Boogeyman

As I lay in bed in a restless sleep, my phone buzzes, alerting me of a text message. It illuminates the otherwise dark room, blinding my eyes for a moment. I reach out for it, blinking the sleep from my eyes. It reads:

MARK:
Wake up.

"Mark, stop it," I mumble, tossing my phone back onto the bedside table.

"Stop what?" his groggy voice responds in the darkness next to me.

"Texting me..."

A moment passes and then he asks, confused, "What are you talking about?"

"You just texted me--cut it out."

"It wasn't me--"

It buzzes again.

MARK:
Can you hear me?

"Mark!"

"It's not me!" he tries to defend himself. "My phone is in the living room!"

I lay still in the bad, my eyes wide as I stare up at the ceiling as my phone buzzes once more with a message from Mark's phone.

MARK:
Come and play, Jessica.

I don't know how I find the courage to crawl out of bed but I ignore my pounding heart and my sweaty palms and I tip toe over to the door. Down the hall I can see the dim glow of a cellphone illuminated in the living room.

My phone buzzes one more time.

MARK:
I see you.

I stand frozen in fear for only a moment, my eyes daring to search the darkness of the room for whoever--or whatever--is down there. But deep down I already knew who it is... The one who lives in the shadows of the night. The one who no one sees and yet everyone fears. The one I never believed in as a little girl.

The boogeyman.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

One of the things that freaks me out the most? Dangling my foot off the bed. It feels SO GOOD but I will not risk boogeyman attack status.

 

I find the idea of the boogeyman to be so interesting. Literally all over the world, in almost every culture, there is a boogeyman--some nameless, faceless monster that will come and snatch you in the dark of the night. In the Bahamas, they have "small man" who rides a horseless cart, picking up kids who are still playing after dark. The "Ou-wu" is from China and is an old woman who steals children away. Abu Rigl Maslukha or "The Man with the Burnt Leg" is a being from Egypt that kidnaps children and eats them. Iceland has a female troll named Grýla who will eat you on Christmas Eve (she is also Santa Claus's mother) and in Russia, we have Baba Yaga an old woman who kidnaps children and eats them.

 

It's interesting that different people from all over the world with different cultures, beliefs, and traditions would all fear the same thing--a dark entity, hiding in the shadows somewhere, that will come in the night to steal you or your children away.

 

And even what we, as humans, all tend to fear is interesting. Black, sunken in eyes. Razor sharp teeth. Elongated faces. Deathly pale skin. The image in your mind is frightening as it is for most people who would sit and think about such a face. Perhaps it is evolutionarily engrained in our conscience to fear these things. Just as we fear lightning when it could mean fire or our homes burning down not so long ago. We fear violent, wild animals because in our human history that meant our family could be in danger. What about these pale beings with sunken black eyes and razor sharp teeth? What happened to the human race--what did we see--that we would all still naturally fear such a face?

 

Be sure to sleep under the covers tonight... Don't let the boogeyman get you.

 

Only 15 days until Halloween!

 

a.r.w.

Broken Pieces

I don't know when I first came to the Island. I can't begin to tell you how I got here or why. All I can remember is walking up on the beach one morning with no idea where on Earth I was or who brought me here.

I know someone brought me here because I can remember my life before I came to the Island. I had a job, a boyfriend, a nice apartment in the city, and I remember I was happy... really, genuinely happy with life. So many times I thought that I would awake and this would all be a dream, but each morning when I would wake up on the Island, I knew this was anything but a dream. The Island was very real... and I seemed trapped here.

I have a treehouse that I live in. I found it already built and waiting for me when I arrived. I had circled the Island--twice--before quickly realizing that A). there was no way of escape and B). I was very much alone. And yet, some ghostly presence seemed to follow me around. I would turn my back and suddenly the table was set with food or a new outfit was laid out on my bed. Someone knew I was here, I just couldn't see them.

I would keep track of the days, carving a little notch into the bark of the tree just outside my door... but I eventually lost track after five months.

