with my hand is enough to make me squirm though.

***

2.
Spiders. Although many spiders are less dangerous than a bear, we hold a stronger sense of resentment. We fear the unknown and we hate the idea of living amongst something so different than us. It’s not surprising that we hate spiders, as we’re guilty of looking at everyone different from us as though they have eight legs.

***

No big bad monsters that chase around a dark town square. No evil spirits haunting dreams. No lions and tigers and bears. Oh my!

I just happen to glance down and spot him crawling along your arm. You automatically flinch and pull your arm away, as a shiver of revolt pulses through you.

“He’s just a little spider. I can’t believe you are afraid of a measly little daddy longlegs.”

“Oh but they’re gross.”

Now that you’re alone and it’s not just a joke, the walls seem to be crawling with, not just one, but millions. You could handle one of them on your arm, others who have no fear of spiders mocking you, but now you see them everywhere you look, crawling out of every crack and cranny.

The sun shines through the window, but the pane soon fills with their bodies and their legs, eight at a time, (sixteen, twenty-four, thirty-two…) Webs stretching this way and that.

You stand and try to run from the room and your face feels the sticky spidery tangle. They are weaving their homes all through the room. They all communicate with one another, squeaking their plans all around their webs.

“Don’t let the human escape,” they conspire.

You are being closed in. Oh, how you’d like to go back to that one tiny crawling spider on your arm, when now spiders and webs encircle you. Just outside you can hear the birds chirp and the cars drive by, but it’s as if these hair thin webs are becoming a sound barrier, blocking out the world. You could scream, but the spiders say it’s no use. You don’t know how you can hear them, how you can make out their cries from all around you, but somehow you understand every word.

“Pinch yourself,” you say in your own head. Or was it? Strangely assuming, hoping you said it in your head so these monsters can’t hear you. What are you talking about? Spiders can’t understand English, even if you could open your terrified mouth to speak out loud.

You lift your arm to pinch the other, hoping you will awake, but webs tickle your hand and you instinctively pull back, your hand dropping to your side. You are being pinned in and you suddenly realize you have been backed into a corner. These spiders have forced you into the corner by the television, which was on and up loud when you noticed that first spider on your shirt.

I hear the plug being pulled and the sound of the electrical charge makes this, suddenly, all so real. As if all these spiders weren’t real enough. Maybe you think you would have been woken up when the sound splits the air of the heavily webbed room. Nothing can save you now.

The sounds from outside are muffled now by the squeaks of these eight-legged web-weavers…did they hear me call them that? you wonder. No…they couldn’t possibly. The room grows dimmer and dimmer now, no more light streaming in.

***

If my above story doesn’t cut it, isn’t enough to freak you out then I include, as a final thought, this news story:

http://abcnews.go.com/Weird/wireStory/spiders-force-family-upscale-missouri-home-26106285

National Disability Employment Awareness Month

Last week I spoke on a strictly medical point-of-view with

Diagnosis and Treatment.

For this week’s post I thought I would highlight the need for integration and awareness, for a cause so important to me: October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month in Canada.

Q: Do you think that its more important to emphasize medical treatment, life skills, community integration, or a combination of these things?

***

A: I am a big fan of not choosing one thing. In this case, just one won’t cut it.

Of course physical health is important. Any medical treatment that is required should not be ignored, whether through denial or fear.

In my case, eye doctors were vital when my remaining vision was in question and in danger.

Yet, there is so much more to the picture than eye health. Life skills and community integration are things that can not be ignored, or suffering and isolation follow.

I can’t express enough how vital my parents were in these elements. Once the medical condition of blindness was established it was time to get on with the business of living.

I do for myself as much as I can and those skills were taught to me as a child, as they were for any other.

Community integration brings me back to the start of this post.

Of course nothing is yet easy and simple. It is important to feel like you are a part of something bigger, community is that something. I know a lot of the work of integrating people with disabilities is still needed.

Nowhere is this as clear as in employment. We are not yet at a place where the numbers of people with disabilities, especially visual impairment, are high, integrated into the community and working alongside.

Integration can be a big and daunting word, for everyone. Both sides need to be able to communicate and play their part, if there is to be any real success. There needs to be an effort put forth by all involved.

