An English Cottage

I met an old woman the other night.  She was scattered and talked too much.   Her hair was disheveled and all of her clothes seemed to be slightly askew. She was the type of lady that many people ignore, but if  you stopped and listened to her, her stories were some of the most mesmerizing I had ever heard.

Years ago, this woman had a small cottage in the English country side.  It wasn't much.  It used to be a gardener's cottage.  It had been used for the servants, but this woman adored her cottage and loved everything about it.  She described it in that way that only those who truly love a place can.  She described all the textures colored by the memories of the happiest years of her life.  She spoke of her children playing in the field outside and the steal gray color of the sky.  All these memories poured out of her with utter and complete joy.

She also spoke of the ghosts that had lived with her family and she.  These ghosts had been children and they had appeared to her children first.  She had found her children playing with them and had asked her children who they were talking too.  The children had explained that they were playing with children that had lived in the cottage many years ago.  Of course,  the woman had to research the cottage's history at this point and she found out that the cottage was once occupied by a family and that their children had been lost to influenza around 1900.  This had fed the woman's curiosity and she went out and purchased a Ouija board.   Together,  the woman and her children had used the board to talk to the ghost children and the woman insists that everything that came out of that experience was positive.  She says that the board was a good thing and doesn't understand why anyone would say anything bad about it.   She felt as if her children and she were able to help the ghost children come to terms with their death and cross over.

Of course,  there was a dark side to her story.   The cottage had once been part of a larger estate.  This estate had included an enormous stable for the wealthy owners of the nearby manor house.  The woman says that every time she walked into the stable she was crushed by a feeling so malevolent she never let her children go near it.  She felt that something dark lurked inside the shadows of that building and although she loved her cottage and its pleasant ghosts, she knew that there was a dark side to the spirit world.

Night Shift Nightmares

I'm working the night shift tonight.  I don't usually work the night shift, but  I thought I'd do something different this week.  At night, when most of the staff have fled the psychiatric floor and you are left alone with two nurses and a few patients, you hear things you would never notice during the day.  They day is bedlam and all the noises blend together, but in the quiet every rattle becomes distinct.   I was doing an intake with a patient in their room when I noticed a strange and unaccountable noise that sounded like a large metal object being drug over the door and wall.  The noise was very loud and it almost made me drop my clipboard.   I asked the patient what the noise was.   They responded that the noise came and went and that noises like that have filled the room since they've been here.  The patient had assumed it was all in their head.  I assured them it was not and they were very relieved.

I had heard that noise before in that room.  I had been doing a treatment plan with another patient and I had thought it was another patient dragging something on the wall, but tonight all the other patients were in the group room.  Tonight, the halls are empty and the nurses are eating dinner. Of course,  I know that several months ago we had a sentinal event.  A sentinal even is an event that makes hospital reconsiders their policies and rewrite their rules.   We had a patient kill themself in the very room I had been sitting and listening to odd noises in.   There had been a thorough investigation into the incident and it was determined that the staff had done all they could for the poor woman, but she had been determined and creative.  I am proud of where I work.  We have some of the best staff and the best reputation in the area, but on psychiatric units, sometimes bad things happen. 

No one else here believes in the supernatural.  They are all people of medicine and think ghosts are the product of mental illness driven magical thinking.  They enjoy the stories but they would never notice the odd noises.  But sitting here alone in the dark,  I have to wonder what is in that room?    Does that unhappy woman linger in the shadows making her presence known only to the patients?  Is her ghost still here struggling to find the happiness she couldn't find in life?

I'm now well on the way to finishing the two stories based on my sister-in-law's recollections. Thanks to womagwriter for giving me the kick to get them down on paper. Also finished my Writers' Club homework. I can get on with my novel now. Plus all the other ideas for scripts, sketches, musicals etc. No shortage of ideas - just time.
Quote of the day:
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
Sir Winston Churchill

Interviewing Leilani of APS and Paranormal State

Last night I was lucky enough to meet with Leilani from the Alabama Paranormal Society.  The Alabama Paranormal Society is one of many ghost hunting groups that works with the team from Paranormal State, the television series that airs on A & E.

Leilani is the founder of Alabama Paranormal Society and she is also a psychic.  She is also a very friendly woman and she did a wonderful interview with me in which she described her recend investigation of a house just East of Birmingham.  Her team's investigation of this house is part of season 4 of  Paranormal State. I was thrilled to get a chance to talk to her about her exciting investigation of this incredibly haunted house that she says is the most haunted house she has ever been in.   Another psychic that had visited the house was also present during the interview.  Her name was Judi Lynch.   Judi Lynch said that as she drove up to the house she heard screaming come from the house.  The negative energy coming from this house was so strong,  she had to sit in the car for a while before she could enter the house.

Leilani describes the house as literally throbbing when she walked towards it.  She had never seen anything like it.  The house belongs to the mining period in Alabama history in which powerful mines and mills created little communites of workers.   The owner of the beautiful mansion at the time of it's construction was one of the engineers working in the mill.   In fact, one of the first indications that the house was haunted was when the family that currently owns the home began renovations, they had the entire house rewired.   A few days later they returned to the house to find all the wiring redone to its original configuration.  Leilani says that she had a very strong feeling that the hostile spirit in this house was the engineer who used to live there.

