Darkside55
The Freeman
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2009
- Messages
- 12,083
- Reaction score
- 93
It is currently 4:41pm, I'm home sick, and I'm feeling rather pensive. I always feel sick around this time of year. Always the last two weeks in October, like clockwork. Nothing else around here to do, so I figure I'll share a story with my friends on HL2.net.
It's not a story I tell everyone. In fact, it's a story I tell no one. Not even my closest friends IRL know. Not even my family knows. Why, then, do I feel comfortable telling a bunch of people I've only communicated to through the internet? Perhaps that's it, the relative anonymity of it. Maybe it's the cold getting to my head. Maybe I don't care. Maybe it's the date.
I said I get sick around the last two weeks of October. No fever, no chills, no runny nose, but I've got a hacking cough that feels like it's attempting to murder me every thirty seconds. I used to love October, when I was younger. Halloween is probably every kid's favorite holiday, right up there with Christmas. At least it was for me; I enjoyed Halloween a lot more than Christmas, actually, and not for the candy; I enjoyed the spirit of it. It was a feeling. A good feeling.
It's ironic, then, or perhaps tragic, that Halloween would be forever spoiled for me by some dumbass thing I did in junior high. I used to be something of a loner as a kid. I was fat back then, and more than a little weird (I acted weird, I don't know why), and I got teased and picked on a lot. In middle school, 6th grade, I was still the fat guy but I'd inexplicably gained some measure of popularity with people. I was actually considered pretty cool, but still most of the time I preferred to be a loner, hanging out on my own rather than mingling with others. I never initiated hanging out with other people, you see.
So I guess for some reason that Halloween I decided to be a ballsy kid and cement my newfound coolness by doing something daring. Everyone has those urban legends that're unique to their area. Usually they're a twist on an old story that's familiar everywhere, just tailored to suit a particular location or group of people in your hometown. The house that never sells because a murderer lived there. The ghost that haunts every school. The monster in the woods outside of town. Those sorts of tales. We had one in our town, and not surprisingly because we were one of those cities that had a fairly large cemetary, Pines Memorial.
We had a story in our town that there was a woman who died--the reasons for her death varied every time the story was told, everything from grisly murder to horrific car crash to being discovered alone in her house after decaying for weeks--but the story always went that she had died with a gold coin on a chain around her neck. Maria Flores, that was her name. And people said that the coin was still buried with her, and that her ghost haunts the cemetary.
So, you know, naturally, dumbass kids--myself included--often think it's a lark to hang out in the cemetary around Halloween, because it makes them brave.
So I went.
I didn't tell anybody I was going. I didn't even bring a camera to take some polaroids to show I'd been there. I don't know, maybe I was thinking I'd just tell everybody on Monday (Halloween fell on a weekend that year). 'Proof' hadn't occurred to me. I would eventually find proof, however, as I meandered about the grounds. I was weaving my way around the rows of headstones and monuments, not really paying attention to any path or names in particular--it was dark anyway, and you'd have to strain to see names--when I caught a glint on one of the headstones at the back. I walked over, and there, draped over this tiny headstone, just a block with a brass plaque on it really, was a thin gold chain with a coin hanging off it. And I'm thinking, "You're shitting me," because here it is. It's her grave, Maria Flores. She really did have a coin, and her family just left it there. I couldn't believe it. Nobody had taken it in all this time. A gold coin. Proof positive that, if nothing else, this part of the story was true.
And so I took it. Yeah...I stole from a dead woman, HL2.net. I took the coin right off her grave, and I ran. Someone's family heirloom or something, and I didn't even think twice about just taking the damn thing, because I had proof that I'd been there, and that was cool.
It will surprise you to note that I didn't make any mention of it Monday. It will surprise you further to hear that it isn't because I didn't initiate conversations like I said, or because I was being my usual loner self. I didn't tell anyone because, after I got home that night and went to sleep with the coin on my nightstand, I felt the pangs of true remorse. I stole that shit, HL2.net. How could I tell people about that? Oh sure, they'd think it was awesome, and daring, and I'd get props for it, but was that how I wanted to get it? So I didn't tell anybody, and I resolved to take it back.
Eventually, I'd take it back. Tomorrow. Sometime this weekend. Next week. I'll creep back into the cemetary when no one's looking and I'll put it back. I'll come by in the day with it in my pocket and drop it back onto the headstone. Tomorrow. Next Tuesday.
