Meeting HER IRL

This is going to be weird. But if you like weird or you happened to read my posts about HER, she showed up in some of the most horrible nightmares of my adult life. Now I consider them warnings. But I didn’t know that. All I thought was that it was a demon screwing with my mind. Demons do interact with humans in their dreams. The anecdotal evidence has always been unavoidable.

Dreams are a subject I don’t like. We still don’t understand why we sleep, how we sleep, and what, exactly, dreams are. They used to say REM sleep was the only stage where we dreamed. That was obviously not true. I’ve started dreaming when nodding off for a few seconds. I wasn’t in the deep stage of sleep they claimed was the requirement for dreams. Now there’s debate about dreams happening in every stage of sleep.

If experts don’t know, or they debate anything about sleep, it’s because they’re never scientific. They enter a study with preconceived certainties, and that is what I call a contaminated “experiment.”

And if one or two people studying any given thing make some kind of breakthrough or has educated insight, they write “papers” about it. You know what happens then?

Yeah, the rest of the scientific community jeers them. They get called things like “crank scholars” and their findings are labeled “pseudoscience.”

I don’t have a clue what causes dreams nor do I care. The fact is, we have them. Sometimes they’re really bad. Sometimes they’re somewhat pleasant. Sometimes, something else is going on.

The reason I thought of HER as a demon was all the torture involved. She had various faces but always black hair. I didn’t know why, but how could I? Now I know.

Finally I wrote a novel, and it was because someone who had no business doing it challenged me to.

It had to involve a werewolf and a vampire. And it does. I never finished it. I doubt I ever will. People who have test-read it were terrified, and bad things happened to every single one of them.

My biggest fan called me the next Stephen King. She later died. I’m superstitious, and since it was beyond horror, including romance, adventure, fantasy, science fiction and action, I followed along and kept putting plot twists and some remarkable uses of history toward the goal of leaving the reader feeling exhausted and even scared of the dark.

I was recently pushed to finish it and I was going to, but I was hung up. None of my ideas had not been overdone, becoming tropes.

Then, a few weeks ago, my PC gave up the ghost. With total blindness coming for me fast, I can’t finish it. The time is coming when I won’t be able to write here anymore.

The pain is constant, the loss of vision acute. It happened fast, too, and I have no clue why. I’ll go for an exam, but I don’t feel hopeful. As for the novel itself, I now know I must destroy the disk. It’s my only copy. It needs to die.

I feel as if I’ve unleashed something awful, and that conviction has been with me, nagging in the back of my mind, for a very long time, and now it is imperative that it is destroyed forever.

Actually, two people have died. My son was following it with me on his visits as I wrote it. He liked hearing me read it out loud and had a suggestion that inspired a whole character.

The whole time, and before I ever put the disk in the tower, I had been, and kept on, having nightmares with HER in them. So terrible were those dreams that I included HER in the story. That…was a mistake, a big one.

Almost from the beginning, the scariest coincidences began to happen. I met new people with the names and personalities of some of my characters. Then, over several nights in another residence, I noticed an optical illusion. It was distant, visible only at night because of a streetlight. Part of it was a basketball backboard. I can’t remember what else was there.

During a break from writing this, I shredded the disk. Here ends the curse.

Then, years later, I saw a woman who looked exactly like the obscene character that the illusion inspired.

Coincidences piled up. What I wrote was done in a very haunted house, and if you don’t believe in those, good for you, but I have no choice. The words flowed like a waterfall and it was far better than anything I could have done. I never believed in automatic writing, and I still don’t, but I was inspired there. In my present abode, I haven’t been able to do anything. That’s for the best.

Back to HER. My nightmares inspired me to include her as a hybrid demon-human, but before you say anything, I pulled it off. It was the kind of book I would buy, and the enemies included Satan. The six main characters were always under mental assault, and the main protagonist was a missionary who took the brunt of his abuse.

Now, something worse is happening. The neighbor I wrote about recently has terrifyingly made me believe that she is HER.

She moved in a couple of years ago. The first time I saw her, I had a feeling. I can’t say what it was. And she does have black hair.

The kicker is, ever since she bought the place, the HER nightmares have stopped!

