| Stir of Disturbing Memories |
[Aug. 19th, 2002|05:27 am]
rejectomorph
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A few minutes ago, a car passed on the road a block west, and it was making a strange whining noise. A cockeyed headlight was flashing up into the trees. I had a momentary chill, remembering one of the scary games my older sister used to make up. (She made a lot of things scary. She used to do "Bloody Bones and Butcher Knives" at bedtime every night, when I was about four or five years old and we shared a room.) The particular game I just remembered was her version of Statues. It was played in the front yard, in the evening, when the cars passing had their headlights on. When the cars passed, we had to freeze in whatever position we were in. She said that if we moved while in the light from the cars, we would be killed. Most of her games involved death as a punishment for breaking a rule.
One of the results of this game was that I had nightmares in which I was running to stay out of the headlight beams of cars, sure that I would suffer some horrible death if I were caught in them. Somewhere, (probably from my sister again,) I had picked up the idea that there were people who drove around in trucks, and kidnapped children, and in the backs of those trucks the children would be dismembered. I had dreams about those trucks, too. I sometimes dreamed that I had been captured, and that I was tied up in the back of a truck, and tall figures, masked and hooded, were cutting into me with shiny butcher knives. It didn't hurt, but the knives felt very cold. All the while, even though I couldn't see the outside, I knew that the truck was driving around my neighborhood, past my house again and again, but I couldn't escape because my legs had been cut off. I would just sit there bleeding, and wondering when I was going to die. Then I would wake up in a cold sweat, shaking. If my sister was awake, she would usually tell "Bloody Bones and Butcher Knives" again. Is it any wonder I'm so weird? Ah, childhood. I'm so glad I only had to go through it once. |
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