Go The Distance ...Movie Version

I did this in the style from the movie with the movie lines added.

Photograph

For the ladies who asked me to do Ed Sheehan songs. I hope you like it.

The River

I found your heart today close to mine,
heartbeat in time with yours
one dancing as two.

The pain apart from life times lost
felt anew in the plucked chord
bound one another.

Last visions of passing bonding us,
In heat and snow with bitter loss
crossing time's song.

Lonely years and an empty heart
Dreams of memories call out!
Bid time return!

But empty march the years, agony keeping tempo
Darkness seeking its past dues
take me not!

Long shadows cast into morning dawn
Beneath the earth lying locked
your memory calls.

Gods and Fates mock mortals and fae
casting lovers back onto the stage
Love is undeniable.

Spin and pass, chase and run,
The moment arrives
"is it you?"

Yes, death deferred but not denied
None can pull apart the seal
Crafted by love.

For as long as the clock unwinds.
Strong as fae blood and hearts
Time's endless circle.

Last Surgery

So this phase of my life has nearly ended and my eyesight is what it will be(almost) until I die. No more cataracts, no more occlusions, no more astigmatism. And let me tell you that last surgery was the worst. Describing it really doesn't do it justice, but I'll do it for you here as best I can.


First surgeries were to removed the traumatized lenses. In my case it was many parts trauma and damage to my head and eyes, and one part metaphyical assault by a creature bent on revenge from the time I was 5. I've already described the event in another blog post and have yet to complete the final attack when I was rid of it...at least for the time being.

According to Doctor Sampson, my left eye looked like a space station or old SkyLab outline and my right looked like it was a rising cloud of haze as if kicked up by a car wheel throwing just in the air. These cataracts do not affect the INSIDE of the lens but instead form on the back of the lens and require a much more invasive surgery to excise from the eye. As I am young and the cataracts were trauma induced I was not given just one incision to move the cataracts, but 2. One above the eye and one below.

Once the incisions are made a solution is injected, a vibrating tool is inserted and the lens is shattered and sucked up....taking away the lens I was given at birth by my mother and father. And believe this now as I say this, I resent the need caused by them and the creature and all who did this to me that I was robbed of a part of my body. In its way it's as horrifying as circumcision though it can be argued THIS was necessary. Once the chamber where my lenses once resided was mostly cleared of the ned and darkened tissue an implant is inserted and unfolds itself and embeds itself into the remaining dark tissue and anchors tot he ball and socket muscles my lens once attached to.

The ones I have are the ones on the left, they give full range of vision but do not correct astigmatism.

So that's the first two surgeries, to remove the lens and implant the new ones so i can get used to them. And believe that it does take getting used to as your eyes will see an illusion as you get used to focusing with them that appears like water running on glass like rain int he corners of your field of vision. I'm not sure what causes that but it does fade away with time and the focusing becomes sharper, though still not perfect.

Next surgeries were the YAG laser capsulotomy to clear the remaining dark cataracts left by the trauma that had to act as the seat of the new lenses until the tissue around it healed. The YAG laser is a focused beam that hoes past the lens without damaging it and explodes the remaining tissue so the eye can pick out the debris and remove it for good. In my case it was a mandatory event since all the cataracts were at the back of the lens and could not be removed completely. This is normally done to older folks after they have had their cataracts for a few years and the tissue starts to darken behind it. In my case it was removed after 6 months because I was still looking at a darkened world. With this tissue gone I was finally seeing an undarkened world at last for the first time in 39 years. If I thought the world had brightened when the implants went in I was sorely mistaken. 

After the Capsulotomy I was walking into things and holding my eyes in pain when I saw flashes. it's strange to note that when you have cataracts you're light sensitive as well because your eyes cannot function normally to close out light AND see normally as they become problematic to accomplish one task since it confounds the other. Once the cataracts were gone my eyes were getting the world and all the glorious light it was supposed to see...and it was as if I had just left my own personal cave and was walking in the sun for the first time in a lifetime. 

Now, with no more occlusions to block my sight my astigmatism became spectacular! Rays of light at night and in the dark from headlights, streetlights, hell even the TV reached for my right eye.

Since I no longer had glasses to correct this, the rays were far more dramatic and terrifying to my inexperienced eye. I would literally have to close my right eye against the glare to get some level of perspective as it would feel as if the light was climbing in to grab me with longs rays. That brings us to the final surgery....PRK Laser.

Now if the prior surgeries sounded painful, understand that they were uncomfortable at worst, and the YAG lasers left me with no ill effects and indeed, I felt lighter for having lost the last remnants of the darkness that had chased me from my youth. The worst pain I had suffered from in all the surgeries so far had been a scratched lens of my right eye that happened after I'd been bandaged and left the office...my right eye kicked off the anesthetic as I do and popped wide open without my consent. It's a strange genetic quirk I inherited along with my red hair from my Scottish ancestry.

Well LASIK was not viable as I'd already had massive cuts done around my cornea and all that needed to be treated was the astigmatism and not really much of a change to my prescription at all. That kind of fine work demanded the less invasive, fare more painful, PRK.

First they numb the eye, which in my case just makes it ACHE because I throw off lidocaine with ease. So the doctor adds 4-6 time more so he has time! Believe me...it's not much more time. He then tapes my eyelids open, packs the eye lids top and bottom with betadyne covered wads of cotton to help immobilize it. Then the gruesome shit begins.