That’s no coincidence.

We became “friends.” I hesitate to call it that, but I didn’t know.

Being old and worn out, beaten to hell and back, some things really scare me, and I hoped I would never have to write this post. If you find all of this over the top, don’t worry, it’s okay. Now, though, I’m frightened of her. Sure, I should never have sent a message with a playful joke, noting that she ghosted the next message which was a red flag I ignored. Never ignore red flags!

But like the asshole I am, I dropped the package off at her door. I sleep during the day when I can sleep, so it was late when I did it. Her security cameras must have caught me, and that plus the fact that the gift was all wrong and that she was ghosting me probably scared her. She doesn’t want her space infringed upon. Not even outdoors in a condo.

She unfriended me I think, not blocked me. So I blocked her. It’s too scary to even think about talking to her ever again, and maybe God has that in mind, so I can’t see her. Fuck going blind; maybe it’s for the best. She’s nothing to look at, and I’m nobody to be pointing sticks, but suddenly I regret ever complimenting her. Friends are people you don’t see properly. You overlook too many things.

I discovered her true nature one night after she had announced she was seeing several men. I don’t know about you, but I would have a problem with that. I’ve never done that, and in my younger days, we called it “playing the field.” It was definitely considered a vile thing to do.

It was dark and I couldn’t see anything. I heard her on her phone. She was in a rage and she said, with the tone to match, “You better text message me!”

It’s possible she became aware of my proximity, because she lowered her voice, although still angry, and moved far into the distance until I could not hear.

If she is that psycho with a guy she doesn’t even know well, I feel sorry for any man she dates. Or marries. It will fail. That’s the kind of voicemail nobody can forgive.

Here’s an active service woman, mid 30s, two cats and two handguns, and fuck yes, I’m scared of her. She’s a loon.

I have gone through the embarrassment stage, then the anger stage. I’m now in a place where she scares me and I pity her.

All of the things she does seems to be a desperate search for a man, but I think something happened to her long ago, something bad, and she probably doesn’t know that she’s always going to have stormy relationships. She can’t help it, and I feel sorry for her.

As a Christian, I can’t mistreat her. I’m bound by my faith to love all of God’s children. But I’ll keep it to myself. She doesn’t deserve the kind of friend I really was, because she would only hurt me. Even if she approached me and spoke, I’d turn my back. I don’t trust her and I don’t want to see her. She’s a lot like HER, and maybe she is her. I believe she is. A head gamer, a manipulator and a stalker type.

Cat ladies don’t scare me. One with two handguns and a temper? Yes, she scares me to the Nth degree.

I’ve written here several times about HER, and how she drove me nearly mad.

Now she is here, but the dreams have stopped. Yeah, she’s scary.

I don’t just feel regret for the gift, I feel regret that I ever met her. I would prefer the nightmares.

People with CPTSD from childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse and mental and emotional abuse don’t live normal lives, they’re haunted, dogged by their past every day. It’s not fair.

Socially, they’re dysfunctional, awkward, making terrible relationship decisions and saying awkward or unintentionally offensive things.

I’ve fought that. With mental health treatment, I have made progress, and I’m very gentle and friendly, where I was going the opposite way as a teenager. I was mean, cruel and an asshole. It’s been a long fight to get that behind me.

That’s not that I am fully functional socially, or not an asshole, else that gift would never have entered my mind. True, I thought we were friends, but we evidently were not. And what makes my mind so troubled is that I never forgot that I thought she was HER. How did I get past that? I’ll never know. I called her “kid” because she’s less than half my age, and whether she was aware of it or not, some of our exchanges involved flirt language on her part. Any other man would have dug that; I didn’t. She made me uncomfortable because I was aware that she was using me, fishing for compliments, which I gave without any sincerity, but she’s so shallow, so needy, that I’m sure she treats a lot of men like ego-boosters. That…is a dangerous person.