And then I moved away. I never went back. I ended up keeping the coin. And it was an odd thing, one day, that I woke up to it on my nightstand and I put the damn thing on. I wore it. I don't know why I wore it. I did know that no one would make a fuss over it in a new city. And it was a nice coin.
Wasn't long after that the guilt really started to get to me. I kept feeling like I was being watched when I wasn't. Like how you feel shifty, like you know you're doing something wrong, and your heart beats fast and what if someone catches you, what if someone knows? What if someone asks you about it, what're you going to say? Like there were eyes on me, always.
But I still didn't take the coin off.
Had a dream, a couple days after putting the coin on that first time. Had a dream that I was walking through Pines Memorial again at night. As I walked, the surroundings started to fade away, growing darker and darker, until it was like standing in a field of pitch black without any features or definition to the land. And there in front of me was a woman my subconcious mind told me was Maria Flores. And she was bright. Illuminated. I wanted to scream out and tell her I was sorry, but I couldn't. She seemed to know, though, but it was ok--she was happy. She was happy to be rid of the thing. Because while she was illuminated, the coin around my neck was dim, and everywhere around me the pitch dark field started closing in, violently. Like hands, or claws, trying to get me. To rend me. To get the coin.
I've had that dream several times. It never escalates, never changes. Not even subtle differences. It's always the same dream. I don't worry about it any more. It's the least of my problems.
Dreams are the least of my problems, because sometimes to this day I think I see shadows out of the corner of my eyes. When it started happening I had dismissed it as my mind playing tricks on me, until it grew more frequent. These days, my corners are dominated by shadows. Every year, they harrow in on me, just a little more. Every year.
You will note that I have never, in the four years I have been on this website, posted a picture of myself in any of the mugshot threads. This is because I can't. It is nothing so stupid or trivial as, "I don't want anyone from my hometown recognizing me," but rather because I can't. My pictures don't come out anymore, not since middle school. It always looks as if someone has held their thumb over the lens, darkening it. My face is often obscurred, as if someone has dodged it out of the photo when developing it.
I still wear the coin. I don't dare remove it, to be honest. I'll probably wear it until I die.
I'm always sick in October, but I don't think it's going to be a cold that kills me. I can always see a cold coming.
It's not a story I tell everyone. In fact, it's a story I tell no one. Not even my closest friends IRL know. Not even my family knows. Why, then, do I feel comfortable telling a bunch of people I've only communicated to through the internet? Perhaps that's it, the relative anonymity of it. Maybe it's the cold getting to my head. Maybe I don't care. Maybe it's the date.
I said I get sick around the last two weeks of October. No fever, no chills, no runny nose, but I've got a hacking cough that feels like it's attempting to murder me every thirty seconds. I used to love October, when I was younger. Halloween is probably every kid's favorite holiday, right up there with Christmas. At least it was for me; I enjoyed Halloween a lot more than Christmas, actually, and not for the candy; I enjoyed the spirit of it. It was a feeling. A good feeling.
It's ironic, then, or perhaps tragic, that Halloween would be forever spoiled for me by some dumbass thing I did in junior high. I used to be something of a loner as a kid. I was fat back then, and more than a little weird (I acted weird, I don't know why), and I got teased and picked on a lot. In middle school, 6th grade, I was still the fat guy but I'd inexplicably gained some measure of popularity with people. I was actually considered pretty cool, but still most of the time I preferred to be a loner, hanging out on my own rather than mingling with others. I never initiated hanging out with other people, you see.
So I guess for some reason that Halloween I decided to be a ballsy kid and cement my newfound coolness by doing something daring. Everyone has those urban legends that're unique to their area. Usually they're a twist on an old story that's familiar everywhere, just tailored to suit a particular location or group of people in your hometown. The house that never sells because a murderer lived there. The ghost that haunts every school. The monster in the woods outside of town. Those sorts of tales. We had one in our town, and not surprisingly because we were one of those cities that had a fairly large cemetary, Pines Memorial.
We had a story in our town that there was a woman who died--the reasons for her death varied every time the story was told, everything from grisly murder to horrific car crash to being discovered alone in her house after decaying for weeks--but the story always went that she had died with a gold coin on a chain around her neck. Maria Flores, that was her name. And people said that the coin was still buried with her, and that her ghost haunts the cemetary.