Out comes the tool and they abrade and scour the area of the eye that needs to have cells removed in order to accept the reshaping of the cornea. Two passes of the tool and the sensation of someone sanding my eyeball and I have to keep quiet(be thankful you all don't have this ability to kick off poison and pain medications, it's not all candy and flowers) so that the doctor doesn't pause in his work. Then comes the laser and of all of them so far, this one is less a fine tool the YAG laser is and it instead a violent sounding turbo laser! It comes on loudly, starts reshaping the cornea and I see violet light and smell nitrogen gas and groaned at the pain. 

Following this they unpack, untape, rinse and remove everything then fit a special contact lens similar to the one in the picture but larger to cover and protect the cornea, helping it to retain the shape the laser gave.

The first nights are hell, it feels so light sensitive and so sickeningly abraded sleep is near impossible. Pills don't help, willpower goes only so far. My natural healing factor that is faster than most peoples didn't help me much here as the contact lens was always irritating my eye. I would wake up and open my right eye only to have white hot tears gush forth onto my face and remind me of the monster that attacked me and gave me these eyes. Drops don't help, medicine barely works, and my will was shattering fast. 

I'm sorry to anyone I was short with as this healing was happening. I'm sorry to all of you whom I love that might have been slighted by this, and those of you who did not hang on as the world was darkening and brightening for me. It's nearly over now.

Monday I get the contact lens removed and the healing process begins to finalize. Over the course of a year my right eye will heal and become about 20/20, I'll be able to do archery again which I missed very much when I could no longer go into he sunlight and shoot the targets.

If somehow I have been short with you, I am sorry. I'm trying to be a better man than I was. I thought I was brave and found fear at the darkening of my life. 

I thought I was accepting of change but rebelled at the disregard and abandonment of friends.

I thought I was strong but found that I was nothing before the last stab of this monster.

I don't know if I was proud before but I am definitely humbled by this experience.

May you never have to face such a trial in your life.

Your Heart Will lead You Home

Something indefinable can direct our actions in life, fighting our wills with soul battering force against our own hearts. Pushing us to our knees and driving us to mad distraction as we attempt to compel ourselves against our own inner workings. The instant we stop fighting and give in, we find the power of love masters us in ways we never truly understand and give us what we need...whether we admit it to ourselves or not.

Come What May

This song is interesting tome for several reasons, none the least of which is the reality that the lovers in the musical are actually split apart but outside forces and the song mends the split as if it never happened. How? It hearkens back to the time when they were crafting it and their love for each other was so overwhelming and newly blossoming.

If only there were songs like this to bring people together who have been sundered in real life and allow them to love again as if the pains ha never occurred.

To Make You Feel My Love

Billy Joel's version.

My first try at a modern favorite.

One of my favorite sad songs from the Beatles.

Close Out the Light Poem

So long, blinking in the quietness,

wandering for time without count,

gaps appear in the night to remind

you are there still, waiting to walk in.

Curious light peers through the chinks

and I race to block the holes one by one.

Close out the light, block the dreams,

tomorrow is not where you belong

stay in yesterday with the pain and joys.

Pedestals in my mind suit you best

sweet angel of mercy and sorrow!

Dreams are supposed to bring hope,

don't visit any on me, please!

Shut out the sun and moon's glow

Sepulcheral solemnity suits me fine.

Ghostly rhythms in my heart for light

is enough to hold me against the cold.

Bring down the shades over my eyes

but not because I love the dark!

Do it to show kindness to one

addicted to your Incandescence.

I See the Light

I hope someone will come and sing with me for this beautiful duet now I corrected my recording issues.

A Life Slightly Different...

My life has been turned upside down and backwards many times, so many times in fact that I wonder why the twists seem to take the shape that it has so repetitively. With the last several years culminating in several life changes that started when I was a child, introspection set in and I began to really sift through the years seeking answers. Or at the very least some kind of clues. Nearly going blind will do that to you, nearly dying several times didn't seem to be the ticket.

But those are tales for another time.

The differences in my life from others I know has been so dramatic that in the growing darkness of my sight I began to try to piece together something. Was I always different or was this difference pushed onto me? Or was I always different and then made MORESO?

Going back into my memories the differences begin right away. No one else I know can remember their first steps, getting diapers changed, the distaste for the feel of plastic pants over their underpants as they are potty trained. The first feel and silence of being sat in a depression of snow at 10 or 11 months. I could read well before entering Kindergarten because of my mother's teachings, since she labeled everything with the name of the thing in our shared bedroom, even my crib. Yes, I can clearly remember those times, even the abuses my parents and elder siblings sent my way, though those didn't ramp in intensity until after I was back home and turned 6 years old. Forgive me, I'm getting slightly ahead of myself but with reason, as you'll eventually read.

Oh, and my blindness that I avoided, which you've doubtlessly been asking yourself about? Trauma Induced Cataracts from concussive impacts to my head from beatings and car accidents...no, not when I was driving, these happened when I was a child and before the law and normal use of seat belts stepped in to protect us from ourselves. and our parents.

Now, needless to say this is all completely true. I know you'll all wonder if this is the case, if it's true, can I provide you with as much documentation as you need that won't be compromising, etc? I could, but that would make my life somewhat less private, but the information is available. Even my Doctor's information on the implants in my eyes so I can see can be screenshot and put up if you need convincing.

