station would stop waiting and turn and start to walk to find me. Even if it was late at night, way past my bedtime, he would suddenly know where I was and need to get me—and that would not be a good thing. He would make his way closer, his face getting redder and redder, and I would hide behind whatever door I could find because I could hear him breathing. He doesn’t need a knife but sometimes he carries one.
There are three times in twenty-four hours when you have to be nervous. Some people know about these times, and some don’t. Some get a feeling, but they don’t know what’s wrong. The first time is when you wake up in the morning. The mornings are bad, but I can’t tell you the reason. The second time is right before you fall asleep. Anything that wants to get you has a pretty good chance of doing it at this time. These things wait and have far more patience than you or I. You are completely vulnerable at this time. Sometimes you think you’re awake when you’re already sleeping. You have no ability to discern what you’re allowing in or keeping out. And an invitation is an invitation after all. Once they are in, they don’t necessarily make themselves known right away. They can wait for hours, or days. They can even wait for years.
This brings us to the third time, which is in the middle of the night, usually right smack in the middle of your sleep cycle, when you are dead asleep. And something is going on. Something is infiltrating your mind and your soul and your psyche, but you’re unaware of it. So you wake up. You are scared and your heart is pounding and you are covered in sweat. But you tell yourself it’s just a dream. But why does the TV decided at that very moment to reset itself? Why does it shut off now…or turn on? Why does the dog wake up and start pacing around the house? Why does your son wake up and call you? You didn’t make any noise—none. You just opened your eyes and looked around because you were scared. Something is there with you, and you know it, but you talk yourself out of it. And what’s worse is you try and go back to sleep. A little crack is formed for the worms to get in—and they do. And after this, you never feel the same ever again.
Day 2
If you wear an apron while you’re cooking, the food will almost surely turn out better than if you didn’t wear one. And if the apron has happy faces on it or pretty flowers with uplifting sayings like ‘God Loves You’, whatever you cook will be delicious. You can set out a beautiful tablecloth, use your best china and light some candles and everyone will be enchanted by the glowing light and the special feelings, and your husband will make lots of money and your children will go to Harvard.
On the other hand—if you hate to cook but you still have to do it because your family is waiting for their meals, and you get ridiculed for your mediocre cooking skills, bad things start to happen. Like the activation of the soft, wispy poison found in all of us from being told how terrible we are. And then we become even more terrible. If you look at your face in the mirror when there is just the tiniest bit of light, sometime in the middle of the night when something you can’t figure out wakes you up, you can see what you really look like.
We look in the mirror and can’t tell the reflection we are seeing is still us and we have to put our hands over our mouths because if we scream everyone in the house will wake up and remind us how terrible and mediocre we are. So we stir the soup and carve the meat and give the miasma the chance to leave us and spread around. We think we would never do this on purpose—but if we think really hard about our true selves—the self that no one could ever know about without needing very strong medication for the rest of our lives, we all know what we would do.
Day 3
Everything happens for a reason. When we get old we can’t see as well as the day before. Our hearing goes bad. We lament and
There are three times in twenty-four hours when you have to be nervous. Some people know about these times, and some don’t. Some get a feeling, but they don’t know what’s wrong. The first time is when you wake up in the morning. The mornings are bad, but I can’t tell you the reason. The second time is right before you fall asleep. Anything that wants to get you has a pretty good chance of doing it at this time. These things wait and have far more patience than you or I. You are completely vulnerable at this time. Sometimes you think you’re awake when you’re already sleeping. You have no ability to discern what you’re allowing in or keeping out. And an invitation is an invitation after all. Once they are in, they don’t necessarily make themselves known right away. They can wait for hours, or days. They can even wait for years.
This brings us to the third time, which is in the middle of the night, usually right smack in the middle of your sleep cycle, when you are dead asleep. And something is going on. Something is infiltrating your mind and your soul and your psyche, but you’re unaware of it. So you wake up. You are scared and your heart is pounding and you are covered in sweat. But you tell yourself it’s just a dream. But why does the TV decided at that very moment to reset itself? Why does it shut off now…or turn on? Why does the dog wake up and start pacing around the house? Why does your son wake up and call you? You didn’t make any noise—none. You just opened your eyes and looked around because you were scared. Something is there with you, and you know it, but you talk yourself out of it. And what’s worse is you try and go back to sleep. A little crack is formed for the worms to get in—and they do. And after this, you never feel the same ever again.
Day 2
If you wear an apron while you’re cooking, the food will almost surely turn out better than if you didn’t wear one. And if the apron has happy faces on it or pretty flowers with uplifting sayings like ‘God Loves You’, whatever you cook will be delicious. You can set out a beautiful tablecloth, use your best china and light some candles and everyone will be enchanted by the glowing light and the special feelings, and your husband will make lots of money and your children will go to Harvard.
On the other hand—if you hate to cook but you still have to do it because your family is waiting for their meals, and you get ridiculed for your mediocre cooking skills, bad things start to happen. Like the activation of the soft, wispy poison found in all of us from being told how terrible we are. And then we become even more terrible. If you look at your face in the mirror when there is just the tiniest bit of light, sometime in the middle of the night when something you can’t figure out wakes you up, you can see what you really look like.
We look in the mirror and can’t tell the reflection we are seeing is still us and we have to put our hands over our mouths because if we scream everyone in the house will wake up and remind us how terrible and mediocre we are. So we stir the soup and carve the meat and give the miasma the chance to leave us and spread around. We think we would never do this on purpose—but if we think really hard about our true selves—the self that no one could ever know about without needing very strong medication for the rest of our lives, we all know what we would do.
Day 3
Everything happens for a reason. When we get old we can’t see as well as the day before. Our hearing goes bad. We lament and
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