Not so scary October (#11)

Knowledge acquired this Halloween:

- I like Mars bars. I only discovered this after eating 5 of them.*

Things I already knew but which were reinforced:

• I love Halloween. The first two kids who came to my house were, I’m guessing, 8 or 9 year old boys. We had an inane exchange of words. As they were leaving, one turned to the other and said, with what sounded like sincerity and enthusiasm, “See, I told you we would have good conversations with people.”
• I detest Snickers bars.
• I never correctly judge the number of Snickers bars I should be offloading on unsuspecting kidlets. I tend to run out too early, or, worse, have leftover bars. I used to think this was a rookie mistake but I’ve been making it for about 20 years.

*Five eensy ones, which barely equals one adult bar.

Scary October (#10)

Mali’s comment on my most recent post got me curious about embalming. It is indeed a surefire way to ensure that you’re not buried alive, although “if you live in a “First World” country, you don’t have to worry about getting buried or cremated alive.  We’re pretty good at determining death.  For the most part.”

But don’t breathe a sigh of relief yet; there’s always a chance you may be embalmed alive. According to one funeral director, “When somebody dies at the hospital, it’s pretty much a 100 percent guarantee that they’re dead. You have heart monitors, oxygen monitors, and so on. But a lot of people are choosing to die at home under hospice care, and that changes things.”

Scary October (#9)

I once saw an interview with a man* who had devised a system to alert passersby if one had been buried alive. It was decidedly low-tech. A bell was installed beside one’s resting place, and a rope run from the bell into the casket. Presumably, the not-yet-dead resident could pull the rope to request immediate disinterment.**

The idea seemed absurd. For starters, how many people are buried alive each year? But then I talked with a doctor, who said it was surprisingly difficult to determine whether a person is dead (at least pre rigor mortis). Whenever she was called somewhere to declare a death, she would make sure to arrive at least 30 minutes later, just to be sure.

* He claimed to have been buried alive three times.
** Perhaps the system should include an optional add-on whereby a shovel, or backhoe, is installed next to the bell.

Scary October (#8)

screams. I wondered if all the noise would interfere with the bat’s echolocation, causing it to become disoriented and fly into my hair. (Which apparently never happens. But I don’t believe it.) So I shut up. 

The bat flew back to the screen and stared at me. I slowly stood up and walked backwards toward the stairs, locking eyes with the bat and praying it wouldn’t interpret that as a sign of aggression. When I reached the top of the stairs I turned and ran as fast as I could down them, slammed the door, and stuffed a towel against the bottom of it. 

The next day, after several calls with friends and a trauma counsellor, I ventured back upstairs. The bat was hanging down from the screen, its wings forming a Chiroptera duvet. I cannot believe how cute it looked. And how utterly harmless. 

Scary October (#7)

I too have a bat-in-the-bedroom story. There is a large skylight over my bed. One night I woke and saw, with horror, that something was crawling across the skylight screen. On the inside of it (i.e., whatever IT was was in the room with me). And IT was not something tiny and insubstantial. IT was huge. Well, huge-ish.

My default initial response to danger seems to be to freeze. But then I decided the terror of not knowing what was up there was worse than knowing, so I cautiously reached an arm out from under my protective-armour duvet and switched on the light. Then screamed. The bat started flying around the room, which set off an almost continual round of 

Scary October (#6)

I would find it scary if the Canada Revenue Agency contacted me. I doubt they track down taxpayers to inform them that they made a mistake on their return and the government owes them money (with interest). 

But the call I got the other day from someone claiming to be with the “Tax Department of the Canada Revenue Agency” failed to instill fear. Real tax people are passionate about tax matters. There’s no way that voice reciting a script in a robotic tone belonged to a hot-blooded taxman. And they don’t issue dire, awkwardly worded threats like, “Now, if I don’t hear a call from you immediately, we shall have to issue an arrest warrant under your name and get you arrested.”

Scary October (#5)

After listening to far too many hair-raisingly harrowing true crime podcasts, I have developed my own horror hierarchy. At the top are children who vanish, and whose fate is never known, but whose parents (assuming neither were the perpetrators) no doubt imagine the worst. Unimaginable. So imagine how much more unimaginable—which I know will stretch both your imagination and logic to the breaking point, for how can there be anything beyond the hellish limits implied by that “un-“—to have all three of your children disappear. And for that to have occurred in 1966. And to still be alive today. And to still not know what happened to your children. Unimaginable.

Scary October (#4)

I just got back from a six-day trip to Nova Scotia for a family Thanksgiving. The total driving distance was slightly over 3200 kilometres, and I brought a couple of audio books to pass the time. One was 1984. I don’t know how long it took Orwell to write it, and I wonder if he became suicidal while inhabiting that dark, dark world he created (or maybe he was suicidal before he commenced writing it, and poured his despair into the story). I still have two CDs to listen to and I’m hoping that some glimmer of light infiltrates the horror—I read it many years ago, and can’t remember how the story ends—but I fear Orwell is scoffing at me from his tortured grave.

Scary October (#3)

I am 97% sure that I don’t believe in reincarnation. But many years ago, the 3% of me who is unsure or curious paid someone for a past lives reading. I don’t remember who the many mes purportedly were, other than a strong woman living in the North.

There was no mention of how I died in those previous lives. But if I have lived before, I suspect I was murdered at least once. The image of my throat being slit pops into my head somewhat frequently. And it’s not just an image: I can feel the blade slicing across my skin. Often, even absent these sensory ghosts, I’ll cover my throat, one hand over the other, as if to protect it, or to delay exsanguination.

Scary October (#2)

Kim’s post reminded me of the day I arrived home to find a pamphlet from the Jehovah Witnesses in my mailbox. It asked this: “Have you thought about how you’re going to survive the Apocalypse?” 

I hadn’t, actually. And I really, really hope I don’t survive The Apocalypse or any lesser apocalypses. Obviously the Jehovah Witnesses have never seen any of the Mad Max movies. Or 28 Days Later. Or The Road. (OK, I know that last movie ended on a hopeful note, but in the long stretch between near-annihilation and faint hope I don’t want to have to resort to cannibalism or, worse, be forced to eat any surviving pets. Or, worse yet, become the hunted.)

Scary October (#1)

Some people say they’re not afraid of dying. But surely* that statement is only applicable to certain situations, like the ideal of passing peacefully in one’s sleep, or, perhaps less ideally, under heavy sedation. Who, for example, wouldn’t be terrified at the thought of being on a plane that’s going to crash, where the probability of survival is close to zero and one has time to work out that probability and mull over the implications? Or being served as the main course at a komodo dragon’s Thanksgiving dinner? Or meeting one’s end in a manner that becomes the subject of a true crime podcast?

I don’t find the prospect of death itself all that scary. But dying? That’s scary as hell.

* Yes yes, don't call you Shirley.