But why am I telling you these things about my vision? Simple really...something didn't like the idea that I could SEE them. Really see them.

As I am a child of two nations born in the US, this means a large amount of cultural background goes into the sum of my parts. With a Cuban father and mother from England, you can see what an amazing contrast there would be between the two parts of my family. The differences are so vast with one half of the family being very spiritual, Santeria being a large part of the religious makeup of the Cuban side. On the other is the celtic influence of my mother's family, with deep ties to the old faiths of the islands of the United Kingdom, all the way back to old religions of pagan and druids.

As a baby I never knew how protected I was by my tias(that's aunts in Spanish) and their diligence to keep the house we lived in safe from the other world they knew was there, and feared...terrifically in fact. Constant blessings, use of camphor, holy water and cleansing with incense happened all the time. These kept my dreams untroubled and I feared the dark only because I could not see.

Eventually, we moved and the home I would grow up in did not have ANY of those benefits. I began to see things in the darkness most easily. Aside from feeling things when I was near something spiritually active at a distance, I could see things, too. See what? Indistinct shapes, swirling patterns of movement as of fog or ether and something causing eddies in it just out of sight. But sometimes I saw more....much more.

Take for example my tio Mickey and his wife, my tia Olga. As a little child we'd go there all the time because tia Olga was my godmother. Her mother, forgive me I do not recall her name, lived with them and had her own room. She was very old and not in the best of health, but she had an aura about her that said she was kindly and wished she could do more when my brother, sister and I came to visit than just sit in her room or lie in bed. Sometimes she was too exhausted to get out of bed and we had to play quietly on the other side of the house on the covered porch.

I had a habit of wandering off and going places I was told not to go, following feelings that seemed to draw me on that were tied to my gut around the level of diaphragm. In fact sometimes I would wander blocks away from home or to parks, scaring my family silly. I would go to tia Olga's mother's room and as I'd walk in, a man standing next to her bed would look up and smile most of the time. My memory of him is as hazy now as it is of her, but I remember dark but warm eyes, steely gray hair swept back and slicked down to keep it neat with a light blue guayabera. He was thick in the upper body, muscular but not overly so. I couldn't see his lower body since he was on the opposite side of the bed. She would look away from him to me, following his gaze to see me standing in the doorway.

"Hola, señora." I said.

"Ay!" my tio Mickey would say from up the hallway to get my attention, and I'd turn to look at him as he and his big dog, Duke, came towards me. I look back to apologize for bothering her, my mother's demand for proper English manners you see, and the man was gone. There was no place for him to go I should point out. And no one else lived there since my cousin, Michael, had moved out some years before. Keep in mind I think these events happened when I was 4, I'm pretty sure of it as my cousin's wedding had been the year before this when I was three.

No one could ever tell me who that was, no one wanted to even mention it. The fact is it only started whispers between adults about the events, fearfully whispered discussions amongst them. Discussions I was not allowed to even think of eavesdropping on.

It wasn't long after this that my tia Olga's mother passed on. I never found out who the man was in the room with her, but I am assuming it was someone very close to her for the simple fact I never felt menaced by what I saw and the room felt brighter after she passed, as if her illness or frail body had trapped her light. And once it was free the room fairly scintillated from its passing touch. Funny to think that years later when I brought my girlfriend(who would eventually become my wife) to visit tia Olga in her sickbed that it was in that very room. No, she was not there looking over her daughter, but the room was still bright with the light she'd left behind.

A parting gift to ease her daughter's pains.

Not all I saw was friendly as I'm certain you're wondering at this point if everything I saw was benevolent or kindly. As I'd said before the protection afforded us was lost when we moved as my mother never let my aunts do their ministrations again. We were given these tiny bags with a bead and a rosary medallion inside to wear under our clothes against our skin, pinned to our clothing with safety pins, to ward off evil. Because of the thing I mentioned, and a considerable many more brevity doesn't allow me to mention, I was given one more than my brother and sister. One of my patron saint, Joan of Arc. No, I'm not a female, but there is no Saint Sean. That's my name, by the way. Sean....same spelling as Sean Connery for whom I was told, jokingly or not, to be named after. Joan in French(she was French after all) is Jeanne. That's pronounced the same way as Jean of Jean Luc Picard fame for the Trek Nerds amongst you. Which as you can easily hear sounds a lot like Sean, a name that none of my cuban relations could easily say except my cousin, who was raised in the US.

Forgive me for all this preface, but I thought I'd give you some idea of the events and history before the "Big Event".

My mother's relations had come to visit us singly or in combinations for a little while, and I do believe I even got to see my Great Aunt Lily more than once in the US. My mother's father, Grandad, had been setting aside money since she'd left home to have her come home, either to stay or for a visit, and this money he'd made from quitting smoking. Funny enough, he'd been saving so long that the amount had grown high enough for us to all come visit them over the Summer. My father had to work so he couldn't come with us, his job was very demanding. Our "Talismans" given to us by the Cuban side of the family were not allowed to come with us and remained in a box back home, despite loud protestations. My mother was most insistent on that as she was embarrassed by them.

We got our passports and in June of the year Star Wars IV A New Hope came out. So we were literally flying to UK less than a month after its initial release and I had to miss the phenomenon of the Summer that it was in 1977, but its impact was felt all over England in merchandising that tantalized me in the form of bubblegum cards with stills from the movie on them.

