The Place Keeps on Haunting Me

The Place Keeps on Haunting Me

Even though it has been a few years since I was last there, the place still haunts me quite regularly. It is in all of my nightmares. While it does not seem completely logical for me to ‘blame’ the place, just because several things that happened there provide the persistent pictures in my frequent nightmares, blaming the island is what I have done.

The Nightmares of the Island

Once, as a 12 year old boy, I took out the family canoe to paddle to the island of my future nightmares. I did this without telling my parents who were visiting some friends a few miles away and who never let me take the canoe out on my own. As I tried to land the canoe on the rocky shore of the low-lying island, the canoe tipped and I fell into the water. It took me a long time to take myself and the canoe out of the water, drain the canoe until it was nearly empty, and start back home very carefully. Unfortunately, my parents had returned back home shortly before I did, and noticed that there was water in the canoe. They asked about it, and, unfortunately, I told them the whole story For the next few years they chained the canoe to a large tree so I did not have access to it. The image of my tipping is now a long term nasty picture in my dreams. It leads to my drowning in some of my night visions.

When I was finally permitted to take the canoe to the island there was the time that I saw a fox kill a rabbit. I had never seen an animal killed before. That scene is like a movie in my nightmares. Over and over I see it take place in my dreams.

The third nightmare comes from that dreadful day when I took my first girlfriend to the island, as I was going to ask her to marry me, even though the two of us were both only 18 years old, and we had only been a couple for two and a half months. I had practiced over and over what I was going to say, and how I was going to it do, thinking that I would propose while down on an bended knee. Before I got to say or do anything approaching romantic, she straight out said to me:

“Fred, this has to be our very last date. My parents do not think that you will ever have a significant income, that you will be a financial failure. And I have to tell you that I am beginning to find you quite boring to be with for any length of time. Now let’s get off this bloody island that you find so romantic and part ways for the rest of our lives.”

We never spoke to each other ever again. While I learned not to care about her physical absence from my life, I still have nightmares about being on the island, down on one knee and being rejected by someone that I had once loved. I hope never to see her in town, but that would certainly prompt a hideous nightmare of rejection.

Returning to the Island of my Nightmares

A good friend of mine whom I work with in the office had seen my tired eyes in a number of mornings, and asked about my lack of sleep. He had asked whether me and my wife of less than a year were having a wild sex life every night. When I told him what the real cause was, he suggested that I see a psychiatrist about my problem, to help me lose my nightmares. I told my wife about the suggestion, and she agreed with it wholeheartedly. She had worried about me, but she did not want to make me feel like she was complaining about me, and she was very caring in that particular way.

The psychiatrist that I booked suggested that it would be a good idea for me to return to the island of my nightmares, and see that it was in fact a completely harmless place – just an ordinary island. That struck me as being a good idea. So I thanked the psychiatrist for the sound advice.

Returning to the Island

My parents had sold the house and I had long ago moved out of the area before they had done that, so we had not seen the island for a good number of years. I parked my car about a mile away from the lakefront, and chose as my path walking beside the river that flowed into the lake. As I walked along the path, I had the feeling that something had changed. It took me a while to realize that the river looked to be both wider and deeper than what I had remembered from previous walks along that way years ago. Maybe it had rained a downpour recently. The lake might be going through one of its wild times that I remembered happening sometimes.

As I walked farther down the path, the river got wider than I remember it being and I was walking down what looked to me like a newly trod pathway. When I got to the lake, I did not see the island right away as I thought that I would. Fortunately, a young lad was walking along the shore. I stepped in front of him and asked. “Where can I see the island? I used to live here and expected to see it when I arrived at the lake.”

The boy gave me the stunned look that people his age often give when an adult asks what they think is a stupid questions. Then he said, “There’s no island on the lake….sir”.

I did not believe what he said, figuring that he was perhaps new to the area, especially the lake. I didn’t say what I was thinking, but just uttered a rather quiet and insincere, “Thank you.” He said nothing in reply, just nodded his head and walked away.

I then walked along the shore of the lake, at no time seeing the island. Once I got to where our family home was, I did notice that the lake line came farther inland than when we lived there. And the island was not in sight. I could not believe my good fortune.

I returned to my car and drove to a nearby gas station, not just to get gas. I asked the attendant about the island, and he told me that there has been a time of a long downpour, which completely “drowned the island”. I smiled when he said those three words.

I did not tell him of my nightmares. He might have thought that I was a little crazy. However, when I took my first few steps outside towards my car, I gave out a loud cheer, which I am sure he did not understand.

My nightmares ended, but I can now conjure up pictures of the lake without the island appearing.