My blindness doesn’t have to impede everything. There are certain jobs I could perform very well, if given the chance. This is really only possible because I was once taught many life skills others take for granted and don’t really think about.

The integration is then required to complete the process.

Medical treatment, life skills, and community integration are accomplished, for people with disabilities, in steps, one building on the other until the person is as well-off and well-adjusted as possible.

***

For more information on National Disability Employment Awareness Month, go

Here.

And next week on the

Redefining Disability Awareness Challenge,

What are some significant moments/events in your life that connect to disability?

I am betting I will have a lot to say for that one.

🙂

Phasmophobia

Welcome to October.

Now that we are in the month leading up to Halloween (historically not always my favourite holiday) I have decided I would take my past issues with it and try and loosen up a little.

Every Fiction Friday leading up to the 31st I plan to write a creepy, spooky, or scary tale.

I have been thinking about this for a while, but this week a blog post from one of, what has quickly become, one of my most looked-forward-to bloggers, landed in my in-box:

5 fears and what they say about us.

This insightful young, twenty-something blogger has given me the five Halloween-themed short story prompts I have been looking for.

***

1. Ghosts. We breathe easy knowing we’re in the safety of our own home. Confined within walls, behind a deadbolt,, with 9-1-1 on speed dial. Ghosts take that security and leave us helpless. to be in the in the presence of a ghost is the all too familiar feeling of being trapped within ourselves, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. The mere idea of being powerless is enough to break us down.

***

As you enter the house you close the heavy side door behind you with a thud. From somewhere within the house you hear a shattering noise, as if a picture has just fallen off the wall in some room on the other side.

This makes no sense. How could closing this door, barely slamming it at all, how could this cause that?

The room is silent and still, the darkness closing in and that can’t all be coincidence. Something lingers in the room, even as you leave it. It might follow or patiently await your return.

As the television seems to flicker on and off a time or two, your apprehension is growing. All these creeks and alike used to be disguised, perhaps by the simple fact that you were not alone so much. Did the distractions that have ceased only served to remind you that sanity is loosely maintained? After you are alone with only your thoughts to keep you occupied, you start to second guess your grip on your present and the reality or lack there of.

It’s silly to believe in any supernatural beings. What evidence have you really seen of such foolishness? None, that’s what. others’ abnormal little anecdotes aren’t nearly enough to convince you that your usual rational reasoning is faulty in any way.

Suddenly you think of that famous Shakespeare line:

Me thinks thou doth protest too much.

The air feels stifling in the room as you awake suddenly and with a start, a strange shiver running down your spine. That ghostly sound that you sometimes hear when you close the basement stairs behind you, going down to check the laundry and the dryer, is perhaps the thing that has disturbed your sleep tonight. Your ears seem to recognize the faint ghastliness of that reverberation.

You suddenly sense a presence close to you in the dark and a soft coolness seems to slide through your fingers, as if you hold the hand of an invisible bedmate you did not recall lying down with.

The next sign that you aren’t alone is a gentle sweep, as if a finger has reached out, without being spotted, a trick of the mind like when your brother used to tap you on the shoulder on one side, slyly while he sat on the other. Gotcha!

You jerk your hand away at first because there is no explanation that seems to satisfy you. you swipe your own cheek with the back of your own hand. Such a gentle gesture of human contact, but maybe just a dream, seeping through your seconds old consciousness.

If you could bolt from this room at this hour you would, but there is nothing else outside your window, other than more darkness. You could start, heading for somewhere where these things would lose their oddity, but you fear then you might never stop or find your way home again, doomed to wander somewhere out there, forevermore.

If there is a disturbance in the space around you you don’t know how to classify what it is, but your soul seems to freeze in mid sensation. All the synapses are firing and something makes you pull the covers up tight to your chin, as if pulling your limbs to your sides under the blankets will protect you from these unrelenting forces. Why they nag at you more and ore you can’t say.

What is this presence existing side by side with you in the house that you have all to yourself, or you used to think so anyway. Now you can’t get rid of it, whatever you want to call it. You are never alone, but doomed to always be alone all at once.

***

Thank you

Young and Twenty,

for your thought-provoking blog and I will be back next Friday, to tackle those creepy crawly critters that make so many of us jump back in fear.

What about you? Do you believe in ghosts? Have you experienced strange and unexplained incidences at any point?