I know her. I know who she is, because at that age, I was her. I don’t believe she’s demonically possessed, or anything stupid like that. I just know her. She’s an exhibitionist, always talking herself up and down, trying to feel better about herself, but then it doesn’t work. There’s nothing wrong with being a career woman and single at her age; that’s actually a trend. In her case, though, she pulls men in and then her behavior makes a guy purposely sabotage the relationship, and when that doesn’t work, he has to break up with her. And I know without seeing it that she doesn’t just let go. Oh, no, she is a stalker type. I doubt she’s ever loved a man but has convinced herself that she has. Again, that’s a dangerous woman. Oh, men are like that too, but men aren’t the subject at hand.

I’m sure that she gets jealous at the slightest thing, that she’s controlling and manipulating, and she will probably be alone for a long time when enough men have displeased her.

And it occurs to me now that I unfriended her several times, and those were when I was following my gut instincts.

Never, ever second guess your intuition. You’ll fuck up.

The other day, I heard her talking very low. A man was there, and I suspect she may have called and made out a police report. That’s overkill, a reaction so extreme that the cops think I’m a stalker. I’m not. When I’m done, it’s forever. I have no malice for her, but she damn well better not try to speak to me. She won’t like what I say.

She didn’t respond in any way maturely, didn’t message me, and never knocked on my door to ask questions. There was never any reason for her to fear me. She should have known that but anyone even walking past her house is considered an invader. Fucking hell. No wonder she owns two guns. But even they can’t make her insecurities go away.

Because of this I will not walk on the sidewalk past her place to get to the footpath. I doubt I will ever walk to the market again. I went yesterday and had such a hard time that I usually didn’t know where I was. I made it using the stick, sounds and memory. At one point I walked right in front of a moving car and didn’t hear it until I was right in front of it. Holy shit.

I guess the lessons I’ve learned won’t help me much; I’m never going to let anyone across the line again. I’ll just keep to myself. I hope the end comes fast and takes me quickly. I have had enough.

ALL FUCKED-UP

And when he gets to Heaven,

to Saint Peter he will tell,

“One more soldier reporting sir,

I’ve done my time in Hell.”

***

Don’t believe, or even pretend to, that everything is going well. Because the truth is, nothing is going well.

Nothing is.

***

In World War Two, there were two acronyms, “FUBAR” and “SNAFU”, which meant the same thing: “fucked up beyond all recognition” and “situation normal, all fucked up”.

By the late 1960s, the soldiers and marines in Vietnam had altered the wording and the meaning. It was somehow worse by then, and the shortened “All fucked-up” was used to convey that a troop was dead.

It could alternately be used to describe one who was severely wounded, usually a casualty with his face shot away, missing a limb or having head wounds so obviously serious that if the man lived through transportation and surgery, he was still a dead man.

Mostly, though, it just meant dead.

Back home, nobody but the families of those fighting the war or those who served, then rotated back to the States, knew this expression, and war correspondents who did know it couldn’t print it or repeat it. Yet far too many men and women in the service went over to answer the draft or a call to aid, and they, and far too many civilians, ended up being “all fucked-up”.

On the home front, two general factions emerged to march in political protests. One was the Antiwar movement, generally but erroneously associated with hippies, when in reality the movement was mixed with hippies, college students and faculty, moms and dads not unlike TV parents, and even clergy.

The second hated those protesters with a mix of bile and venom. They too carried signs, but they were often filmed in parades with convertible automobiles, god-knows-who sitting on the deck lid, feet on backseats, with hat, tie and the constant waving at the crowd. Most had nothing more to do with politics than being in the Kiwanis, Lions or Jaycees.

Misguided by White House hype, full of the terror of communism and the lingering hatred of Asians from WW II and Korea, they did their fair share of twisting the minds of teens with guilt until they volunteered. Or were forced to outwardly oppose the war.

The change did not happen in any fast or dramatic manner. It was gradual at first. But as the evening news showed the casualties of the war for the first time without heavily edited newsreels for theaters, folks began to think that perhaps this wasn’t such a great idea after all. And when a POW being “interviewed” blnked his eyes in morse code and spelled “torture” things became less bearable.

That interview took place courtesy of a Japanese crew. It was 1966. And Jerry Denton was a U.S. Navy admiral.

At the time, a wider public wasn’t aware of it. Like so many things about the war, no one was always getting informed of some events later.

