On Three Occasions

The thump of my heart felt like a crazed raven smacking against the sides of a hollow, wooden cage. I could feel the quivering cries of the bird’s pain underneath my skin. The room was dark and it was past midnight. The light from a nearby streetlight flooded in and I could make the outlines of the door, the bedside table, and the still ceiling fan. I had rented this small house in Sacramento on a whim and it was the first night. There was a heavy weight on my chest and I felt that my legs could not move. This was not the first time that I had been so bed-locked like this. I was seeing a close friend whose grandmother had just died and given my grandfather’s passing as a child, I felt a certain pull towards her and this fresh mourning. I laid awake staring up at the ceiling fan and knew that I would not be able to move anything but my eyeballs and eyelids for some time. After taking in the surroundings like one would in a new place, I began to feel suspense and anxiety growing from the silence of the room.

It felt like I should not have been there at that time and this bird was trying to warn me to get out. A few moments later, the hallucination began. From the center of the ceiling fan, I saw a hooded figure make its lines clear in this inanimate object. I could not see its face, but I knew what it was. Perhaps an omen, I thought. Since it was not my first time in the spellbind, I decided to accept my death. The outline became more and more clear, and I saw it pull out a large, sharp scythe with ease. At this point of the wake, I was able to clench my fists. I began to yell as it pulled the scythe across its shoulder as it prepared for the first swing. What I thought were yells were actually low-volume mumbles. The first blow missed right above my left shoulder. The second, just next to my right ear. I knew the last wouldn’t miss me. As the third strike sped towards me, I closed my eyes and in the next moment, I gained the functionality back in my muscles and was able to get up and look around the room. I checked the front door and it was locked. The windows were closed. The backdoor with a dog door – locked. The cold tiles and the small lights from the clocks of the appliances in the kitchen creeped me out so I went back to the room and shut the door. It was just after 3 AM.

The first occasion was not dissimilar. This time I was back in the bedroom at the house that I had grown up in. Like the first time, nothing jumped on my chest, but when I woke up, I felt a heavy weight above me as if it were hovering just over my whole body. Again, my arms and legs were paralyzed. What made this time worse was that I felt a heavy hand where my hip and pelvis meet. My eyes detected nothing in the room, and it was silent. The morning after, I looked up historical accounts of the weighted feeling and paralysis. Images of short, clothed, and wicked demons standing on top of supine people came up from the search. Sleep paralysis. Given my history with these kinds of things, I was sure that it would be back to catch me or perhaps take from me. I didn’t know yet.

Looking back at my life, I recall many broken catholic rosaries lying around my room. An omen that their protection was past due. Earlier in life, I had had a few other encounters that stuck with me. Then, there was the time when I was about 8 years old, and a close family member was staying with us. We were sitting at midday in the living room and saw reflections up against the wall. She was convinced that the blotches of light were faces communicating to us. Another time, I was playing by myself near the staircase in the same house. No one else was home. I looked up at the staircase and there was a suited man with a regal shape standing on the fourth and fifth steps with his leg up on the fifth. He was in a black suit and wore an open smile with jagged teeth. This man had large circular eyes that were filled with black-and-white spirals like those that are used in hypnosis. I ran away. Then, there was the man that visited me and showed me how to draw a landscape with mountains, rivers, and trees from an aerial view. He had me practice three times, then I never saw him again. I could have sworn that the others were talking to him.

I became numb to the horror movies that aired on television. The gore was a cinematic effect to demonstrate directorial mastery. The flashes from The Blair Witch Project and others were not as bad as when I had first watched them. Projections of a little, blue-skinned boy who had drowned appearing in my house or the interdimensional spirit waiting in the corner of a room floated around my mind as other thoughts do. I can’t help but think back to the day that my grandfather passed away in the hospital. I had never been caught more off guard than when I walked into that room as a six-year-old. After that, everything started to smell bad, and many things that should have been exciting came to be increasingly mundane.

The third occasion was well after the night in Sacramento. I knew how to handle the paralysis by that point. Opening and clenching the hands, as well as, touching the chin to the chest were enough to wake up the rest of the body. It turns out that this works well. Now, if I could just remove these memories from the backs of my eyelids.