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she admitted that she greatly enjoyed kissing me and thought often of when we did. That she wanted to kiss me again. I gave her permission to do so, as I want to be kissed by her.
It is easier for me, responding more than twenty years later, to ascribe the blame for these things solely on you. You are, after all, a primordial version of me, and I do not eschew self-reflection and repudiation.
Can I say that this was not fair of Kate? Yes, but I've also said that she didn't have much reason to be fair to you. She loved you. She lusted for you. You never did less than make explicit that you would do what she wanted, no matter how much it eroded you.
Did she want to rekindle something with you? I have no idea. I will not label it outside the realm of possibility, but I do not know how much longer you could have survived the dance while she tried to make up her mind. And, as I've pointed out before, once you knew better the fullness of the truth of how she spent her time without you, I cannot believe you would have persisted in wanting to date her. You are too jealous, too insecure, and knowing the truth would have disillusioned you. It would no longer have been such a romantic story to you of love vanquishing doubt.
Last night, as well, I went adventuring with Zack.
I will not dwell too deeply on your having had a good night, but I am envious of these adventures. They are simple things, two young men tasting mild freedom, filling you with joy. I could right now fly to Paris for a week and would barely feel the monetary loss, but I cannot be assured that it would matter to me as much as your late nights with friends.
Once we arrived, we immediately noticed the large, white skeleton greeting us in front of the gate.
Again, I remember this deer skeleton keenly. The rest of your recollection is memorable, but I could easily imagine my way through these. That deer, though, is vivid.
(Well, I've seen and witnessed the ghost, so "reputed" is by me).
I still tell people about having groped a ghost. In all my prodding at the paranormal, this contact is the only thing that I can grant is possibly spooky -- though I can also rattle off every way it is explicable. (Dark, fake fog, no glasses, primed, pareidolia.) It didn't frighten you since nothing about it was scary, but it has given other people the chills, partly because it was so mundane. I feel that I have backed myself into the corner of describing what happened, though I've covered it in interviews somewhere. Why not revisit it?
In short, you were working backstage at The Haunted Mansion in 1997, moving scenery to make it appear that the elevator took the customers somewhere. You must have been a late arrival, or the staff would have given you a costumed or speaking part (though you did work in the closet in the Bride's room next to the elevator on occasion -- on which more soon). Given what I've covered in previous responses, I feel emboldened to give more of a personal background. At this point, Jen was dating Ron. She did not like Rob. You and Jen were making out at this point, though you were Coley's boyfriend. Ron was working further in the house, meaning that he could walk backward when there were no patrons, but Jen (the Bride that night) and you could not visit him. Neither you nor Jen would have been inclined to break the rules to see him, as you were eagerly kissing whenever you had a moment.
When you were in the tech closet while Jen was the Bride, you would frantically make out whenever there were no guests. Somehow, you never got caught to your knowledge.
The room before the elevator was on a prerecorded routine. All the effects were automatic, cued to the soundtrack, so you knew exactly how long you had. Ron walked back through the scenes to visit his girlfriend, undoubtedly missing your tongue in Jen's mouth by seconds. You decided to take a breather, walking toward the first room to listen to the recording, something about the reading of Frederick Ravenscroft's will, the guests only getting their bequeathment if they survived, and a demon resurrection. The usual. You had maybe forty-five seconds, which was more than enough time to hide in your cubby again.
The same could not be said for the girl standing in the corner. You hadn't seen her pass you -- you were distracted -- and yours was the second scene in the house that year. She couldn't be coming from the first room since that was all animatronics. She was wearing white -- a forbidden color in the dark unless one was the Bride. That was not the right dress, which Jen happened to be wearing despite your best efforts. The girl was maybe five-three, slight, light-colored hair past her shoulders. I can say nothing about her eyes or features, given the darkness. You were confused about how she got there, but you were not surprised to find a stranger in a dark corner. The Haunted Mansion had a constantly rotating supply of teenage volunteers.
