Winter persists this
year. The snow is still thick around the grounds of the estate. Cold
winds keep me inside near the fireplace. March is the bleakest of
months and this year is no exception. I heard music playing in a
different room yesterday; it was an old Robert Johnson record, all
scratchy and poppy. However I could not locate the record or the
record player for that matter. There is an old Victrola in another
part of the estate but it was not playing nor was there even a record
on it. Crashing sounds continue to be heard but I cannot find the
source of those either.
I drove back from
criss-crossing New England last weekend. I had to drive to the
Manchester airport to drop off a small party of touring musicians. It was late,
around 2:30 AM and I drove back to my sister's house on the outskirts
of Boston. I hadn't slept well the two nights previous so I was a bit
delirious. There were no cars for long stretches and I kept seeing
what I thought were animals jumping out in front of me on route 128.
They were just hallucinations but it gave me a jolt each time. The
animals were not of an identifiable species, but they were large and
dark and perhaps resembled bears.
When I got back to the
estate, the fire was lit even though no one had been there in days.
It was welcoming albeit in an eery way. The next morning I awoke to
one of those dreadful black cars sitting there at the end of the
driveway right in front of mail box. At the same time, my phone and
internet connections went haywire. I looked down to see if someone
was in the car and indeed I caught the movement of someone dialing a
phone. It was not possible to identify the gender of this person. I
opened the blinds in another part of the estate to get a better look
and at that moment the car sped off much to my relief. “Who are
they, what do they want?” I asked myself once again. Is it the
government? Are they even human? I can't ever see inside these cars
for the windows are always blacked out. My dreams have turned dark as a
result of this.
I have not been to the
cabin further up the hill for some time. The last time I was in there
it was probably in the negative range on the Fahrenheit scale and I
was struggling to stay warm. Out of the corner of my eye, a mouse
walked across and spooked me. I recently went back up late one night,
trudging through the deep snow to face the mouse but what I found was
far more terrifying. The cabin was a wreck and looked as if it hadn't
been used for years. It was in a dreadful state of decay and the
lights weren't working. I pointed my flashlight at a corner and saw
two huge black tarantulas crawling along the floor. The mouse looked
to be about half eaten by something. I pointed the flashlight up at
the loft only to see a large rat staring down at me. Then, all of the
sudden, a nasty raccoon jumped out near the rat and started hissing
in a menacing tone. The arctic chill had the critters of the night
claim the cabin as their own it seemed. I ran as fast as I ever had
and I haven't been back since. I'm not sure if it was a dream, a
hallucination or reality.
