To see the unseen Part 1 #52essays2017 week 2

Paranormal activity. This was the theme of more horror movies, some TV shows, and even some ghost hunting shows. People going out of their way to substantiate their experiences of the "other worldly." I believe it links to a part of ourselves that fears and is in awe of the unknown. I think back to the ancestors who saw the night sky and limited glow of moonlight to illuminate their darkness. The awareness there were things beyond the flicker of the fire light that may or may not be predatory. Things that may have been corporeal or ethereal but either way, real.
Lately within the least 10 years or so I have the seen the very repetitious trend in cinematography. People, places, and things being haunted by some malevolent being and trying to survive the encounter if not the whole movie. I often joke, "Paranormal activity? Yall better stop playing! I grew up in paranormal activity." Allow me to explain I promise this should not be too scary, well for some.

My earliest memories of seeing what others could what others wouldn't rather than couldn't was four years old. At this time we were a family of 6 living in a 2 bedroom apartment with one bathroom in Astoria Queens near Ditmars. I can recall the lay out of our home even from 4 years old. Front door you entered was a small highway with a bathroom and master bedroom to the left of the door and the other bedroom to the immediate right across the hall. Further right past the bedroom was the living room and kitchen. My brothers slept in the bedroom right to across from the door in bunk beds, my sister and I slept on the pull out couch bed. I can remember vividly breaking my leg when my eldest brother, Eric let me down from his shoulders and on to the slate stone steps. I remember my leg facing dangling abnormally from my knee down. I remember being rushed into the gold Pontiac grand a my father drove and the many hard stops and near accidents as I was rushed to the ER. I remember the moments when I was at the local kingdom hall my parents attended that had a bight mural painted of a paradise scene on the wall heading to the bathroom. Why was I headed to the bathroom in some of these memories? Well I was an active little bad ass who didn't listen and I would be escorted to the bathroom for that Pow Pow... ask any Puerto Rican what pow pow is and you they will fill you in on that. I say all this to really give you an idea of how vivid some of my memories from old were, in hopes to lend credence to what I am sharing as my experiences.

First thing I remember was the movie Troll coming out in theatres, I believe 1986 or so. I was a very verbose young lad and I spoke and reasoned fairly well. I wanted to go to the movies so bad having all this energy and wanting to leave the confines of our apartment so I requested of my mother that I wanted to see this movie. She tried to dissuade me with warning that I would have nightmares and she did not want to contribute to that. I begged and pleaded and convinced her that I was old enough and I really wanted to see this movie. She gave in. WHY LORD, WHY DID SHE GIVE IN? That lil creature scared the Buh-Jesus out of me. So much so that night I could not sleep, I felt so uneasy about the dark living room with only the light from the street lamp shining through the window pain and into the living room amongst my mothers tall lush house plants. What I saw then would stick with me forever, hence my abhorrence for all things troll like to this very day. Amongst my mothers plants, I saw movement. This was not the flitter of something scurrying across the leaves. This was something behind the bush-like plants that shook all the foliage. I then saw a small brown and hairy hand creep out with an oily sheen and claws, pull back some of the foliage only to unveil a troll like creature whose facial features were illuminated by the street light glow. This was the ugliest creepiest things I ever seen in my 4 years I was mortified and transfixed. Every instinct in me screamed to run and to hide, but fear froze me in my place and I took in the creatures snaggled sharp teeth and its grotesque and elongated nose and pointed elf -like ears. He smiled at me, but this was a mirthless smile devoid of any joy. This was malevolence incarnate, it was a smug sinister smile which promised by demise and discomfort. The troll moved closer to my sister who lay sleeping next to me, facing me in her deep slumber. The creature began to slowly and gently pet her hair as it continued looking into my eyes smiling its gruesome smile. It then grabbed her hair and yanked. My sister woke up with a scream, the spell was broken I threw the blankets over my head and hid. My sister was irate blaming me for waking her up and pulling he hair. I began crying, I tried to convince her I could not have pulled her hair from the opposite side of her without having reached over her or gotten out of bed to stand behind her. She was so angry and nothing I said would or could make sense to her. I was reported later to my mother and reprimanded but this was my first encounter with the unseen. No one believed I saw what I saw, this was a product of my imagination. No it wasn't.