I filled my days with nothing. I read a lot of books (again, my ghostly companion supplied the titles it thought I would enjoy). I would swim in the ocean. I would hike through the paths that cut across the Island--one day I found a beautiful waterfall that I was never able to find again. I became quite the artist, covering the walls of my treehouse in countless doodles. And I would write letters in the sand before the tide rose high enough to wash them away.

Who would I write letters to? No one in particular. At first, I wrote to my boyfriend and told him how I had actually begun to fall out of love with him long before I arrived on the Island and begged him to forget about me and go, find someone else to be happy with; to my mom, telling her just how much she meant to me, even if I had failed to show it through the years; and to my dad, forgiving him for leaving us when I was eight. But eventually, I got tired of writing to the same people over and over again... and so, I began to write letters to strangers that I imagined were just as lost and alone as I was, stranded somewhere beyond the horizon.

One morning, jut as the sun was rising, I found myself walking along the water's edge, letting the waves just barely kiss my toes, when something out of the ordinary on my little Island caught my eye.

It was a bottle. A green, broken bottle buried in the sand.

My Island had always been so pristine--everything was as it wanted me to see it, perfect and in order. This bottle was not from the Island, I knew the moment my eyes fell upon it.

Excitement rose up in my chest as I knelt down in the wet sand and dug around the bottle, wary of the broken shards.

As I pulled the bottle free, a piece of rolled up paper fell out onto my lap.

My fingers covered in sand, I unrolled the paper and realized it was a letter... a letter to me.

My dear secret companion across the water,

   I want to thank you for your letter. It has been some time since I have had any contact from a soul beyond the confines of my Island.

   I hope that by some miracle, this bottle finds its way to you. I found your words etched into the sand of my beach, but, alas, I only read half of it before the merciless waves came and swept it away. And so, I do not even know your name.

   My name is Delaney and I have been on this Island for nearly one-hundred years now. It has been a lonesome and arduous time but I believe that one who writes as beautifully as you, will be able to persevere and maybe one day find a way off your Island.

   I hope that one day, our paths will cross if it is the Fates’ will. But if not, please know that I am always thinking of you. I know that you live. I know that you still feel. And, above all, please know that there is someone in this world who remembers you and loves you… For it is all I can do from this distance.

Until Next Time,

Delaney

I continued to stare down at his name long after I had finished reading the letter.

There was another out here, trapped, just like me. I had questioned my sanity so many times. I had thought that, perhaps, I was dead and this was, in fact, Hell. But no. There was someone else here with me... I was not alone.

Pushing myself up from the sand, I spun around to look out across the bright blue water, my eyes scanning the horizon, searching for any sign of land--of another Island.

I didn't know who this Delaney was or where he was, but I did know one thing--I was going to get off this damned Island and I was going to find him.

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Novosibirsk is a big city and what I've learned about big cities is that they tend to be a bit dirtier than the suburbs I grew up in. There is an intersection just outside my apartment complex that is just littered with broken glass. The first time I saw it, I was annoyed and frustrated, my grandmother's age old rule of "Don't litter!" echoing in my head. But as I was walking home one evening from work, the sun hit the shards of glass perfectly to make them sparkle and for a moment, I saw the garbage as something beautiful.

Yesterday, my eyes fell upon the neck of a broken bottle. I stopped to take a picture of it, instantly creating this story in my mind.

You could take this story in any number of ways. It could literally be the story of a girl mysteriously transported to a desert island somewhere for some unknown reason. Or (I realized as I was writing it), you could look at it as a part of the afterlife. Maybe when we first die, we are transported to this new place. We remember who we are and we're not scared--everything is taken care of for us. But we are alone... until we decide to reach out to anyone who might listen. And it is only through reaching out to others, that we can connect and move on from our solitary existence on that island. I don't know! It was just something I thought of as I was typing this story.

And I just LOVE messages in bottles. It's a dream of mine to find one someday. Just imagine, finding someone's words--someone's heart--hidden inside a bottle after it went on a wild and crazy nautical adventure. I admit (sorry Gramma Aw, I did litter), I have sent a message in a bottle. I did it while I was on a cruise in the Mediterranean... I have yet to hear if anyone ever found it.

a.r.w.