My time in England was, to put it lightly, not boring.

Why, you might ask? Whether it was walking everywhere or taking buses or trains, we were dragged to every moor, castle, monument, palace, and place of interest my mother could think of to see. This in direct contrast to the part of Los Angeles where we'd lived that requires a car and a long trip to get anywhere meaningful...it was a shock to say the very least about it one can say. All of this while traveling between the homes of my Grandad and Nanny(that's my grandmother if you hadn't guessed), my Aunt Sonia and my Aunt Celia in various places around England.

From Heathrow we were driven out of the city to my Aunt Sonia's home and outfitted the next day with cagoules and wellies. For anyone not familiar, those are rainproof jackets that cover to the thigh and waterproof calf height rubber boots. For you see we had been impelled to come because that year since the previous 2 years had been a "Drought" and rain had been scarce, but 1977 was the end of the drought and we saw 3 sunny days all Summer long as nature dumped 3 years worth of water on England to make up for her laxness.

Sonia's home was new and the neighborhood she and her family lived in was newly urbanized portions north of London that once just been rolling hills and forests. I slept well there, felt nothing and nothing ever happened. The same could not be said of Celia's or my grandparent's homes.

Celia had an old home that was more than a century old and with much history, in a portion of England known for minor nobles living, and dying, nearby in their mansions. My grandparents flat was in the middle of a rebuilt portion of London, in an area that had been annihilated during the Bombing of London.

When we first went to stay with Celia it was a bit of a shock. Upon first stepping through the front door and removing my Wellies, I noticed the air was thick...and cold. To the left of the large front door was a toilet behind a closed door under a large staircase with a banister. My eyes were drawn to it as we were lead inside by my aunt, distracted with talking to my mother about her coming wedding. Another reason for our presence, so my mother could be there for her younger sister's wedding.

The cold stopped as we got to the third stair and turned right on the small landing and proceeded up the stairs. Now the air was just thick and unwelcoming. We were shown to our room we'd be sleeping in, we children. It was across the hall from Celia's room and next to my mother's room. I kept looking at the door to my aunt's room, a pulsing sensation in my ears and pressing on my chest. So distracted was I, that I didn't even notice I was being asked something by my mother as she ushered me into our room to unpack.

Celia smiled at me as she opened the door to her room, something about getting into her regular clothing now that she was not traveling anymore that day. I looked past her into the room with eyes wide and the feeling of dread growing. She saw my curiosity.

"What is it, Sean?" she asked me she looked over her shoulder into the room. Past her I could see her bed and nothing else. I looked back at her as she entered the room and then walked out of sight to the right towards what I would later learn was the walk in closet. Doing this she crossed my view of the bed and when it was clear again I saw something that chilled me to the marrow and the pressure came back enough to make me gasp.

There, in the bed, now sat an old woman in a sleeping cap and nightgown that looked like something from the 18th century. Her hair was grey and tied up into the cap, her skin was parched and wrinkled but she couldn't have been older than 70. I apologize I cannot be more descriptive than that, not only was it 4 decades ago I was terrified. As I write this the terror is fresh in my breast and my heart is hammering just as it did then. The woman was sitting in the bed looking in the direction that Celia had walk out my field of view, then slowly she turned to look at the doorway. It seemed at the time she was turning her head at the sound of my gasp. Her eyes were angry, unwelcoming and accusing of some misdeed I was being blamed for.

I've included a link to something vaguely similar to what I saw. Keep in mind, it's not the same but it can give you a rough impression of what I saw.

At that moment my sister and mother walked past, breaking my line of sight as they walked past to go downstairs to get the rest of the suitcases to unpack. I stood frozen, my brother asking me what was wrong as they walked by. After they passed the old woman was nowhere to be seen.

I told no adult, nor my sister,  as I remembered the response seeing things like this had gotten me in the past at home. I confided in my brother only, and he'd told me he hadn't seen anything. He proceeded to tell my mother and sister all about all I'd said and all the future events. And yes, she looked real. Like any person you see on the street looks. Solid and alive. That's how a great deal of the spirits I see look, or so I have learned. They appear as they did in life...rarely as how they died unless it was violent or traumatic. This was something I would learn much later but I mention it here in case you're wondering.

Needless to say, I always kept my eyes averted from her room so I'd never see that woman again, even refusing to use the upstairs bathroom as I'd have to pass her and risk seeing or feeling her again.

My grandparents flat had no oppressive feel to it, but there was a ghost all the same. A figure would walk into the bedroom where my brother and I slept, look around and then leave. He was dressed in a strange helmet shaped like a brimmed soup bowl with a chinstrap and a strange heavy jacket with leather buckles that looked water resistant. I could never see his feet as it was always too dark in the room. As the man entered he always seemed to bring a light with him, as if he glowed mildly. Otherwise I would not have been able to see much of him in the pitch dark of the middle of the night. I have no idea if I woke each time he came, but when I did awake it was usually prefaced by the feeling that I thought my mother had just walked in to check up on my brother and I, which she did now and again.

I'm including a link to a picture of what the man looks like that walked through the home at night looked like.

