The Thing On The Ceiling

Way back in the olden days of 1995, I was a kid kicking around an old bungalow in the middle of nowhere with my little sister. It was a hot summer day- the kind with tall grass, little breeze and buzzing insects that feels like it might last forever.

But we didn’t live there, our great-grandmother did. Well, not anymore.

She passed at the ripe old age of 90 and my parents, grandparents, little sister, and I were there to pack up her things.

Truth be told, I was always a little scared of her- she was no-nonsense in every way a person could be. We didn’t live near her, about a 40-minute drive away so we also weren’t at her house that often. She usually came to us for celebrations.

Her little house wasn’t my favourite place to be anyway, but I didn’t hate it. Though it did feel weird without her there. She was my first death at an age where I could really understand what was going on.

So, I’m a bored 9-year-old with ADHD trying to help by keeping an eye on my 5-year-old sister so she isn’t carried off by a bear or moose or something else from the great Canadian wilderness.

And then I feel it.

I can’t see it, but I can goddam feel it to this day- the feeling of being intensely stared at. Not by a parent or grandparent for doing something dumb, but by something floating at ceiling level in the corner of the room.

It’s not happy.

I get the distinct impression whatever it is would murder all of us with glee if it had the ability. I am actively terrified for my and my entire family’s lives and convinced we’re going to die RIGHT NOW.

That’s a super fun feeling, especially when none of the adults (my only way out of there) 1. feel anything is off and 2. blow me off when I beg them to pack faster and leave. They think I’m just being my flighty impatient ADHD-self.

I didn’t tell them what I was feeling, they would have told me it was my overactive imagination or that I was getting in the way when they were busy. Probably both.

I did the only thing I could do.

No, not run into the woods screaming at the top of my lungs. I stayed in the house and helped as much as I could as fast as I could so we could FINALLY leave.

The feeling never let up until we left.

I didn’t say anything until I was in my 20s. My sister was listening to my story along with mom as we sat in our (haunted, but that’s another story) house. When I finished, my sister spoke up saying she had felt the same thing that day.

Excuse me, what?

I don’t think I was ever back to the bungalow after that day, there was no reason to go. And I don’t know that I’d go back to the land even though the building is gone given the chance.

Due to my upbringing in a very fire and brimstone church, I always assumed it was a demon come to kill us all because reasons.

But now I wonder if it wasn’t a sprit related to the land who was angry we were there. My great-grandmother had been a hobby farmer who took good care of the land, perhaps the truce they’d made was over.

I don’t really know what it was, I just know I don’t want to meet it again.