That same apartment, my bothers were out and so were my parents. I was left in the care of my sister who was old enough to watch me. She had took notice of the time and while on the phone talking to her friend had started to run my bath. She called me in the bathroom but me sensing a lack of any true authority decided to mess with her. I ran into the bathroom and got naked only to psyche her out and run away from her last minute out of the bathroom and back out into the living room where our pull out bed was already awaiting us. My sister who remained in the bathroom yelling for me, while balancing the phone on her shoulder pressed to her ear and feeling the water for the best temperature, had left her chanclas (slippers)by the bed side and her vata (night gown) folded on the bed right above that. This was normal for her, as she was quite orderly. What was not normal was her vata was standing straight up as if the air around it formed a body that now wore the flowing material. The vata stood straight up inhabited and adorning some unseen entity and if this was not enough to make me yelp the chanclas started to walk towards me as the vata moved in tandem. Something in the vata was walking towards me, something I could not even see... I yelped, shrieked, Mariah Carey'd whatever you need to call it and ran back into the bathroom where I jumped my little brown ass into the tub with such gusto. I shocked the shit out of my sister, she asked me what was wrong but I refused to talk to her about it. No one would believe me anyway.

Thirst encounter in that same apartment, I had been put to bed and this really meant I was restless and it was time to put my ass down somewhere so my parent and family could get things done without me running around and having to be watched so thoroughly. I sat in bed trying to get tired, but found my eyes just focused on the room and every little detail I could. The light from the kitchen was on and so this was not the limited light provided by outside street lamps and/or moonlight. This particular evening my attention was bought to the living room window that led to the fire escape. On the fire escape was some movement. This was a man in a trench coat and fedora. I could see no specifics of what he wore or the color of his clothes. This was a shadow with the shape of someone with the silhouette of which most pronounced was the long coat and the hat. The man was ascending the stairs slowly and stopped by my window to turn in my direction briefly, and then continuing his next few steps to continue his ascent. I screamed and pointed, "The man on the fire escape. There is a man climbing, looking at me through the window!" My father ran out the our front door and up the last flight upstairs that led up to the roof to see what pervert or creeper was up there. He found no one. NO one on the rooftop or the fire escape. He came downstairs baffled thought I was lying or making fun to keep myself occupied, but my mother consoled me and my father popped in Mannequin. I loved this movie and I watched Kim Cattrall and the fabulous Hollywood, played by Meshach Taylor transform and light up the screen. This was how I eventually calmed my nerves and fell asleep.

My mother later corroborated the apartment in Astoria felt off. She said she first new something was up because about a week before she had a vivid dream of climbing these slate stairs up a few stories and stopping in front of this door. She described the dream to my father and told him she would know our next living space when she saw it. The last look for apartments on that day and my mother said she saw those slate stairs and all her hairs on her body stood up. She followed and counted the steps and stories only to know when her and the land lord would stop, and in front of which door. She had already dreamed this place. She further decided to tell me of the weird happenings she experienced there. Our Chihuahua, pebbles would wake up from a deep sleep only to start growling at the door. The growling would in turn wake up my mother and she would see the door handle of the room, turning. This would be ok or less spooky if everyone in the apartment wasn't already asleep. She would get up to yank open the door and face whoever might have been trying... only to find dead air there. The dog continued its growl sensing something that could only be felt and not seen. My mother would pray out loud to Jehovah her God and tell whatever was there it had no power there and had to go... sometimes this worked and sometimes this didn't. The other memorable account was when my mother was in bed one Saturday morning and heard me giggling and saw me run past her bedroom and into the bathroom. She said she remembered my red shirt and the heard the door of the bathroom close rather forcefully. She was up at this point but laid in bet a bit longer waiting for me to come out the bathroom and maybe even enter her room and stay with her a bit. She said she waited a while and nothing, she got up and went to the bathroom and knocked. No one answered, and so she turned the knob and pushed the door open only to find the bathroom empty. This confused her, she went to check on me and I was fast asleep on the pull out with a blue shirt on.

As you can see early on in my life my interactions with the spirit realm were too frequent for my taste, I didn't know it then but my mother was experiencing the same experiences. She would tell me to ignore these instances and to pray them away. This was the only way she knew how to deal with the unseen, or allowed herself to acknowledge their existence as it pertained to her and her home. She tried to pass this method on to me, however this did not work for me. Oh but that is a whole other essay of how I began to further experience and see the unseen. Expect a part II next week, I promise it gets a little worse before it gets better.