I'm Always Watching

Most people are afraid of the things that they can't see, but I'm afraid of the things that I can. As a child, I was afraid of the monsters under my bed, or the tiny little noises coming from my closet. I became so paranoid, and my hearing became so enhanced, that even the muffled sounds of my neighbor's car would wake me from a sound sleep. I could hear every drop of rain, trickling slowly down the roof, and it would immediately jump start my anxiety. I would beg my parents to leave a light on, because I believed that bad things were afraid to show themselves. I was wrong.

Some things in life; want to be seen, want to be heard, and want to be felt. For precisely fifteen years and eight minutes, it watched me. It waited for the perfect moment, drew out the inevitable, and even reveled in my constant state of fear. I like to call this extended period in my life, the shadow phase. The death of the evil conjured by my youthful imagination, replaced by the evil of my reality. While the other teens spent their high school years fighting metaphorical demons, I spent mine fighting those in the physical. This is the story of my haunting.

August 10, 2004

It was so hot and humid outside that day; I could barely stand the heat from the scorching southern sun. Yet somehow, I pushed through it, just long enough to move all of my things from the U-Haul into our brand-new house. I had lived in the south all my life, but there was something about that heat in the more rural areas, that felt ten times more brutal. My mom grew up on a farm, so it was only natural that she had her dream home built with the farm style open floor plan in mind. The house was two stories, with the master suite on the first floor. It featured, bay windows, sliding barn doors installed on the outside of every room, and the typical spacious kitchen with the rustic look gave it that quaint farm aura. She even went as far as gathering hay from the local abandoned farm, to toss on our front porch. She told me her borrowing the hay, was our little secret, and that dad couldn't know. I loved a good secret, and she even tossed in a little incentive for me. An antique barn owl that she found deserted in the shed, was my reward for my silence.

That was the day that changed the course of my life forever. People often tell you, that a decision made in a split second could be the difference between life and death. I wasn't a doctor, or a bus driver, or even a pilot. So, I had never encountered that pressure from the burden of choice. I operated on pure spontaneity, going with flow wherever it led me. If I had the power to go back in time and change that one event in my life. It would be that bonding moment between my mother and me. The moment I accepted that gift, was the moment I accepted the curse that came with it.

August 11, 2004

I tried my best to go to sleep that night, and in the end, I gave up on sleep. The owl outside of my bedroom, kept hitting its head on my window, and I swore I could see its wings fully opening and closing in the hallway outside of my bedroom. I tried to move but I was completely paralyzed, unable to do anything other than breathe. I smelled the smoke, but my lips were unable to move. I couldn't form the words to even allow me to scream. So, I just laid there, watching the flames dance, until my father lifted me up. No sooner than the second his foot hit the last step; the whole house went up in flames. My mom never made it outside. She didn't even get 48hrs to enjoy or experience something, she waited 48 years to see. I stood there just watching, until a hand reached for me. I turned to cry to my dad, and he was nowhere to be seen. My heart rate sped, and my breathing came rapidly. I looked in the distance, and somewhere right beside a tree, was something watching me.

I can't even begin to recount all the misfortune I experienced in that one year alone. My aunt who took me in, died in a freak car accident. My grandmother not only came down with dementia, but she diagnosed with stage IV cervical cancer and died within the month. I went from being an honor roll student, to barely even receiving a D in all of my classes. I ended up getting expelled from school due to my behavioral troubles, before I could finish my freshman year. Everyone blamed it on me grieving. They claimed I was acting out because I couldn't properly process my emotions. Every August for four years straight, it seemed as if something was adamantly trying to wipe out my whole maternal family line. Then somewhere down the line, the pattern shifted, and I would be sporadically tormented. I was brought to the brink of death just far enough to see the grim reaper, but never close enough for him to fully carry me away.

The constant string of bad luck, and the never-ending cycle of adversity, would've broken even the strongest of them all. I spent years and years trying to break the curse. I visited numerous specialists in the supernatural community, saw a psychiatrist, priest, and even consulted with historians to figure out the origins of the curse to have it successfully lifted. It seems as if the harder I tried, the longer it lingered. The more I fought to remove it, the more often the dark cloud of turmoil would often sweep through, hell bent on making my life as tedious as possible. Every moment of peace I was given, was an illusion to give me comfort. To make me feel as if I could let my guard down.

So now as I lay in this hospital bed, I welcome death. I embrace the reprieve that I have so long tried to find. I can barely keep my eyes open, but the sound of those wings fluttering to the left of my bed, and then on the right, won't allow me the solace I seek. With all the strength I can possibly muster, I force my eyes to open wide. I can now see it, an owl the size of a human, with beady black eyes. My mouth opens wide in shock and out of all the questions for me to ask, I can only ask, "why"? For the owl is no longer an owl, it is instead my estranged father. He replies, "It was your mother's family or mine, and I chose to live.... I've been forced to live as one with this creature, but your death will set me free... It has always been me watching, and in the end, there will only be me." I barely his last word, before I am surrounded by darkness.