a shameful tale

originally posted April 27, 2007

Once upon a time there was a girl who liked to read scary books. She liked the tingly adrenaline feel they gave her, and liked the sense of superiority they fostered in her because she knew she would never do something as completely fucking stupid as living in a house situated over any sort of burial ground. She was quite smug about this point.

As she grew older, she no longer enjoyed these sorts of books because the woman she grew into was kind of a ninny when it came to scary shit. M. Night Shyamalan movies were okay, except for the Sixth Sense – yes, even that was too scary for this big ninny, even though it took her years to see it and she already knew how it ended. Frightening experiences like The Ring were only sought occasionally, like when her tiny, ancient, Korean obstetrician put her on "pelvic rest" during pregnancy, and she was forced to quarantine her pelvis from all visitors and any activity, so she watched a lot of scary stuff instead because she needed to feel something somewhere. Of course, this proved to be a bad idea, as it lingered in the woman's head, and led to her always doing a stupid rapid walk-dash down her darkened hallway every time she returned from the linen closet, because she imagined the Ring girl might be crawling after her.

One day the woman decided to buy a house because she finally seemed old enough and she had sort of a real job. She also had a house-buying companion who had an actual real job, and so together they decided to buy a house in Satan's Nethers. After they bought the house and moved in, the woman watched a movie about zombies, which turned out to be a bad idea, because it made the woman not want to ever be alone in the swimming pool (the house had pool, as lots of houses there did, because Satan's Nethers taint a very comfortable place to live.) The reason the woman didn't want to ever be alone in the swimming pool was that she imagined aqua-zombies might swim up from beneath and grab her legs. She felt this way even in the day time, and even in the shallow end, and the knowledge that zombies probably don't like swimming did nothing to allay her fears.

One day the woman was sitting in the house, probably thinking smug thoughts about something, when she was struck by a thought SO HORRIFYING that it made her cry out and get all cold and sweaty. While she understood at the time of the house purchase that the house was located next to a place where a large tribe of prehistoric people once lived, and she understood that there was an actual archaeological dig going on at this place, the full implications of this had never crossed her mind, because she was a person who had a hard time connecting the dots sometimes. The women realized that, in all likelihood, she was living in a house situated over some sort of burial ground. These fears were later confirmed by an archaeologist who offered to come over and dig up her yard.

Now the smug girl who liked scary books until she grew into a ninny lives in a house over a burial ground. She is secretly afraid to plant trees in her yard because she thinks she might unleash a vengeful spirit of some sort. She doesn't like it when the television gets staticky, because she secretly fears that someone might come scrambling out or someone might get sucked in. She has a small child who has conversations with invisible people situated high in the corners of the room. This small child also smiles at empty air and says "tanka?" The woman doesn't know who or what a tanka is, but the small child also says it when he points to a picture of a ghost in his Corduroy's Halloween book. Worst of all, the small child once looked completely frightened as his gaze followed absolute nothingness as it moved across her bedroom and into her bathroom, where the small child pointed to the absolute nothingness and said "someone?" Then the small child insisted on being taken to the living room immediately. Now the smug girl sees that she really should have been more understanding about the idiots living over burial grounds. Nice going, smug girl. You really had this coming. Have fun appeasing the ghosties, you stupid twit.