You warned the girl that the door was about to open to let the customers in, at which point she needed to be elsewhere. She cocked her head to one side as though she couldn't quite understand what you were saying -- a possibility given the loudness of the recording and special effects. Knowing you had too few seconds for leaning in or explaining again, you reached for her shoulder to grab her and take her with you to safety.
Your hand went through her. Why wouldn't it? She faded away, her head still cocked as though she didn't know what you were doing. Your hand felt the prickles and cold of paresthesia, which subsided in a second.
You walked back to Jen and Ron, casually mentioning that you had seen the ghost. (It deserved the definite article because there were rumors that the black-painted plywood structure was haunted, though none of the ghosts mentioned resembled one another, but they were all "the ghost.")
Ron may have been spooked. I doubt Jen was. In a minute and seemingly out of nowhere, a security guard appeared. Ron took the initiative of telling her that you had seen the ghost, which she regarded with rightful suspicion, but verified that there was a ghost.
Were I found up there, the owner knows that I love the Mansion far too much to ever allow anyone to hurt it.
You overestimate your resilience to misdemeanor trespassing charges.
Instead, we removed two ribs of which I will make use.
To my recollection, you kept these in a grocery bag in your trunk for months to a year. Do they visit your altar? I can't recall. I don't know what became of them after, but I suspect it was more "thrown into the woods behind your house" than reverence.
Interesting Astrid came in with a friend, as did the girl who tried to pick me up for her friend in the mall so many months ago. I greeted both of them, but was more interested in Zack and the oracles.
Huh. So, you are into oracles, are you?
HOW ABOUT THE FACT THAT ASTRID AND THIS GIRL WHO TRIED TO BY-PROXY PICK YOU UP APPEARED AT THE CUBBYHOLE? Since you believe the universe is talking to you, what do you imagine that might have meant?
My gods, you are dense. Go hang out with the attractive women. Whenever you brush against Kate, you lose all sense and wisdom, even if it is no more than flirting over the phone.
On Friday, I lit a candle I had in my Umbilical Bag (rarely outside my line of vision or out of reach). It was the Zen candle I got from my boss as a present last year. I hadn't used it until just then. I made a little protective circle, Jungian force field (glowing orange barbed wire seemed effective), with my kriss dagger, then I switched over to my hand carved wooden stake (I call it Mr. Pointy). I lit some sandalwood incense upwind from myself.
While I consider you an enormous dork, I liked it when you used to practice witchcraft. It made for some mental excitement, even when you are objectively doing nothing more captivating than lighting candles and waving around a dagger that could have resulted in your arrest.
They insinuated that they have been trying to send me pretty clear messages that I had been shrugging off.
I try to send you clear messages that you seem to delight to shrug off. Maybe it was me.
That I had talents and abilities that I could easily use on my side, but that I was ignoring for fear of acknowledging.
You are an intelligent and sweet boy that clings to stupidity because you have abandonment issues and assume Kate is some perfect love instead of a young woman sorting through her own trauma.
As I rose to the top of one of the hills, I saw, with crystal clarity, a police cruiser idling. I scurried to the other side of the field and successfully evaded trespassing charges for another night.
It would have been a worse charge.
This is not the most unnerving thing you experience in that field, but I trust those happen in your future and won't spoil them here.
A few days ago, I read a news report that professors at Purdue University had created a sword called "The Dragon Slayer" made from the metal of a meteorite.
This made it into your first fantasy novel We Shadows. It ends up being a crucial bit of cutlery in the fourth, Flies to Wanton Boys, so I am slightly charmed to see it mentioned here.
Don't I get any say in what bleeds over from bad 1950's horror movies? Or at least some popcorn while I watch reality unfold?
I am presently living through fascism encouraged by amoral a-holes who own globe-spanning companies for the chance of making a few pennies more. I am at a lull in a multi-year pandemic that killed millions and reshaped how we interact. Oh, and the military copped to UFOs basically being real, a revelation that was as exciting as a sparkler in this torrent of horror.
But I am sure that what you are going through is uncomfy. Though you will endure 9/11 in a few months, for which you have my genuine sympathy. That is a nucleus for my world. If I could travel back in time, that would be the day I would stop.