DISPROVING DISBELIEF (or What I Learned at Fairy Land)
"Show me the stigmata!" - Doubting Thomas
Many a non-believer would give you the simple notion of not acknowledging the existence of something if they could not see it or any proof thereof. And while I consider myself a plentifully open-minded individual, there were a number of people, places and things that always seemed to exist within the confines of fantasy and man-born creativity versus our battered material realm. I mean, to some extent it's human nature; ghouls, demons, and other such nasties tend to be something we hear about in stories and myths upon first initial impression, usually when we're too young to know any better, and the sense of a world beyond ours always seemed relegated to a level of fiction.
Little did I know...
Ordinarily, talks of spooks and spirits wandering around this ol' mudball is something you'd hear around the campfire or by the glow of a flashlight beneath the chin, oftentimes to the point where you're firmly convinced that scary stories and folklore were the lone places in which the fiends reside. Ghosts are among the most common and sought after horror topics stretching as far back as the written word, more so than any other monster that we could ever hope to conceive. But there always had to be some shred of truth to it all, given how often unseen wraiths and unresolved woes from beyond this mortal coil are spoken of in similar tones by different tongues and intentions. Right? Part of me wondered...
That said, this all started, simply enough, on a night out with a few friends of mine. They were looking to meet up with other folks I'd never met before; fiends of friends, if you will. Decent fellows, not the kind of guys I would continue to associate with in years to come, but it made the night all the more interesting. As we had no major plans of our own, we tagged along. They had chosen to venture into a patch of forest preserve nearby known as "Fairy Land" (or something along those lines). Word was, it had a history involving someone who lived in a house within. The dweller had killed a handful of young girls back a few decades ago and, according to these new folks, it left the woods haunted. This was our first time going in, but not theirs, and they apparently had dealt with some supernatural goings-on more than once so at that time we'd be taking their word for it.
The "Fairy Land" forest preserve was, more or less, exactly as I'd imagined it would be; dark, plentifully creepy, and worth its initial impression on my end. I think I was the only one really taken in by it all; everyone else was engaged in some level of conversation. I, the lone quiet one, breathing in the ambiance. This mere trek seemed good enough, though at the time not anything I thought would be life-affirming or life-changing. At worst, this trip could have been a mere fool's errand and at best a time spent in the embracing depths of the forest in the dead of evening, so why not? The macabre and darkness-hungry part of me was in impure heaven as we soldiered down the path deeper into the woods before us, each of us craning and scanning the surrounding areas for something, anything, that could pique our curiosity. A half hour must have gone by and a few of the folks in the group settled on merely gabbing or conversing over anything else. I was just about ready to join them given the lack of...well, really ANYTHING.
But then, I saw it.
Out of the corner of my eye on our return trip, a faint light. Almost sky blue in hue. Shimmering as a singular fire, like a torch in a lost person's hand. It glowed, it flickered, it appeared seemingly from nowhere.
And when I turned to spot it, it vanished.
Odd...and unexpected...
About as unexpected as the SECOND one I spotted to my right.
Again, same features...blue, fire-like light shimmering out of my line of sight, and turning only caused it to immediately vanish.
This couldn't have been a simple playing of my brain...could it?
My dazed sense of rationale was, just then, compounded all the more by one of the fiends of friends I'd just met losing himself at the sight of "something on the shore" of a river we were crossing back over. Ordinarily I would have just left the guy to his "delusions", but this night...all bets were off, and I was ready to see. To believe. Things were just NOT gonna be the same from here on out, I just knew it.
Post-that night, further studying and insight into ghostly myth and lore made me realize that I did, in fact, see the essence of spirits on those woods. The color, the appearance, all of what I'd seen that night tied into the circumstances of our journey, those two small instances that forever made the veil between living and not-so gossamer to the point where it's virtually non-existent. It's true what they say; "What's been seen cannot be unseen". This time around it truly was the case. It's a hell of a thing how one single instance, one detour down the same ol' road, one step out of bounds, and perception can be shifted so resolutely that you can't go back again. The rabbit hole is closed, the pill has been ingested, and any other cliches that may help things make more sense (so to speak).
And part of me can't help but wonder if I would continue to be so willing to accept things as they were, as they used to be, were it not for that single trip. Maybe...