Freetimes

It does not always happen in the darkest depths of night. When the shadows stretch long across ceilings, curve around doors and turn corners into caves. It happens when the sun is high in the sky, illuminating cracks and spaces. Leaving nothing to wild and wonderful imagination.

It does not always happen in isolated silence. Thumping heartbeat, gulping, bobbing throat, creaking, shifting eyes in sockets. Checking for warnings, looking for danger, ready for surprise. Internal and concentrated, waiting. Back of neck and arm hairs stand ridged like tree trunks. Icy wind shivering down collars, and that whispering niggle deep inside the mind, echoing.

It happens in rooms of chattering colleagues and clacking keyboards, mumbling dinner guests, clinking glasses and clattering cutlery in restaurants, screeching laughter and overlapping talking at parties.

Simply, it happens everywhere. It’s never unexpected, but always expected. Shocking fright every time.  

The feeling. The brushing of velvet the wrong way, gnawing teeth over a stuck bit of tin foil on food, a rose thorn pricking a soft finger pad, and rubbing sand in rubber shoes, coarse and crusty between toes. Jolting and sickly. Meltingly oozy. Flushes of hot and cold and crumbling to the ground. Like steam from a kettle boiled just a few seconds ago, disappearing into the air.

Then the voice that is not a voice hovers a heavy, thick grey pressure. Hums and zings, an irritating chime that comes from nowhere but the voice. Caresses the back of the neck, glides long sharp fingernails down the spine. Tickles and scratches. A mist that swirls behind the tips of the ears and rushes around, thickening into fog. Paralysing for a second in shock and realisation.

It’s not a whisper or gasp, but a slow building screeching whoosh. Like a train through a tunnel or a blizzard rushing through bare trees; whistling, icy, blood chilling.

It freezes the heart and stills the limbs. The lungs turn to cold steel. Arms, legs, and fingers stiffen and numb, but the toes curl tightly. The stomach drops and sweat drips down the palms. The breath hitches in the throat and croaks in the chest.

Then, a millisecond later, the eyes blink and it’s gone.

The voice, not the feeling.

And the world resumes. Time starts and the held breath is released. A new layer of feeling lands, embarrassment and shame. How ridiculous to be scared of nothing there.

But it is there. You know something’s there because this has happened before. In the night. During the day. In the silence. During the noise.

The eerie is always there. It is the surrounding air and the shadow behind your back and in front of you. Always following and just out of reach.

Sitting alone, that is, by yourself with no human comfort, you read or meditate, eat or stare into space. Content and still. Then it happens again, the eerie sneaks and appears.

The flash in the corner of the eye, which causes the head to turn and body to twist, trying to catch sight of it. But it disappears too fast. Was it there? Does it exist? Then again, another flash, accompanied by a groan. The breath hitches. Nostrils flare. Ears prick. A lone deer in the woods. A creak on a floorboard under thick carpet, one that did not creak before.

The new light bulb flickers like a candle blowing in a gush. Then the prickle. The body stiffens. Teeth chatter so the jaw clenches to stop them. The logical brain sends cooling messages to calm, but no cell listens.

Cautiously, the body turns to the mirror with wide eyes raised.

“There’s nothing there,” you say. “It’s just your imagination.”

You lift your eyes to the mirror and your lips part. Your scream is stuck, and your breath is stolen from your lungs.

Your hollow face stares back at you with horror. The mirror is smudged with five crimson streaks, swiping from the side to the wallpaper. Dragged across the wall to the door. Your eyes follow it down to the floor, and on the carpet are ashy footprints leading out of the door.

Behind you, you hear the voice, a wheezy laugh that starts off high and ends low. A deep bellow, rumbling the room and vibrating through your frozen body.

The eerie was there. It’s always there. Leaving a warning and teasing what’s to come. Whenever that is.