Leilani described many of the terrifying things that happened at this house to me.  She described the spirit leaving scratch marks on one of her investigators.  At one point,  the spirit ripped a stained glass window from its metal hangings and sent it flying towards Leilani.  At another point, it knocked the tripod over.   During the investigation, they were able to catch footage of the black spirit moving slowly across the room and then darting into the next room.  When the spirit moved,  it set off the motion detector.

Leilani also said this is one of the rare houses that actually scared her.  The activity in this house was so violent and so malevolent that the family who owns it was forced to flee after only living there 18 months.  They currently live in a much smaller house and use the big house only for storage because they are too terrified of the house to go back there for more than a few minutes.

You can learn more about Leilani and the Paranormal States investigation of this Gardendale home on season 4 of Paranormal State.   You can also learn more about Leilani and her team at:
 http://alabama-paranormal-society.com/index.html

Lawyer for long- Term Capital

From: Mrs Xi Xua Gong
Subject: Hi
Date: March 10, 2010 3:05:44 AM PST
Reply-To: tradma@hotmail.com


DEEHANA
Machinery & Trading (M) Sdn Bhd
10th March 2010,
LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE REQUIRED

Dear Sir|Madam
We are a company based in Malaysia. We are into sales of long- Term Capital expenditure, such as equipment and machinery. Our target market is premised on Demographics and geographic. However, our firm has Accounts Receivable or Receivable delinquency from several firms and individuals in the U.S. The inability to receive these A/R has affected our cash inflow. In fact, our revenues have dwindled and this has negatively affected our operations and organizational goals.

To balance our cash inflow, we had to restructure our discounts. However, in spite of the attractive discounts, these firms and individuals have violated payment terms. Hence, we are seeking your services as a legal representative in the U.S. to ensure that our delinquent and payments due are settled. .

We are incapacitated by distance impediments to directly commence litigations. Hence, you should employ Mediation approach before a possible law suit. Below are the services we hope your firm can render to us.

1. Provide consultation and legal advice on delinquent payments
2. Advise us on mediation or possible lawsuit
3. Receive the said funds from the individuals and firms and keep in a trust account on our behalf until requested by our company.
4. About 50% of payments from America are used for the purchase of raw material, you will be instructed on how and when to disburse to our suppliers and furnish us with weekly or monthly details of how much was collected and subsequently disbursed.

Finally, due to the urgency that this demands, you can fax or email us at once with our email address.

With our best regards,

Teik Seng.
Head International Operations.

The Japanese Atrocities During World War II and the Ghosts of Unit 731

When most people think of the atrocities of World War II, they think of the Germans.  They think of the German concentration camps and the genocide that occurred within them.  They think of the inhuman Nazi experiments and the ability within the Nazis to commit acts that seem impossibly cruel.   Most people don't think about the Japanese.   The Japanese were mostly forgiven for their atrocities following World War II.  Many of the generals involved in the Rape of Nanking and Manilla lived long happy lives surrounded by wealth and their grandchildren.  Their atrocities were forgotten and forgiven.  Yet their evil was even worse than that of the Nazis in some points and made worse yet by the Japanese refusal to admit that the Rape of Nanking, the experiments at Unit 731, and their other great evils even occurred.

During the Rape of Nanking, one of Japan's most notable atrocities, they killed 10,000 a day.  Over 300,00 were slaughtered in less than six weeks.   Japanese soldiers rounded up women and imprisoned them in rape camps.   They forced fathers to rape their daughters, sons to rape their mothers, and participated in the most obscene mutilations of genitals I have ever heard of.  They cut the babies from pregnant women's stomachs and made the mothers watch them kill their babies.   In the Unit 731 Experimentation Camp in Harbin, Machuria the Japanese rounded up local Manchurians and subjected them to the most unthinkable experimentations.  They rounded up entire villages and locked them up and exposed them to anthrax, cholera, and bubonic plague. Live human vivisections were performed and logged carefully.  Torturous experiments were performed night and day and each person was given a number like a lab rat.

Despite the Japanese denials of such abomination, the evidence remains in photographs and the ghosts that linger behind.  Unit 731, not surprisingly, is considered by many to be one of the top ten most haunted places in the world.  Those that have travelled to the remains of 731 say that their electronic equipment stops working.  Flashlights falter.  Lights fade.   They describe strange noises and the sounds of crying can be heard from a distance. Ghost lights and ghosts have been seen wandering these tragic ruins.  People have seen the ghosts of men and women wandering the site.   Many say the haunting here has become more and more active as the ghosts of the dead cry out for justice.

Thanks to womagwriter for encouraging me to get on and write that story anyway. My sister-in-law actually told me some other stuff which happened about fifty years ago. I ought to get that down as well before someone beats me to it!
Writers' Club last night. We are currently in the middle of a 'follow that story' project. This is where we each compile the first paragraph of a story and then pass it on to the next member to continue the plot for the next meeting. Eventually each story gets back to the originator who has to finish it off. My homework this week is to continue a story about a couple having a baby which the man knows might not be his. They also have to contend with his disapproving parents.
Plenty to do - I'd better get on with it!