So, you know, naturally, dumbass kids--myself included--often think it's a lark to hang out in the cemetary around Halloween, because it makes them brave.
So I went.
I didn't tell anybody I was going. I didn't even bring a camera to take some polaroids to show I'd been there. I don't know, maybe I was thinking I'd just tell everybody on Monday (Halloween fell on a weekend that year). 'Proof' hadn't occurred to me. I would eventually find proof, however, as I meandered about the grounds. I was weaving my way around the rows of headstones and monuments, not really paying attention to any path or names in particular--it was dark anyway, and you'd have to strain to see names--when I caught a glint on one of the headstones at the back. I walked over, and there, draped over this tiny headstone, just a block with a brass plaque on it really, was a thin gold chain with a coin hanging off it. And I'm thinking, "You're shitting me," because here it is. It's her grave, Maria Flores. She really did have a coin, and her family just left it there. I couldn't believe it. Nobody had taken it in all this time. A gold coin. Proof positive that, if nothing else, this part of the story was true.
And so I took it. Yeah...I stole from a dead woman, HL2.net. I took the coin right off her grave, and I ran. Someone's family heirloom or something, and I didn't even think twice about just taking the damn thing, because I had proof that I'd been there, and that was cool.
It will surprise you to note that I didn't make any mention of it Monday. It will surprise you further to hear that it isn't because I didn't initiate conversations like I said, or because I was being my usual loner self. I didn't tell anyone because, after I got home that night and went to sleep with the coin on my nightstand, I felt the pangs of true remorse. I stole that shit, HL2.net. How could I tell people about that? Oh sure, they'd think it was awesome, and daring, and I'd get props for it, but was that how I wanted to get it? So I didn't tell anybody, and I resolved to take it back.
Eventually, I'd take it back. Tomorrow. Sometime this weekend. Next week. I'll creep back into the cemetary when no one's looking and I'll put it back. I'll come by in the day with it in my pocket and drop it back onto the headstone. Tomorrow. Next Tuesday.
And then I moved away. I never went back. I ended up keeping the coin. And it was an odd thing, one day, that I woke up to it on my nightstand and I put the damn thing on. I wore it. I don't know why I wore it. I did know that no one would make a fuss over it in a new city. And it was a nice coin.
Wasn't long after that the guilt really started to get to me. I kept feeling like I was being watched when I wasn't. Like how you feel shifty, like you know you're doing something wrong, and your heart beats fast and what if someone catches you, what if someone knows? What if someone asks you about it, what're you going to say? Like there were eyes on me, always.
But I still didn't take the coin off.
Had a dream, a couple days after putting the coin on that first time. Had a dream that I was walking through Pines Memorial again at night. As I walked, the surroundings started to fade away, growing darker and darker, until it was like standing in a field of pitch black without any features or definition to the land. And there in front of me was a woman my subconcious mind told me was Maria Flores. And she was bright. Illuminated. I wanted to scream out and tell her I was sorry, but I couldn't. She seemed to know, though, but it was ok--she was happy. She was happy to be rid of the thing. Because while she was illuminated, the coin around my neck was dim, and everywhere around me the pitch dark field started closing in, violently. Like hands, or claws, trying to get me. To rend me. To get the coin.
I've had that dream several times. It never escalates, never changes. Not even subtle differences. It's always the same dream. I don't worry about it any more. It's the least of my problems.
Dreams are the least of my problems, because sometimes to this day I think I see shadows out of the corner of my eyes. When it started happening I had dismissed it as my mind playing tricks on me, until it grew more frequent. These days, my corners are dominated by shadows. Every year, they harrow in on me, just a little more. Every year.
You will note that I have never, in the four years I have been on this website, posted a picture of myself in any of the mugshot threads. This is because I can't. It is nothing so stupid or trivial as, "I don't want anyone from my hometown recognizing me," but rather because I can't. My pictures don't come out anymore, not since middle school. It always looks as if someone has held their thumb over the lens, darkening it. My face is often obscurred, as if someone has dodged it out of the photo when developing it.
I still wear the coin. I don't dare remove it, to be honest. I'll probably wear it until I die.
I'm always sick in October, but I don't think it's going to be a cold that kills me. I can always see a cold coming.
