Poltergeist

Vanyalli

While the wind twisted and twirled the leaves outside of the window, the flickering light of the newly erected fire cast shadows about the room. I plucked a book from the nearest shelf and sat in front of the fire, wishing it day soon. I knew sleep would not come for some time still, yet I was hopeful I might be proved wrong. My skin soaked up the light and warmth from the orange flames that were rising and falling, dancing in the hearth.

My long, brown hair had fallen into my eyes while I read silently. The cozy carpet that padded the floor invited me to lay my book down and nap. The silence was overwhelmingly loud. A persistent ringing had formed in my ears. It had yet to cease, and was painful. I lazily crept to the small stand next to my mother’s old rocking chair, turned on the stereo and put in a mixed CD. The first song was Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap. The soft melodious voice had calmed my nerves a bit, but rain had started to pitter-patter against the window. The ringing in my ears had stopped, but now there was a heavy creaking above me, like foot falls on the floor. I shook it off, and thought to myself that it was just the storm making sure it was known. I grabbed the quilt that rested on the back of the rocking chair and covered up on the couch, my head laid upon the arm rest. The creaking continued upstairs and the music continued to the next song, but I could care less at the moment.

I was in the oblivion of sleep for no more than one hour when I heard the muffled singing of a little girl. I turned my weary gaze over to the stereo, but it had stopped playing some time ago. I got up and moseyed over to turn it off, a little jittery, but figured the singing was just my restless imagination. When I hit the power button, the singing did not die down, but continued, and grew louder with every second as if this little girl was walking closer. I turned toward the entrance of the study, and thought I had seen a white silhouette of a young girl, no more than ten years old. But that couldn’t be because my parents are out for the night, and all of my friends are at a party that I did not receive an invitation to. The singing seemed to have stopped when I saw the white figure in the doorway.

I must be going mad, I thought to myself. I have to get to sleep earlier from now on. I walked back over to the couch, more jittery than before, and covered up with the quilt and was almost asleep when I heard the rocking chair creaking back and forth, as if someone was sitting in it. I thought it odd, because I had closed and locked the windows after my parents had left. I craned my neck around (half expecting the white figure to be in the chair) to see what caused the chair to move. But as soon as I laid eyes on the chair, it had stopped moving. I was in denial, telling myself that I was hallucinating because I hadn’t slept in over twenty hours. I heaved a sigh and heard my heart skip a beat, as if my body was on autopilot, waiting for something more to happen.

There was a sudden explosion of music that came from the stereo. My eyes widened and I let out a small whimper. Hurriedly, I went over to the stand, with difficulty due to the fact that the flickering light from the flames had died out and only the embers glowed a dim orange-red. I hit the off button and went over to the mantle. Breathing heavily, I hauled two logs onto the slowly dieing embers and stirred them. Light slowly flickered into the darkness, and an odd warmth crept into the room. There was a whoosh of air over my head and the loud crash of glass breaking on the opposite wall. The glass of water had unexplainably flown across the room, shattering into pieces. I cried out in fright. Then books started to fly off the shelves, one by one, across the room, most colliding with the opposite wall. Papers sprinkled the floor, the couch had overturned itself. A small coffee table was spinning in the air, and a globe flew off the desk, almost colliding with my head. There was a piece of paper floating in front of my face with a pen writing something on the paper.

“Admonished by her buckled lips

Let every babbler be.

The only secret people keep

Is Immortality.”

Objects flying all around the room, breaking other things, spinning in midair, and crashing into the walls. I started crying and screaming. Then I heard the singing again. This time more defined. “One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, shut the door…” I had backed into a corner, sobbing. I heard a woman screaming, and I lost it. I spun around, watching the room fall apart before my eyes, grabbing chunks of my hair. The last thing I remember was the little girl singing and me screaming.

- - - - - - - - -

The next morning, Elena’s parents found her in the study, books and papers littered the floor, the couch overturned, a coffee table upside-down and chairs scattered here and there. She was starring off into what seemed to be another world than that her parents could see. She was mumbling under her breath. Something to the effect of “One, two, buckle my shoe. Three four, shut the door…” Her parents feared for their daughter’s sanity. They called doctor after doctor, but no one could explain what would drive someone to do something so vast. Then one doctor said to see a parapsychologist (researchers who are interested in the connections between the human mind and paranormal activity). Having a parapsychologist come to the house, he required that he see Elena in the room that she was found in. Elena protested as much as she could about going in that room; her parents finally forced her into the room. After hours and hours of speculation, Dr. Hankoff defined that there was a great deal of stress mentally, physically, and emotionally at the time when her mental awareness snapped.

Dr. Hankoff came to the conclusion of a teenage poltergeist. A teenage poltergeist may be caused by a lack of mental stability, or a great deal of stress on one’s mind. He concluded that Elena had unconsciously created a field of psychokinetic energy around herself, like a force field. He believed that this mental power manifested and became strong enough to physically move objects and cause strange, unexplainable, paranormal events to occur.