Creepy!

[cyrano]

Ever since I re-watched House on Haunted Hill, I've had a far more ambivalent relationship with our living room in the darkness. It's a little disorienting--I haven't had this sort of reptile brain terror since living in Oregon. You know the kind--where you can't just walk down the stairs into the basement, you have to dash down them as quickly as possible. And maybe you even vault over those last four stairs with the storage area underneath because you can't convince yourself that the only thing being stored down there is old Christmas decorations.

So, sometimes if I get up in the night it's not a problem. Some times my throat closes up and I find myself suddenly lunging for a light switch. Because monsters hate the light, and are powerless within it. This is a problem if I went to get a drink of water and I've just slammed the glass into the wall.

So I just opened the bedroom door to go out and get a drink. And in the dim light from the skylight and from the back courtyard I could see a dark shape moving around my feet. At first I assumed that it was the cat, waiting for me to open the door so it could lie on my bed. But the cat was in the other bedroom with the door closed. And about the time that hit me, the shape swirled forward, across my bare feet (I did not jump back on my tiptoes and squeal like a school girl, although it crossed my mind that this might be the wisest course of action) and wraithed into my room.

And so I figured that tonight was one of those nights when I turned on the lights.

Comments

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Because the power of suggestion isn't enough, evil cats need to help. (:
I saw Kubrick's "The Shining" when I was eight. I didn't take a bath for a very long time, and it was even longer before I felt comfortable using the bathroom at all.