But that was a different time, a different generation. You’d have thought, from old movies, that some brave commandos would have been sent to kick commie ass and rescue an admiral. You’d have been wrong, too. Admiral Denton, who would one day become a senator, spent the better part of a decade faced with some of the most vile acts human beings can imagine.

Men and women in Vietnam and Thailand had to live with what they saw and had to do: a tanker crew (armor) burning kids out of the Bush because they were Victor Charlie and laid booby traps for infantry; watching a villa get torched while the residents cried; having to watch close buddies die in the grass calling to God or Mommy. Nurses and doctors had never seen or smelled what faced them coming in from the Hueys. Bowels completely sprung from the body, bandaged to it like a huge child hid beneath; faces missing, no sound ever to come from it again; septic infections already spreading from wounds caused by VC booby spikes coated in dung… they who survive to this day cannot, and never could have, recovered from those kinds of sights, smells, the sounds of screaming and weeping.

***

On Memorial Day we’re supposed to honor the soldiers, marines, seamen, pilots…who never came back alive.

The ones who got All Fucked-Up.

But it has never been that way, has it?

A stupid, disrespectful parade in a one-traffic-light town where the main street is completely dark at night. The mayor smiles and waves and thinks nobody knows that he dates high school girls. The pastor gives a benediction which means absolutely nothing. The high school girls plot revenge on the mayor; their ex-boyfriends plot revenge on the girls for letting that bloated, disgusting old man get between their legs; and nobody ever thinks about the dead who did not run from serving their country, but answered the call and paid the ultimate price for it.

They used to mean something. They used to stand for something.

The surviving veterans see this in complete comprehension and awareness of a petty, ungrateful community who will soon be firing up grills and cracking open bottles of Pabst and Budweiser.

A wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns: depending on the serving president, it could be an act of the most severe disrespect (Donald Trump) or the highest and most emotional regard (Clinton, the Bushes, Obama, Biden, Carter).

In the bleachers a crowd watches and laughs at the guards, the elite of the elites. The guards order silence. The crowd quiets but does not understand. “Respect” and “honor” are mere words without meaning.

Blogs are posted. Editorial pieces written. John Wayne marathons on AMC and others. Except John Wayne never served. We’re All Fucked-Up. Steaks at 40 bucks a pop (not kidding) will sizzle over charcoal while community swimming pools open for the season. They all might as well go piss all over Arlington National Cemetery. But hell: they do that every day. Just by the stupidity in their lives, the pettiness, the hatred, the shooting of mass civilians in stores with guns that should be illegal…

The Supreme Court has been bought and paid for. What used to be the republican party is trying to bring on the Fourth Reich. Global warming is unchecked, out of control and facilitated by a greed, a lack of restrictions and renewed zeal by petroleum conglomerates to keep finding new sites to drill.

The war in Ukraine has made even infamous neutralities-Finland, Sweden, for two examples-begin to take NATO membership far more seriously. I warned months ago that Finland was in jeopardy; but I’m glad that I was not the only one to see it.

Because no matter how bad Russia looks, it will not stop. To save face, it cannot retreat, and even if it does, it won’t take long before it comes back hardcore.

My Time On Twitter Was A Waste

I think I lasted a month. After a post went sub-viral, I heard story after story from people who lost family to fentanyl because prescription opiods have been suddenly denied. It’s horrific enough that some, suffering more pain than they can bear, kill themselves. A prescription would have stopped that. But as bad is the street drug problem. Heroin, morphine and counterfeit percocet are loaded with fentanyl and, sometimes, carfentanyl, both of which arrest pulmonary function and kill you in minutes. An antidote, called Narcan or Narcalone, can save an OD victim. But in the fucked-up country we live in, it’s harder to get than prescription opiods.

This is a nation: death all around us, the United States dying more every day. There’s no respect to be found. If I go outside wearing my Army boonie hat, one of my neighbors spits. Not aimed at me, but meant to show hatred, disgust, disrespect. He certainly does not have any time in the military. I served, motherfucker. What’d you ever do?

She was all happy yesterday, this neighbor, telling me she was going to the store and asking did I need anything in a syrupy-sweet voice. But She rarely even comes out of her house and doesn’t say shit most of the time. As soon as I saw the unfamiliar vehicle on the lot this morning I knew the reason for her false friendliness: fuckboy was coming to town.

