Welcome back to Off The Hook. My apologies for the delay, technical issues plus a beach getaway with Lady Void and the Voidling pushed August’s entry back a bit. Regardless of that, sit back, relax, grab a juice box and your favorite junkfood, and get ready to rip open some old scars.
So when I was just a little blank space, I remember my parents had a waterbed (I’m an 80s kid, I can probably still smell the vinyl laced with Salem smoke if I tried hard enough). I used to love that bed. From snuggling with Mama Void to horseplay with Dad Void, it was ingrained into my childhood. Then it happened. The nightmare.
Well over 35 years later, I can still remember it like it was yesterday. I’m on the waterbed, but I’m maybe as tall as one of the letters that you’re reading right now. The designs on the comforter sprawling out in every direction like their own individual yellow brick road. I stand and look, trying my hardest to see where each one leads, of course to no avail. After a while, I make up my mind and decide on a path to take. No matter which path I took, each would lead to my demise. Crazed killers, animals that only the mind of a child could dream up, even the family cat would lead to a dream-scream and shooting awake. I still remember one very specific instance of taking a path and coming across a man fiddling with something on a table or workbench. I ask the man what he’s got over there, only to have him turn around and say “It’s a handgun” and shoot me. I hear the bang and I wake immediately. No bullet holes, no blood. I made it through another nightmare. If only this was the height of the nightmares...
Like many other 80s housewives, Mama Void used to love her tabloids. The Star, The National Enquirer, The Sun, everything except the Weekly World News (BatBoy may just be my new nickname, but we’ll get to that in a later article). After she read them, these would become preferred reading to suit all our family’s defecation needs.
I’d of course try to be an adult and pretend to be reading these while doing my business. And of course I’d get about 2-3 paragraphs in and end up just flipping through the pictures. One fateful day, it was time to release the Mr. T cereal and Juicy Juice when I saw a new issue in the bathroom. This issue featured an article about one of my favorite celebs at the time, the one and only Michael Jackson. I had to read it. What was Michael doing? Was it a new video? New music? He truly was my king of pop at that time, so I needed to know! I manically start flipping through the pages to find what my favorite zombie is up to. I finally find the article, and I instantly close the magazine, clean myself up, and try to avoid the upstairs bathroom AT ALL COSTS. Kinda hard to do, since the old Void residence only had one shower.
Side note: In preparing for this month’s Off The Hook, I had to do some further research on the story I am about to finish, as all I could remember was a picture. If you want to read something absolutely horrifying and heartbreaking, go HERE.
Okay, back to the trauma.
I close my eyes, its there. I let my mind wander, its there. For what felt like an eternity this is what I saw.
My little boy brain was not ready for this. This little boy who had just survived the unsurvivable was so ghastly to me, that I couldn’t get his face full of scars out of my mind. It was so jarring that I wouldn’t even listen to my Thriller record anymore. When I thought of Michael, I’d see “the kid with the burnt face.” When I heard one of his songs in the car, my pulse would quicken and of course, there he was again. I wasn’t afraid of succumbing to the same fate as he, rather that he was going to come and get me. Looking back on it, I kinda wish he did come and get me. He and I probably would have been great friends, once he taught the Little Lacuna not to be afraid anymore.
So, in case you haven’t guessed yet, this month’s article was about irrational childhood fears. We all had them, some of us still do. Sometimes I look at the Voidling and I wonder what hers are. I’ll never ever ask though. I fully believe that things like this are some of the most personal things one can have. Nightmares, pictures, experiences, whatever. Everyone has something from their childhood burned into the deepest recesses of their psyche. I won’t ask anyone to share their stories, but we at Terrorscene of course would love to hear what kept you up at night or what made your pulse race when you were just a wee lad or lass. Just as we all know, no slasher or ghost or movie or anything will ever be as frightening as those situations that stuck with us from childhood rational or irrational. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to channel my inner child and watch some Masters of the Universe while eating a bowl of Fruity Pebbles. Til next month, sweet dreams!
The Little Lacuna
“Perfect nonsense goes on in the world. Sometimes there is no plausibility at all.”
-Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol