An Interlude in Grandview Cemetery, Part III

(A multi-part fictionalized account of the truth)

Resenting the flare of the overhead light, Jason slipped out of the car, then shut the door as quietly as possible. September had stolen over summer, and the shortened days had taken their toll. The moist, night air sank into Jason's skin, but he would not permit himself to be cold. He steeled himself against more than the weather as he crossed the street to the shadowy sidewalk.

Jason scanned the neighborhood. Nothing. No one peeping from behind a curtain. No cars bearing down to expose him in their headlights. He granted himself a little smile for his luck, then turned the corner toward the cemetery.

The mountain road approached, and Jason saw unspoiled darkness in either direction. And more importantly, no police. He listened. No sound of tires rushing in the distance. He perched at the edge of the pavement.

Erring on the side of speed, Jason sprang forward and ran for the first time. Usually, his friends trailed, but that night, he bounded across alone. A moment later, he pitched himself sideways and scraped through the opening between walls. Then, he bent, slowing, and blended into the shadows among the graves.
On to Part IV
Back to Part II
Just joining us? Go back to Part I

cemetery

A Summer Evening Remembered

As the light drained from the land and soft mist rose, the richness of night began to grow around me. Summer's warmth wrapped my thoughts, and night song lured me into endless dreams.

Something waited for me in the twilight.

As it always did.

Whispering.

And hid from me in the twilight.

An Interlude in Grandview Cemetery, Part II

(A multi-part fictionalized account of the truth)

The final turn broke from the woods and deposited Jason under the open night sky. To his left, the ancient stone wall of the cemetery began. Weathered and dark, the stones were locked solidly despite standing for more than 100 years.

Jason rolled by the enormous iron gates. Locked for the night. No one in or out.

However, Jason was well acquainted with defeating the cemetery wall under cover of darkness. Climbing wasn't impossible, but difficult. The key was a breach farther down. Over the years, Grandview had expanded, and these newer areas were fenced by modern chain link. Where metal met stained stone, a space opened where Jason could squeeze through.

He steered for a shaded street running parallel to the cemetery, then slowed under the canopy of trees. Sleepy windows, glowing only from televisions and kitchen lights, lined the sidewalks. No one noticed Jason creep to a stop amid the sprinkle of parked cars.

On to Part III
Back to Part I

cemetery

An Interlude in Grandview Cemetery, Part I

(A multi-part fictionized account of the truth)

Jason cut hard on the wheel.

Even so, the car's headlights slipped off the curve and fell into the forest. Fiery circles cut across his vision in a blur while the yellow lines bent away into the darkness. He was forced to drive by memory. The steep mountain road surrendered nothing at night.

Jason glanced up to where the blackness met starry sky. There, the forest broke, and Grandview Cemetery stretched for an enormous expanse. Jason was alone, and his heart was pounding.

Below, in the valley, the lights of Johnstown, Pennsylvania glowed. It was a steel-making town, but the mills had sat rusting ever since the industries folded. Many of the tragedies of Johnstown were preserved in Grandview Cemetery, including the 750 unknown dead from the great flood of 1889. In fact, so many citizens were tucked into that mountaintop that the cemetery's population seemed to dwarf the city's.

On to Part II

Voices from the Past

I find the solemn eloquence of old tombstones haunting.


Inscription: Sacred To the Memory of Elizabeth. Daughter of JOHN & ELLEN SMITH. Born 11th December 1845. And while in the enjoyment of blooming health and in the exercise of infant playfulness, she was on the 19th of March 1847, suddenly, as in the twinkling of an eye, snatched from the fond embrace of her Earthly Parents and translated into the gracious presence and endearment of him who said, Suffer little children to come unto me. [Smaller text unreadable in the photograph, and I didn't write it down when I was there].

Inscription: O glorious Flag, O righteous Cause! O glorious Struggle to be free! O glorious Sleeper thou wast proved, A Soldier fit to follow LEE.

(Disclaimer: this headstone lies in North Carolina, hence the message. I'm not condoning it, just photographing it.)

Gothic
graves

Nostalgia Poison

You repeat the story I've heard scores of times. I've heard all the stories scores of times. Like an album pulled out of a sacred drawer. Enshrined. Worshiped. But stagnant. Never changing. Dead.

Yes, when I was fourteen, I.... When I was in the second grade, I....

But there is terrible meaning behind the words.

I stand before you and stare into your blind eyes. I am a collection of lifeless memories. A wish gone wrong. A failed cure for your needs. I didn't fill your holes. But do you even feel the holes or know how large they are?

Until you understand a person, you have no right to want from that person, no right to take. Give the gift of your attention first, take graciously, and demand the same in return.

Break on Through to the Other Side

I often used to dream of my grandmother's house.

It was an odd house--a double house--the kind with two front doors leading into two separate living rooms with two sets of stairs climbing upwards and upwards until finally ending at two imposing attic doors. A small portal in that old, confused attic served as the only connection between the two halves. A curious place for the sole passageway, don't you think?

But that wasn't the strange part. No one had lived on the other side of my grandmother's house for over 30 years.

My grandmother owned the whole house, so that wasn't the problem. My great aunt and uncle had lived there last, and when they had moved, it was good riddance, I suppose. That's when time froze in the emptiness, then decayed. The furnace sat waiting for coal (chutes still opened down into stone-lined holding rooms in the basement), the paint started peeling, and the plaster started to fall.

By the time I came along, the transformation was complete: moldering furniture, faded wallpaper, and dusty cardboard laid to protect ruined floors. It was used for storage, but most of what was stored there had also withered into junk. My grandmother simply called it "the other side," and I looked for any excuse to go over there. The old-fashioned skeleton keys opened countless mysteries and secrets. Since little had changed since the 1930's, the rooms and halls were small pockets of living past. But fear also lived there, especially in the dank basements within basements. The meager light from the back window barely cut into that blackness. Furthest in, the floor reeked of moldy dirt, like an entrance into one of the countless mines that dotted the surrounding mountains.

While trying to fall asleep in my grandmother's half of the house, I used to stare at the common wall as long as I dared. So many ghosts lay a handful of feet away. And the high door to the attic loomed behind me. One of those ghosts need only sweep up into their side of the attic, pass through the portal, and glide silently down the rickety stairs to the room where my sleeping bag lay. No wonder I dreamed about that house for so many years. Eyes squeezed closed and a cover thrown over my head could never shut it all out of my brain.

Sometimes in my sleep so many years later, I sit in that chair you see above, that chair by the front window overlooking the peonies. Or sometimes a nameless person sits in that chair, and I watch her.

The dreams will still come, especially now that I've remembered. The dreams will still come, even though the chair, and the other side, have long since gone.

ghost
paranormal

Index

FINDING YOUR WAY IN THE NIGHT

Vignettes (ordered by most recent)
What About This One?
My Death Lives Beneath Your Skirt
Under an Oak Tree on a Fall Morning
Emotion Study #1
Eat Sensibly, Tom and Julie
Of Clouds, and Not Falling
The Morning After
Thirteen
Why Don't You Come Over?
Pulse
I Wouldn't Stand
The Forgotten Ones
Indian Pipe
Thunderstorm
Salamander
Never Too Late
After Midnight
Lead Poisoning
Lilac
Warm Hands
On a Hilltop
A Toast to the Shadows and Lamplight
Caffeine Hourglass
Tea
Saturday Afternoon
Moonshadow
Once
Hollow Wind
November Grey
Long Shadows
The Railway
Titled Sun
The Cycle of Constellations (mainstream)

Fictionalized History (ordered by most recent)
Ventilation (a polio survivor lives her life in an iron lung)
Tunguska (1908 meteorite impact in eastern Siberia)
Westinghoused (the battle of the competing electric technologies results in the first human electrocution)
X-Ray Martyrs (the stories of three early victims of radiation)

Lyric Vignettes (ordered by most recent)
Peaches
Have You Ever Seen the Rain
For Emily Wherever I May Find Her
Bad Romance
Again
Rape Me
Sober
Unwell
Live to Tell
Angel From Montgomery
Breathe
Message in a Bottle
Frozen
Luka
The Offer
Love Song
Here We Are Now, Entertain Us (Smells Like Teen Spirit)
I Will Follow You Into the Dark
Losing My Religion
Café
City

Short Stories (ordered by most recent)
Seance (flash fiction)
S.E.E.D. (sci fi series)
Step by Step (flash fiction)
Scene of the Crime (flash fiction)
Succubus (flash fiction)
The Hydra Cluster (flash fiction)
A Cottage Home (flash fiction)
Aim (war)
The Forest (flash fiction)
The Valley (flash fiction)
Strawberry Patch (flash fiction)
Feed (flash fiction)
Rhododendron (flash fiction)
Under the Willows (narrative poem, vampire)
The Stairs (suspense/horror/adult themes)
Boundaries (mainstream)
White Roses (ghost story)
Rings (science fiction)
Television (mainstream)
The Fallen (war)
The Passions of Bryn (vampire)
Spread (crime)
White Rooms (thriller)
Flashlight Tag (horror)
Diamond Shoals (literary)
Caroline (suspense/paranormal)

Poetry (alphabetical)
Anthropology
Autumn Prayer
Bathwater Days
Black Window
The Blanketed Ones
The Boy Who Sprouted
Brain Surgery
Collecting
Damming
Daughter
Day Display
Devonian
Dusk
Embryo
Erosion
Evergreen
Evergreens
Exposure
Fingerpainting
First Light
Forest in a Raindrop
Forest Snow
Iceberg
In the Shadow of Burnaby Light
Intimacy
Islands in Mist
Look
Mineral Skies
Morality Poem-Learned Frustration
Morality Poem-Society
Morning and Evening River
November's Bedside
October Moon
Of Pillows and a Harpsichord
Ontario & Western Railroad
Painbrush on Skin
Pedigree
The Piper's Gift
Primordial
Prisons
Recurring Dreams
Red Skies Coming
Reverie
Scent
Serpent
She Dreamed of a House
Salvation of the Collapsing Universe
Sewing
Simpler Life
Singularity
Sometimes
A Spring Haunting
Sunlit Sleep
To Nick Drake's Forest and My Path Nearby
Traveling Song
Twenty-three in Motion
Twilight
The Under-Sky
Undressed
The Wait Too Long
Walk
Water Song
Wavelength
Whisper an Old Tune
Wind in the Morning

Haiku (alphabetical)
Abdomen Shine
By the Lamp Would Be Lovely
Forest Sauna
Rain is My Bosom
Sundew
Tadpole

Insights (alphabetical)
An Anxiety Study
Beer Philosophers #3
Beer Philosphers #2
All Hallows Eve
Along a Road
Bobby's First Long Pants
Break on Through to the Other Side
Breath of Autumn
Children of Mental Illness
Clarity of Night Explained
Cries in the Night
Delicious Pain
Delcious Pain, Part 2
The Desirers and Safeties
Did Pythagoras Find a Rip in the Universe?
Down Into Endless Night
Fear, Pain, and Wisdom
Fire and Twilight
Forest Circles
Giants of the Chesapeake
Hate to Succeed
History of Pipe Music-The Retreat
A Hunter's Mysticism
Little Windows--The Birthday Party
Little Windows--The Unfortunate Swing Set Incident
May 31, 1889
Moving Portraits
Nature's Needlepoint
Not Because They are Easy....
The Old Ways
Pennsylvania Bluestone
Piano Sonata for the Dead
Pilots
Quoth the Raven, Nevermore
The Real Cottage Along the Woods
She Moved Through the Fair
Signs
Thoughts: May Moon
Tides
What Do These Things Have in Common?
Winter's Bend

Cemetery Series (alphabetical)
A Farmer's Epitaph
Folk Art Graves
Remember: George Miles Longstreth
Remember: Hannah Seright
Remember: John & Lydia Wiand
Remember: John Park Moore
Remember: Mrs. John Wells, M.D.
Remember: The Lonely Ones
Remember: Rebecca Walker
Remember: Robert & Minerva King
Remember: Dr. William Darlington
Remember: William Woodland
Quiet Moment
Symbolism-Cherub
Symbolism-Cross & Crown
Symbolism-The Dove
Symbolism-Hands, Clasped
Symbolism-The Lamb
Symbolism-The Rose
Symbolism-Shorn Wheat
Symbolism-Tree Trunk
Symbolism-The Urn
Symbolism-Willow Tree
Symbolism-Wreath
The Philanthropist
Voices from the Past
Where They Sleep

(Updated: 6/6/2010)

Ghost on the Stairs

I call this one, "Ghost on the Stairs." Very original title, I know. But how would you like to capture this little moment in YOUR house? Yes, I took the picture, and yes, it depicts a ghost at the lower landing of the stairs where I lived as a teenager.

However, there's one important thing you should know. It's a fake.

Okay, so I got my kicks out of doing odd things as a teenager. Hey, at least trick photography was creative.

Here's how to conjure your own ghost in 11 easy steps:

#1 Dress all in white.

#2 Avoid eating spaghetti. (Note: The ethereal fabric of ghosts are treated with some kind of ectoplasmic ScotchGuard. No stains! You don't want your specter to be an embarrassment, after all.)

#3 Get a reasonably sophisticated 35mm SLR camera (We're talking film here. Black and white for best effect. I'm not sure consumer digital cameras today can do the sort of thing I'm about to describe, but who cares anyway? You can whip up a ghost on Photoshop easy enough. This was the OLD DAYS, when special effects took some ingenuity!)

#4 Confirm it's night. If you've miscalculated and it's actually morning, remove white clothing and change into something more appropriate for your itinerary. (Practicing medical professionals and dentists can skip this step. You're good to go either way.)

#5 After nighttime has been confirmed, calculate the camera aperture need to properly expose about an 8 second picture in the existing room light. Set the appropriate aperture.

