Horror Stories (Kinda) for the Halloween

  "I see dead people."

                     --The Sixth Sense (1999)

        I’ve been sick for almost a week now: my eyes hurt, I have a recurring fever, my head and my muscles ache and my sinuses inflamed and my wallet abandoned. My niece said I’m probably turning into a zombie and she’s probably right. Watching too much zombies will probably infect you. And because my eyes hurt, I’ve been staying away from my computer and other gadgets(tablet, laptop, game and watch, Nokia 3310,  etc) and the only time I’m sitting in front of my monitor is to work and even that is a drag.

        Anyway, Halloween is near and I am somehow obliged to write a blog entry  during this season of the dead, so here it is, some Halloween tidbits I could remember:

        1. When I was in high school, the father of one of my classmates died so off we went to to the wake which was being held in a funeral house in Recto, Manila. We arrived there, I think, at around six in the evening and had supper there while we were huddled around the coffin—some of the food were even placed on top of the coffin—and nobody raised a howl. Eating with the dead seemed no big deal, yeah.

        Then around two in the morning, me and some of my male classmates snuck into the morgue and, like that boy in Sixth Sense, we saw dead people. We stayed there for a few minutes until a guard noticed us hanging with the dead and told us to leave.

        I think that provoked my fascination with horror stories.

        One of my first horror stories was about a group of high school students who went inside a morgue and encountered a supernatural entity.

        2. When I was in my twenties, I had a recurring dream that told me I was gonna die at the age of 32. In those dreams, I was talking to a stranger who repeatedly told me that I’d bite the dust at 32—and I was convinced that it really would happen that I already told my relatives on how I wanted to be buried (cremated, no wake, no coffee and biscuit and no people gossiping about me while I lay stiff inside the coffin) few weeks before my 32^nd birthday.

        Obviously, that dream didn’t come true.

        3. Days after my mother passed away, I woke up at around three in the morning to see her (my mother) inside my room, sitting on a chair facing my bed and was calmly staring at me. She used to do this when we were still kids: watch us sleep.

        I remained lying on the bed, dazzled, while I stared back at her. I was only jolted when she stood up to walk towards me—then she vanished.

        Until now, I don’t know if that incident really happened , if her ghost really visited me or it was just a dream.

        4. Years ago, we drank and stayed overnight in a friend’s house. We slept in the floor of the darkened living room (I think there were seven or eight of us, all males). I was awakened in the wee hours and was stunned to see the silhouette of a woman squatting on top of the sofa, her long hair bathing in the moonlight, her bright eyes intently staring at us. My first thought was that she was a ghoul or a an asuwang preparing to pounce on us and eat our livers. No kidding, I was still drunk then.

        After a few moments, probably after she became aware that some of us are already awake, she stood up and left.

        I asked my friend who lived in the house about it and he replied that the woman, who turned out to be the housekeeper,  was probably watching us to see if we’re up to some mischievous tricks—what mischievous tricks I had no idea. Was she expecting us to have an orgy right there in the living room? Or a satanic ritual?  Lol.

        Halloween reminds of our mortality, of course. That we’re all going to die.  But while we’re still on earth, we’re obliged to make our lives smooth,  tolerable—and a little happy, yes. How to do that? Watch and read good horror stories, unlike the stories in this blog entry. Hehe. And stay away from things and people that only make you sad and who pull you down. And stick with people who love you and show their care for for you even though you sometimes think that these people are obnoxious.

        And don’t forget the dead.

        We don’t stop loving and respecting them just because they’ve crossed to the other side.

        Remember, we’re all going to meet them again.