Raven

"Who is she?"

"Where? Who?"

Garrick continued to gaze across the overly crowded, dimly lit pub at the young woman who had just entered the room. As a soldier for hire, he had seen his fair share of both pubs and women but there was something special--something odd--about this one; something drew him to her and her raven black eyes.

"I've never seen her before in my life," his drunken companion, Huxley, shook his head, dumbfounded.

Standing up, he spilled what little remained of his mead. "I must know who she is!" he declared with unabashed confidence.

The woman continued to slither through the hoard of people, her black eyes every so often flashing up to meet his own. Her stare seemed to paralyze him, make his legs grow weak, and his heart quicken pace.

A small coquettish smile from her was all he needed to follow her out into the night.

The hubbub of the pub was silenced behind him as he closed the door and the silence of the night enveloped him... suddenly he could hear everything--the hoot of an owl, the chirping of the crickets, and footsteps coming up behind him.

"There you are," he sighed as he wrapped his arm around the raven eyed woman.

She returned his embrace, her fiery red hair falling freely down her back, distracting all eyes from the simplicity of her grey dress with stains and tears.

Her lips found his and he was taken aback by her tenacity... but only for a moment. Tightening his grip, he deepened their kiss, losing himself in the darkness of the night... and in her eyes.

Pulling back for a moment to try and catch his breath and congratulate himself on what luck he seemed to have had that night, he wondered out loud, "Tell me: what is your name?"

There was that irresistible smile again. "Adelinde." Her voice was deep and smooth, not at all like he was expected after spending years with girls and their high pitched, bell-like voices.

"Adelinde," he tested the sound of her name on his lips... for he hoped he would be saying it again. "What brings you out on such a cold night?" He rubbed her arms. Despite the chill in the air, she felt as though she was on fire. His eyes grew wide with fright as he looked down at her. "Are you ill? You're burning up!"

She laughed for a moment, seeming to enjoy watching his concern over her. When she answered him, she ignored any of his fears of fever. "I came here looking for you."

It took Garrick a moment to listen to what she was saying to him. Furrowing his brow, he tilted his head to the side. "I beg your pardon?"

"You asked why I came here tonight." She shrugged her shoulders. "I came here to find you."

"M-me?" he stuttered, suddenly feeling unnerved looking into her black eyes--he could not see his reflection in her eyes... only a deep darkness that seemed to be older than time itself. Suddenly, her raven eyes were not so beautiful anymore. Forcing himself to sound braver than he felt at the moment, he puffed up his chest and demanded to know, "What the hell are you?"

She threw her head back and laughed once more.

Garrick watched in horror as the beautiful nymph before him ripped through her simple dress and twisted, wrenched, and contorted into the image of a terrifying beast, taller than the pub, and emanating a heat as hot as hell.

"Good god," Garrick cursed as his eyes took in the terrifying sight of the monster before him.

"I've been looking for you, dragon slayer," the creature's voice thundered through the night; Garrick could feel her words echo in his chest. "Now that I know where to find you, I'm sure our paths will cross again."

The wind from her enormous wings pumping up and down sent Garrick flying back onto the ground. Hitting his head on a rock, he blinked, forcing the stars from his vision as someone behind him screamed in fright, "A dragon!"

But before the alarm could sound, she was gone. The raven eyed girl disappeared into the darkness of the night, leaving Garrick with only a kiss on his lips and her promise to return for him... someday.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The writing prompt for today was "raven." I was planning on going the expected route and writing a story from a raven's POV of the world. But then as I brainstormed in my mind, I thought, what if the raven isn't an object but a way to describe something or someone... and so Adelinde and her eyes were born.

I've been writing a few short stories with these two characters over the last year or so. They have a funny relationship that goes back and forth between friends and lovers but here, in their first encounter, it looks like they're more enemies than friends!

This was just a quick little story I came up with after a long day of work and a promo at Burger King (work on a Saturday... GASP!). I hope you enjoyed meeting Garrick and Adelinde... I'm sure they'll be making appearances again and again.

a.r.w.