One thing I forgot to mention was my mother's morbidity when it came to graveyards. She has been tracing our family tree for ages, and this meant we were usually dragged to find headstones with her maiden name on them. One particular graveyard near my Grandad's flat was apparently where my great grandparents were buried. This graveyard was never empty of people walking through it and looking around. We'd be there many times, clearing the weeds and bracken from the shared grave of my great grandparents and placing flowers before I asked my mother why so many people were milling about. Her answer was:

"I don't know Sean.....what people?" she asked as she looked around, finally paying attention to what I asked her. As the youngest in the family I'm rarely listened to and almost everything I said was dismissed or outright ignored. Never before had I wished my mother had ignored my question.

I looked up at all the people who were walking amongst the graves and pointed at them. Specifically I pointed at a girl with reddish hair tied up in a pink ribbon that was wearing a light sweater and a dress that came to her knees. Remember when I said we saw three sunny days that summer in England? This was not one of them. We were in our rain gear, this girl and all the others were not. They were all in different attire. Some looked dressy such as suits and dresses, while others were dressed casually. Some looked like they were dressed in the current clothing styles, some were considerably older. I had not noticed it before that moment. Further, not a single one of them even had an umbrella or rain gear of any note to ward off the pattering rain I could hear making noise against the plastic cagoule hood. And though the rain was not falling heavily, it was falling around us sufficiently to turn a sweater completely sodden in minutes.

Suddenly breathless, I realized two things:

Ghosts can appear in the daylight outside. Something as a child I'd assumed was a "safe" time I would not have to worry about running into these things I was quickly becoming terrified of. And these ghosts had suddenly become aware of me.

All of them.

As if they were discomfited at scaring me, they all turned to look at me with impassive expressions on their faces, except for the girl I pointed at, and then each of them turned away and faded from sight. It was almost as if they had pulled a screen in front of themselves or stepped from one room to another by changing the focus of their attention. The girl with the reddish hair and the pink ribbon? She didn't disappear, instead she smiled and stayed fairly close listening to our conversations and watching, all in a completely non-threatening manner. No one seemed to notice her or see her throughout our time there, which I was eager to cut as short as possible.

Threatening or not, I was leery of her and unwilling to let her close, always keeping my mother between us. I have no idea who she was and I was too scared to find out or even try to talk to her.

Just two things I must mention about this graveyard not directly related to the ghosts or spirits I saw there:

Firstly, the church that stood before it was where my Aunt Celia was married that summer. Secondly, this was where my Grandad was buried when he died of massive heart attack in his flat in August just after my mother's birthday. And no, I never saw him again. His spirit, despite staying in the flat many more days, never came to me. Nor, might I add, did the man in the helmet ever appear again to me.

I'm sure most of this seems innocuous and far from dangerous to the reader, but you have to see it from the point of view of a 5 year old child. Not only that, you have to understand that before this I'd never encountered so many and so often. Only had I ever seen things swirling away, or faces peaking out my closet. But there was much more to be seen in England....ever so much more.

I saw many terrible things that my family did not realize I was seeing aside from ghosts in cemeteries, sometimes they were memories or flashes of things that had occurred in the past. They were "Ghosts of a different type I would later learn, ones called "Stone Tape".The area along the Thames where the beheadings of many condemned folks that had stayed their last days in the Tower of London gave me nightmares throughout my time there. Things I'd rather never recount or remember. Things that still leave me shaking whenever I see the Tower of London in pictures or film. Rooms filled with ancient torture devices at Windsor Castle and other museums gave brief flashes of things that made me sit up in my bed at night drenched in sweat for years. Darker things did occur during my stay in the UK, but let me finish with the "Event" that seemed to mark the end of things as they had been, and none of the events eclipsed it.

Though we stayed with the relations I mentioned and never went to stay with my uncle(Billy), we did however get to visit some distant relations. Distant in both lineage and in mileage. One set was in Scotland and was not spiritually noteworthy except to say that it felt as safe as if I was back in my old home, as though something protecting me. I would later discover that the reason for this was that the family was said to be protected by a few spirits and an "Elemental". For those of you good with a search engine you might discover my family name in Scotland from just the clues I have given you here.

But the scariest experience I had was visiting second or third cousins of my mother's, Glynis and Roy. Once again I apologize for not knowing exactly. They are a nice couple with a home that had a past they had no clear answers for. At my aunt's wedding we were told by my aunt Celia about the "Ghost of the Bed". It was an antagonistic spirit that menaced only adult males that slept in the bedroom, not allowing them to sleep, shaking them, waking them with shrieking, attacking them and other more painful events. They'd look into the history of the house and it went back about two hundred years, it being one of the old homes in Wales with a history rich and mostly lost through time. Of course, Roy had only been told these things and had never tried to sleep there himself. A friend of his had tried and left in the middle of the night, never to return.

No one stepped forward with more information as to why the spirit did what it did, whether it was male or female, or what had brought its darkness into the home in the first place. All this was recounted by Celia with dark glee, as she looked on the paranormal I would later find out as a fan of Hammer Horror films looks on schlocky movies as something to be sometimes laughed at and sometime horrified by. A non-believer and mundane in every sense of the word, who would later run experiments on haunted locations with me as a guinea pig on her many visits throughout my childhood.

Terrified at what I could end up seeing, and now thoroughly exhausted from lack of sleep and decent food. But that's a story for another time. Suffice to say, the words "Cuisine" and "English" to not belong sitting back to back and are as unrelated as any two words can be. Want to know why Harry Potter is always eating candy and treats in the movies? Can't ever go wrong with English sweets and candy.