Fake is everywhere. Words, offers, greetings. I know who I can freely love, and whom I dare not. I don’t hate anyone, but I might have nothing to say, either. My words never do any good. My offered friendship becomes hurtful and shames me when I learn that it was falsely accepted and then scorned.

I had one follower on Twitter who found out that I’m a Christian. Now, mind you, I’m not a very good Christian. I don’t go to church, nor would I, not even for a fucking wedding, not that I ever get invited. I’m that one guy you’ll never invite, not to a wedding or a wake. And I don’t even give a fuck.

But the Twitter guy literally created a thread to insult me. He kept going, because he couldn’t think of insults fast enough. He probably had to Google “How to insult a Christian” and came up with “You’re not interested in expanding your knowledge” and told me I was a delusional “magical thinker”.

He then left another tweet “No longer interested in your ideas”.

I’d told him up front I have respect for all religions, or lack of any, considering they’re not harmful. I did not feel moved to repeat it. When insulted in a flurry like that, I simply leave. I blocked him but kept seeing where a fellow “Christian of solid faith” practically chased after him saying he respected him. I thought, Why don’t you ask him if you can lick his ass, you idiot?

I deleted my account. I went to my petition and closed it. I no longer knew how many stories were true or false, and besides, with 101 signatures, it had no chance of being anything I could use to fight such a cruel health system such as we have.

I did not mean to make an issue out of religion. However, once it becomes an issue, I will not back down. I’m not renouncing my faith to anyone for any reason and wouldn’t even do so on threat of torture. I don’t care if it costs me friends or my life, and I still call out assholes like Franlin Graham who’s on Twitter hawking his Samaritan’s Purse, but is rich enough to brag about his material possessions, like a Harley Davidson. What a dick. He doesn’t even know he’s as fake as a street percocet. He’s lost his way. His daddy taught him well.

And the poor woman next door is shallow. She probably doesn’t know it. She’s a physicist. Even her absolutes, maths, observations, all of it, are something she cannot argue with me. Chaos physics says underlying patterns will always be scribbled over as any closed system gets less predictable. Like weather forecasts, for example. Beyond 48 hours, anything becomes less predictable. Storm fronts can change tracks in minutes as variable after variable is encountered.

We get a severe thunderstorm watch. I go see the radar: a line of storms is coming east, alright. I see it, it’s there in red, yellow, purple….wicked stuff. But it’s yet to complete the crossing of the formidable Appalachian Mountain range, and I know from many years of observation that storms can get split into segments, which then lose energy, and my area gets a few sprinkles while in DC, miles away, I hear thunder loud and clear. You cannot predict that sort of thing. Sometimes the clot of storms comes north. Sometimes it splits to go north and south of my area.

People think themselves clever. But truly wise people never believe that they are wise and never even think it. Because wisdom is counter to all vanity, however slight.

The timing for the “tipping point” or point of no return, I suppose, to stem global warming has already passed. Yet I’ve read articles that say it will happen in five years, or ten years, or, as I read recently, 20. Corporations own media outlets, so of course it changes. But we’ve been out of time for quite a while.

That’s okay. Right? You still start your car from inside your house and let it idle to warm or cool the interior while you’re putting on your makeup or having coffee. No big deal, it’s only one car. Your Dasani is only one more bottle. If you toss it in a trash can as you’re walking down the sidewalk, it doesn’t get recycled. But it’s just one bottle. How can it hurt anything?

You may gripe about gas prices and the interest rate, but you’re still borrowing money and running about in an SUV. And you buy a new cellphone every few months because you simply must pay attention to what’s trending. And the old one goes where?

We don’t care. About anything. We’re divided: black and white, religion, rich and poor, the stalkers and the stalked. There’s a dangerous mix coming together, a volatile one that this country will not survive.

And by that, I mean: we will, every one of us, become All Fucked-Up.

This essay is dedicated in gratitude to the men and women who gave their lives in service to their country, to their surviving families who had no choice but to share in that ultimate sacrifice;

On behalf of a forgetful and ungrateful country, I give you thanks and pray that God has welcomed the brave souls into His care, and that He watches over their children.