Time-Out on Terror


            The pulse of my shower feels like fingers snatching at my hair.  The shower curtain flutters and I feel  the presence of a person sneaking.  I think about that Psycho scene, the stabbing in the shower, where Janet Leigh’s body drains hot chocolate.
I used to have clear sliding shower doors; although the warped pattern made images blurry, I knew when someone was in the room.  But the curtain I am not used to, and now whenever it grazes my leg I peek out the side just to make sure there is not a guy with an awful face holding a knife. 

I used to not be afraid of horror movies.  I remember watching Child’s Play when I was little with my sister; she had a bad reaction to it, and cried until my father turned the screen off with a static click.  And then I started carrying on because I wanted to finish it and no one would let me.  And maybe that is the reason why, now, horror movies really do the job for me.  But it is an addiction—both watching the movies and the feeling of being petrified.
When I am done watching a thriller I am careful to leave each room with a glance over my shoulder.  I am not really sure whom I expect to see, or what, but I imagine it is something terrifying, something that will paralyze me just by the sight.  And it is the worst in bathrooms; if a shower curtain is closed, a compulsion to draw it open ensues my being—I just have to check and make sure no corpses are hiding behind the screen. 


*You may know that Psycho is loosely based on the murderer, Ed Gein, but check out number 7 on this site: http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-real-events-that-inspired-scary-movies.php
*   *   *

In preparation for these Halloween festivities I have been frightening myself completely by having a “movies based on true serial killers and murders” marathon. 
So far I have watched the 6 movies listed below:

*Natalee Holloway
*Dead Beat
*Heavenly Creatures
*Murder in Greenwich
*Karla
*An American Crime

This post is in honor of all the human beings who were killed, and who lost out on living (esp. Sylvia Likens—because what happened to her was human brutality at its most disgustingly vile and hideously horrifying.  And in fact, it was extremely inhumane).

I wrote a poem in the pantoum form for Sylvia, although it does go into the nasty details of her fight, it was something that I had to write; and something I am going to share with all of you.

R.I.P. Cookie
Sylvia 

In 1965 a sixteen-year-old Sylvia was brutally slaughtered.
Do you know where your children are?
Down there, burning the girl in the basement.
And a decrepit asthmatic is their monster.

Do you know where your children are?
Practicing Judo on a human punching bag,
and obeying the orders of a deteriorating asthmatic
as she engraves a lewd message on the girl’s skin.

Beating, punching, scraping the human punching bag.
They make her eat her own defecation and taste a coca cola bottle between her legs.
And there's the beast branding the girl’s decaying skin.
And as her brain leaks and drowns they wash their red hands.

They made her eat her own defecation and taste a coca cola bottle between her legs.
They kept burning their cigarettes butts out on her arms.
The children, they let her brain drown while the asthmatic washed her own bloody hands.
In 1965 a sixteen-year-old Sylvia died.
Do you know where all the parents were? 

*   *   *


On a much lighter note, I had an epiphany from all this ("epiphany—I love that word—it sounds like icicles breaking" - Maggie Grace as Martha Moxley in "Murder in Greenwich"), I am going to donate money to a child abuse organization.  And I decided that I want to definitely do something in the mystery/thriller/horror sector of publication.  There was always a reason for me loving this man:


Here is one of my favorite short stories by the man, Stephen King: http://www.krypta-smierci.neostrada.pl/ebooks/Stephen%20King%20-%20Night%20Shift%20-%20The%20Man%20Who%20Loved%20Flowers.html
*   *   *


Formula for Fear (The Stock Character of Murder)

Does it always have to be either a sunny or shitty day?  Can it not just be an autumn day with the leaves spewed in fading colors, where a subtle chill soaks the breeze in the sky that is sunny anyway?  Or is that not exactly what you wanted?

Is it always a path you take your mother to, or a desert where you drop off your latest lover?  Can it be that local drugstore off of route 89, where Sal makes your morning coffee?

Who is it, that hunky teenage-dream postered on your wall crooning with caked makeup and a fake mole?  Or that fat-fuck crusty bulbous man who lurks in school parks?  Or the janitor at the elementary?  Maybe though it is those two sister Christians calling that the time has come?  They don’t look any more devilish than the men do, do they?

Now that it is all set up for you, you choose.







*It is important to me that I did not offend anyone with this post.  I have been completely disturbed by the information I uncovered from my mini movie marathon and research, and I just had feelings and writings to share on these subjects; I hope that they come across compassionately.  
All I hope is that this made you think, for even a second.
I thank you all for reading.

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