#6 Set up the camera on a tripod for the shot, then turn off the lights.

#7 Open the camera lens in the total darkness ("bulb" setting).

#8 Turn on the lights for 4 seconds. Turn off the lights.

#9 Go to where you want your ghost. Throw a white shirt over your head, then have your assistant turn on the lights for 4 more seconds (you're catching on if you're thinking 4 + 4 =8 seconds--Bravo!). While the lights are on, keep moving around to blur your image. Then, turn off the lights.

#10 Close the lens again to finish the picture.

#11 Repeat the above several times, so you can pick the best picture of the bunch. This isn't an exact science, you know.

Voila! You have a misty, white, humanoid shape that you can see through. Your house is now haunted! Go impress your friends!

The Clarity of Night??? Man, What the Heck Are You Talking About?

It's easy to forget, so it bears occasional reminding, that at this very moment, your feet (or some other flattened part of your body) are glued to a planet. You know, a planet. Think Galileo, telescopes, gas giants, elliptical orbits, etc. A planet.

Yes, it's true.

Don't believe me? Jump as high as you can. See? Amazing isn't it? Serious glue, that gravity.

Okay, the more scientific minded among you felt quite secure in that understanding already. But do you really realize how profound that connection is? There's day, and there's night. Depending on your latitude, there are seasons of hot and cold, sun and rain, calm and storms. Here in the temperate northern hemisphere, the seasons are profound. At the summer solstice, day is a whopping 6+ hours longer than at the winter solstice.

Then, we have the two equinoxes (as a Latin major it is hard for me not to write the correct form "equinoces" here), where we particularly fall victim to confusion. When light and dark are perfectly balanced, should we be happy (lots of sun) or should we spiral into melancholy (hey, where'd the sun go)? It's no accident that samhain (i.e., Halloween) is near the autumnal equinox. The mixing of light and dark equates to the mixing of the living and the dead.

We are creatures of the Earth, after all. The further we stray from the bountiful equator and its uniformity of climate, the more vulnerable we are to fatal miscalculations. You better build your shelter in the heat in order to live through the cold. You better grow your food in the sun in order to eat when the branches are bare.

Modern conveniences can largely tame the Earth. Of course, if we're not smart with our resources, one day our number will be up. However, for now the constant burn of fuel fires up the cold, chills away the heat, and rips away the dark. Don't get me wrong, the power of the Earth still punches through. Why do so many holidays and festivals featuring light exist around the winter solstice (Hanukkah, Christmas, pagan rituals, etc.)? Despite our soft white bulbs and plasma TV's, the unending nights still depress the hell out of us.

The dark. That one is special. No slow growth towards spring. No slow death in autumn. It happens every day. The sun sinks fast enough you can actually see it bleed away into the horizon. If you're not in it right now, you're going to be in a little while.

Have you ever walked in a forest at night? The imperfectly lit streets of a city at three in the morning are unimaginably more friendly. What is so powerful about the dark? Well, first, a lack of light shrinks the world. We have trouble conceiving or accepting what we can't see. Without those happy little photons bouncing off the far landscape and landing in our eyes, our minds can't stretch much farther than a stone's throw from where we stand. What could be out there where the shadows shroud our ability to know? Anything. Everything.

So there we are, you and I, in our tiny islands of understanding in the night. Restful. Peaceful. The world is no longer bustling. Nothing is pushing between you and your own mind. It's a tantalizing convergence of circumstances, isn't it? Just when you are especially plugged into yourself, your mind is swelling to weave a replacement world for the larger, real one which has winked out of existence. That time bring so many opportunities. You can populate your private world with fear (You can never prove a negative, can you? For instance, you can never prove that there ISN'T a hideous creature behind you always keeping just beyond the edge of your sight). Or, you can populate your private world with your dearest dreams. Ever notice how much more beautiful a face can be in the half light of a candle? That's your private world casting its spell.

That is clarity of night-- the connection which forms in the solitude of darkness between your freed mind and your propensity to really listen to what it has to say.

The subtitle of this blog is Irreverence, Insights, and the Uncanny. The insights, we've covered. Here is a place to share them. As for the uncanny, it's difficult to walk the halls of night and not bump into a few ghosts along the way, because remember, in our private world, even the imagined ghost is real. If you delight in feathery chills running over your skin and in heart-pumping good scares, this is a place to share that too.

Lastly, irreverence. Part of giving in to free thinking is letting go of tradition for tradition's sake. No belief should be held without a thorough testing and retesting by each person who holds it. Unscrutinized faith is the surest path to evil, because being absolutely certain of anything is the surest sign that you're wrong. We'll be knocking around a few traditions and beliefs here. Free thinking demands it.