I was anxious, even as a child. Especially as a child. Nights were the worst. I could not – and still cannot – sleep without a light on somewhere in the house, except when my husband is next to me, and even then I still prefer one on.
When little, if I woke in the night and the lights were out, I was terrified; full of imaginings of monsters fingers trailing along the hallway, wrapping around the edge of my doorframe.
Almost every night I would then get up and go into my parents’ bed – or get my mother to come into mine. Then I felt safe and could sleep properly again…
…until everything got repeated the following night.
******
Several weeks ago I was in bed reading while Adam was out in the lounge room playing computer games. Tired, I turned out my lamp, rolled over on to my left hand side, tucked the pillow under my chin, and shut my eyes.
A minute or two later, although I felt no perceptible change in the room, I had this sudden dread that at the end of the bed in front of my bookcase, and possibly in a shape that would be visible, was something.
I squeezed my eyes tight, thinking can’t open, don’t open.
Then I knew what to do.
I thought:
Dad, I know that is you.
Dad, thank you for coming. I am doing okay.
But, dad – you’re scaring the shit out of me.
I love you – but please.
Go now.
Then the feeling went away.
Still afraid, I kept my eyes shut as I fumbled for the lamp switch. I flicked it on.
There was nothing there.
******
Last Friday night I went to Nathan Curnow’s book launch* of his fantastic new work The Ghost Poetry Project. He stayed at ten of Australia’s most haunted places to experience and then narrate his reactions to them. The launch was held – very appropriately – at Old Melbourne Gaol. As the day faded from the cloudy skylights in the roof, the theatrics of night took over.
The theatrics of night and mind. Of ghosts and souls gremlins.
Unnerved slightly, and still in the state of moderate emotional mania I’ve sometimes suffered this year, I confessed to a friend what had happened in my bedroom a few weeks ago. Tears came. Tears I was embarrassed to shed; I kept apologising: So stupid. I’m being so silly.
Maybe the whole episode was just an example of my indulgently imaginative brain, just as those were when I was little. Or maybe not. What I do suspect is that along with the other guests at the launch, and like many paranormal tourists, we were spectators seeking spectres in the night to answer, or allay, our questions. These people might’ve been the ones who trod the walkways above to inspect the cells with bold, crisp steps.
Whereas I stayed on the ground level, weeping into a glass of red, before moving on to study the death mask of Ned Kelly
wonderingly
* Other accounts of the night can be found here, here, and here