The trip to Wales was long and arduous as we had to stay on the train for several hours and a few train changes and a bus ride. Before it was all over I had been menaced by my sister and brother with the idea of the ghost in the house...ghosts they didn't believe in or could see. Menaced with the idea of being put in the bedroom I was so scared of sleeping in. You know how that is, how children are.

"We're going to put you in there, Sean! We're going to make you sleep upstairs with the ghost!" they'd torment me, then wail like ghosts, holding their hands in grasping poses like a walking revenant out for human blood.

I'd wail and run, scared out of my wits already at the very knowledge I was going to be near it. Certain in fact, despite my mother's claims they wouldn't, that they'd do it all the same and make me sleep in that accursed room.

Well human endurance can only go so far when living on egg and chips, fish and salad and saveloy. I passed out on the last bus despite trying to stay awake in order to make sure I was able to make certain I was not put in the wrong room. My siblings had a nasty habit once they knew about the ghosts I could see of locking me in closets just to hear me shrieking in the darkness...darkness that was sometimes not void of...others. I was scared that they would force me into the room and make me face it as they had threatened.

My fears were in vain, they never did go through with their threats.

I awoke, as children do, slowly and softly to find myself in a bed already despite the fact i could tell by the ambient light that it was still daylight. And it was also sunny outside, one of the three days I mentioned. I was covered in a thick blanket that felt almost as heavy as one of those lead coats they throw on you when you get X-rays at the dentists office. I was warm and comfortable for several seconds before I realized where I was, then terror blossomed in my chest and my heart began to hammer against my little ribcage. I sat up, struggling under the weight of the blanket I now saw was doubled up and made of very heavy material. Don't ask, I have no idea what the material was or if it was a comforter. All I recall is that it was heavy and warm.

Sitting up, I look around me at the room. The bed was old and I could hear the springs shift as I did. The headboard was metal, rather like the kind you see in old movies of hospitals, but it was larger and wider. It seemed so large to me at the time, disproportionately big for a child of my small stature. To my right was a window with the pulldown shade drawn from the lintel to within an inch of the sill. I could tell the window was open because of the way the shade moved slightly now and then from air flowing around it, causing the sun that was coming in to vary in intensity. Under the window was a low chest of drawers made of dark stained wood, it looked antique and sturdy. To my left was a tall dresser that was at least 4 feet high but with no mirror on it, also made of dark stained wood. That made me feel frightened for some reason, the lack of a mirror. Don't ask me why.

Directly beside the bed on my left was a nightstand made of lighter wood with a single drawer in it. Set atop it was a glass of water and a couple of Welsh Cakes next to the glass. My stomach rumbled at the sight of them and as I reached for my first, I heard a sound and looked at the door for the first time which was just in front of the foot of the bed.

The sound of my family, downstairs, laughing loudly at something. It seemed to come up to my as if mocking me, teasing me. Almost like I was put here on purpose to test me, to torture me and expose me to my fears. Because after all, to them it was not real. It was explained away as imagination how many times by my mother since coming to England? I'd long lost count. And I could hear my brother and sister laughing at something, the low voice of Roy interjecting something and then another burst of laughter.

Well, I thought, I'll show them. I'll get away. I'll call them all stupid and mean for trying to scare me and laughing about it! Always picking on me, the littlest in the family. The butt of all their insults and tortures! How many times had they locked me in a closet with things reaching for me from the dark? Or in a room with a ghost that could see me as well as I could see it, all in the name of helping me get over my "fears"? So many times!

Tears had been tracing down my face as I thought of this, but now they intensified from drops to streams that blurred my sight as my horror and feeling of betrayal intensified. My cheeks were soaked and stung slightly from the hot, salty tears.

I moved to get up but paused... I felt it then. Through my whole body I felt it...like suddenly I was deep under water. The pressure was intense and almost like a nightmare in intensity. Like drowning out of water, sinking deeper and deeper every second, the crushing feeling growing tighter and tighter about me. Pressing on my little chest, my shoulders creaked as they were forced into my body and my wrists were crushed into my stomach, almost as if a gigantic hand was gripping me. Looking back now I have no idea how I survived.

I tried to move, but my arms could not defeat whatever it was that held me. Another chorus of laughter from under the door drew my attention downward and I could see the gap beneath the door with light from the hallway illuminated a small patch of the wooden carpet and the edge of the rug that the bed sat on. Fighting to draw enough breath to scream for my mother, all I could do was sip the air a little at a time into my lungs and let it out. I tried making noise, little gasps of "Help!" "Mommy!" and calling for my sister and brother...but looking back they couldn't have been louder than a whimper. They were far from where I was and downstairs...and they would probably ignore me anyway as they usually did. I felt betrayed as well as terrified beyond comprehension...but it wasn't even close to what I was was in for.

A sound, distant, but persistent and strange reached my ears then in the silence of the room. It didn't echo, it seemed as though the sound was sucked away as soon as each sound finished. It grew steadily louder, and by that I could tell it was getting closer. The grip hadn't lessened on me and in fact began to push DOWN so my little legs were bent at painful angles on the bed. The springs squeaked in response to my downward pressure into the bed and I heard my mother say:

"I think I heard Sean upstairs, I'll check on him later. Going to step out for a cigarette...." and it trailed off as she must have gone outside, and the sound of a door opening and closing...then silence. They had all stepped outside, I could now hear the sounds of my brother and sister laughing distantly from the slightly open window to my right.

