Esper / Pariah
ESPER
Just last week, I tagged along with my friend, Sorenson, to a nearby town that I will refrain from mentioning by name (this will be made apparent to the reader as to why shortly). His room shares the wall in which I house my giant mirror and the forgotten library in my building. Currently, he appears to be deep in the doldrums of reaquiring all of his childhood possessions, having been to every resale shop in the area and living in the underbelly of eBay for weeks now. We are en route to the vintage merchant’s. It is twilight . . .
We arrive at our destination and I feel something sinister about our surroundings straight off the bat. Just as I happened to be recounting my trip to Yellowstone, right as we step out of the car and onto the embankment two children walk past with a golden retriever. The young boy is wearing a hat that reads ‘YELLOWSTONE’. I hear a blood curdling scream from behind and see nothing. It felt like we had stumbled upon a ghost town. I tell Sorenson that I am foregoing the store and start walking down Main Street.
Stephen Piculas: Town Of Screams (2024)
Above an abandoned storefront, I see a mural of a Chimera, the mythical beast with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail. The Chimera is a creature composite of terrors, I realize, when suddenly I hear the same shriek as before, compounded, coming from where Sorenson and I had left his car. The only other vestige of life I see is an empty bar and a post office. The rest of the buildings were blank brick, and nameless.
I head back and discover that the blue house across the street from the merchant had two children inside that had been responsible for the howling all along. They had been hanging their bodies out of the house and crawling in and out of the window as if they were spiders. I presumed that they must have yelled at every passerby, probably.
Now this is where things really start to get interesting. The very next day, as I am describing these events to a co-worker, the mere mention of [redacted] is enough to illicit an intense reaction from her. She then goes on to tell me that the blue house that I saw just so happened to be the location of where a friend of hers had used to live and was where he had committed suicide. As a matter of fact, just the other day she had spoken to a medium in order to channel his spirit. Of course, you did, I say.
Apparently, this man had killed his wife in their home, and later that day was visited by the wife’s brother. Unable to cover up the murder, he tried killing the brother also but the brother ended up getting away. So, he ended up killing himself before the imminent arrival of the police. The channeler had told her that his spirit was unable to crossover as he was unable to accept his actions before his death. I believe that this is what I had sensed — a residual cursed energy emanating from the blue house. Those children, as I imagine with any haunting, live amongst such a frequency, daily.
The reason I even make a mention of something so grisly, is that this was an instance where my spiritual antennae (ESP) had been so forthcoming in detecting such affairs. And although such a spirit had made its unpleasantness known to me, I do NOT consider myself an oracle, etc., in the slightest, as I believe that these discernments are present in every human mind, should one choose to calibrate themselves accordingly. I also would like to note that this particular event had made my soul sick for several days directly after, which is why I had taken so long to write this piece to begin with . . .
PARIAH
Inversely, my father just so happened to prevent a suicide attempt later that same weekend. His old friend from college had called him over the phone saying that he had a revolver in his hand and wanted to talk to one last person before he pulled the trigger. My dad called bullshit, to which his friend responded by jingling the bullets in the chamber.
My father then left in a whirlwind, leaving me to entertain both my mother and sister for the afternoon. Once he had returned during the evening, he had relayed to us that he believes that his visitation had saved his friend’s life. He didn't go into much detail other than that, but did reveal to me that he had pilfered the revolver on his way out.
Later on, his cellular rings and it is my yiayia, his mother, on the other end of the line. He puts his index on his mouth making a gesture of silence and asked me to pretend as if I was not there, so as to save himself the trouble in explaining as to why they hadn’t come to pay her a visit as well.
This instance, while minor, exemplified the minimization of myself, and felt very symbiotic of the constant restraint I feel of leaving much of my own imprint in this life. It proved to solidify one thing: that my family had always encouraged my disappearance. Perhaps I am the pariah . . .
I know that one day I will have to come to terms with the world, but until then, I will embrace my banishment, brandish it even, all the while awaiting the eventual reversal of my own misfortune.