My right hip protested the pain of being crushed in the semi-sitting position with my right leg splayed out to the right and my left extended in front of me. The noise I'd heard, now seemingly emboldened at being alone in the house, grew louder. I could finally tell at last what it sounded like...it was like a groan, only it sounded like a person groaning while inhaling rather than exhaling. And it didn't stop this time, it was inhaling and making the sound, getting louder and louder, closer, but I couldn't see from where. My eye were now rolling around in my eye sockets searching every corner of the room to see if i could find the source of the sound, all the while my mind was crying for my mother, my tears now soaking through the neck of my polo shirt in front of my chest.

The groan stopped for an instant, then began again, louder this time and I sensed it was very near. I looked down at the doorway, something had attracted my attention despite the new, burning pain in my chest. What attracted my gaze was the light from under the doorway which was slowly...going...out. It was being blotted out as if by a shadow of something moving over the source from the left of the door to cover the light. Eventually the light was absorbed by a solid line of shadow, and I knew it could not have been a person.

A person could not make those sounds.

A person could not make this kind of completely eclipsing shadow over the light. There would be a shape of feet or legs or something in the light.

The sound was now just outside the wooden door, louder than before, and something more. It was not a single groaning. It was the sound of several people. NO! It was a chorus of them, and it sounded now almost like a painful gasping into air starved lungs, only it never paused to finish taking the perpetual inward breath! The groan didn't sound like it stemmed from pain, no. It sounded almost like an engine getting going, as if it was drawing something it wanted into it. The louder it got, the more I hurt at the pressure of the crushing sensation.

As I watched the shadow over the light was taken away as something DARKER began to slide under the door. I know what you're thinking. Darker than the shadow? Darker than a lack of light? YES! Darker! And fuller! I could see an amorphous mass sliding under the door that was darker than midnight and as it entered the room, the sunlight that came in around the shade in the window grew dimmer! The pressure on my chest surged angrily as I was suddenly flung back in the bed and banged my head against the slatted metal headboard, which in turn smashed the wall. The sound of it, though it should have been loud, was like a muffled clunk even to me! As if the sound had been sucked away, or muffled underwater, or with a pillow! Take your pick of metaphor, I'm sure you get what I mean.

My head, now dazed from the crushing collision, was too loopy and weak from lack of oxygen to appreciate the reality I could now breathe. All thoughts of escape had long gone and all I wanted was my mother to come rescue me. To drive it off and protect me, to enfold me in her arms. But I realized that would not happen. Though I would not learn that I was NOT in the haunted room and that this was something else entirely, my little heart and mind believed that she and my siblings had put me in harms way despite her promises, she'd put me here or allowed me to be put here. Either way she didn't really care about me.

Blearily turning may gaze downward I watched the foot of the bed for signs of it as I prayed,"Let me die fast so it can't touch me or take me! Please...just let me die!" I was so scared all my limbs had gone cold from shock.

The groaning started at an all new intensity, revving upwards in the chorus of sound and my eyes grew wide in terror as the dark mass now surged upwards into the air as if standing! And it didn't stop! It stood, and spread out as if oozing into the air, sucking the warmth and oxygen from the room, the light growing dimmer and darker as I laid there numbly, panting in ultimate terror. My thighs grew hot as my urine burst free into my jeans and ran out of my pants and onto the bedding. The groaning changed to an almost overjoyed, triumphant tone and it spread to the left and right like bat wings...reaching around to engulf me in its wicked, hungry, embrace.

"please, please, please, please..." I realized I was panting, begging as my tears blurred my vision, the mass moved up the bed and the "wings" oozed in slowly to engulf me. All I heard was the groaning, it filled my ears then and seemed to crawl into my head and echo there. A fresh wave of tears made it so all I saw was the blur and the cold feeling in all my limbs, my head propped at a strange angle against the headboard, forcing me to watch as it closed in.

The anticipation of its icy touch on my already cold skin repulsed me and I began to shiver uncontrollably. Then, just before I knew it was going to touch me, my vision cleared slightly and I could see it was about to touch my shoulders and embrace me. The noise it made surged one last time, bestial sounds of the predator about to make a kill...

...but it was all suddenly blotted out by the intense, white hot agony on top of my head! A burning, watery feeling far more intense than if you ever get a shower of hot water in the tub, and it was only happening to the top of my head. Wave upon wave of heat! An agony like the top of my head had just been ripped open with a welding torch or a blow torch, only it didn't fade! And the room was suddenly filled with a blinding white light, so bright my eyes had automatically drawn to slits to protect them!

The whole room was filled with it, except for the stygian patch of nightmare before me on the bed. It had halted in mid reach and was now illuminated completely, I could somehow tell it was in pain.

Now I could see it entirely, and I wish to heavens I never did. The thing was made up of the images of faces and bodies! All black against black but easily discernible! All caught mid scream, or wail, or groan, or some position of pain and writhing. Contorted in agony, moving slowly within the mass, undulating to the tune of their own trapped misfortune. All molded together into a thin sheet of ultimate darkness, pressed into a fabric of utter damnation! This thing wanted me to become a part of it! Don't ask me how I know, I just KNOW! And though what was in it may have once been human and had the potential for love and mercy, all that was left was the desire to add more to its flock of tortured souls. I have realized since then that the faces I saw, the darkness that it was, it was all merely a covering for the real force behind it. The thing hiding behind the curtain of souls.

The light in the room intensified and the burn to my scalp lessened at last, allowing me to move slightly. The mass lept off the bed and seems to be sucked under the door, all the while thrashing left and right as it drew in it's "wings"  to remove them from the reach of the light. It passed into the hallway, the groaning sound receding as sounds from outside and light returned to the room. I could hear my siblings playing and my mother talking to Glynis about something..No idea what it was but it felt so good to hear it no matter what it was.

The light was dimming finally and I looked around the room to see where it as coming from, weakly swiveling my head around to try and glimpse the source. But I was against the wall, nothing should have been able to be behind me and that is exactly where it always seemed to be. Always behind and above me, always out of sight.

My strength, what little the light had imparted, was flooding out of me rapidly. The thing was gone, I wanted to escape, get out of the room! Now! Reaching my right arm to the left egde of the bed I tried to grab on and pull myself out of bed. I failed as the last of the light and the burning sensation fled me, I tumbled out of bed and headed to the floor.

I don't remember hitting the floor.

In fact, I don't remember anything that happened for the next three days.

My next memories were that I was in Sonia's little green jalopy, heading away from train station in her town and on our way to her house.

It took a long time to piece together the story, but here's what I know. They think I'd fallen out of bed after peeing in it that first day. I had gotten up, cleaned myself up and my mother found me half clothed trying to change the sheets. They'd fed us supper, I ate hearty of the wonderful food Glynis had cooked then we'd gone to bed. Through it all I acted normallyThat ws  but I remembered none of it. Perhaps it was shock. What I do remember is eating the Welsh Cakes. Glynis made them herself. Even made me a stack to eat. That my brother didn't like them and my sister was trying to stay in shape for gymnastics meant I had all I wanted.

You can say I'm delusional, or that I'm not sane. You can say anything you like. I was never more scared than I was that day, that was because I was a little boy, but I know what I saw.

In case you're wondering, did "It" stay in that house? No, in fact Glynis and Roy said that after we were there, during a visit to the US before moving to new Zealand,  someone across the street had died and they figured it had gone to follow the person. Roy slept in the room once to make sure and nothing had happened. I had a different take on things but never spoke to them of what I knew. Wasn't worthwhile telling them the thing followed me and made my life hell, guilt never solved anything.

I don't know what it was, I don't care to name it. Give it a name if you need one, I could care less.

What I do care about is that from that day on my life was different. It couldn't get to me, so my family turned dark. I don't know if it was the thing that wouldn't let people sleep or not in the tale we were told, I also don't care. What I care about was that my family went from being what it had been to cruel and often times vicious. After we came home the darkness got to my father. I know this because he beat me until I was unable to keep control of my bodily function, even gave me a concussion...

...all on Christmas Day in 1977. Merry Christmas. The reason? Because I accidentally opened the wrong present.

Car accidents followed, also. My father began to drive angry, regularly. I nearly went through a windshield with a full backpack on at age 9, the only thing stopping me was the fact the window wasn't made to shatter. 1970s construction...gotta love it. My mother began to regularly deal out damage to me because my siblings would blame me for things they wanted to see me punished for. And my siblings began to use me as a whipping boy when they were upset. As they explained it, and I am quoting my sister directly here:

"Just coming into a room with you in it makes me want to...just hit you, Sean. Find something heavy and WHAM!" to this my brother quickly agreed with her.

It made me feel worthless and I withdrew from their presence as much as I could. This seemed to make them more antagonistic, my brother acted as if he were always being egged on to find anything he could easily get away with hitting me in the head with. This even included putting a metal nut on his finger and lashing out at my head when no one was looking., especially the top of my head. Complaining to my mother was useless. I always received a tongue lashing to the effect that either it wasn't serious what was being done or a shout at my brother to stop it. No further punishment to dissuade such behavior was ever meted out.

The only solace I had in this time came from my Cuban Grandfather. Papacito. He would protect me, when I was near him I was safest from all of them. Naturally, this dark thing made sure he was gone as soon as possible. My parents divorced suddenly, and my mother drove off my aunts and grandparents. Despite the fact they lived next door to us, she found a way to make them move.

After that point the cataracts started to form, and though I could see the spiritual things somewhat as dim outlines I could not see them as clearly as before. No longer did they look like normal people. You see "It" didn't want me to see so easily anymore and it figured out how to reach me. At least that's what I think.

Now I have ocular implants and I can see as any of you can see....mostly. Couple more laser treatments. No more cataracts. My ability to see ghosts seems as it was when I was 5.

I know this because I was shopping one day after the first surgery and my left eye was unbandaged two days prior. A little girl ran past me giggling and knocked over produce as I watched, then ran through a cart loaded with produce as if it wasn't there. The person stocking the produce, a dour looking hispanic lady, never looked up to follow her. She only humphed in annoyance and picked up the peppers, putting them back where they belonged. I asked if she saw the girl and she gave me a puzzled look.

You may be wondering does misfortune still follow me, are my steps dogged by this thing? No. It's gone now.

And with good reason, I might add.

But that, as they say, is another story.