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  It was a sunny morning when my husband, my then three-year-old son, and I made our escape. As my husband drove to our destination, the beautiful sights going by had caught our eyes. My visions of happiness were questioned when I saw all the proudly displayed flags at half-staff. It was a sad ride and a joyous ride, all at once. Nowhere was safe from seeing the reminders of the last few days.

  Ludington was a beautiful sight. I wanted to see the sand dunes, so the three of us went to the Ludington State Park. The lighthouse was definitely a place to make a stop, but our luck with them was not usually good. Every lighthouse we had encountered in the past was closed; but that day, luck was with us.

  The lighthouse was open so my husband, son, and I walked to it. There were two options to decide upon, the trail or the beach; I had an urge to walk on the beach.

  We started our trek to the beach, climbing sand dunes to reach it. My family and I began our walk along the shore, and saw the beauty that was around us. I stared at the sand dunes and at the lake with all the boats and ships traveling on it. I stared down at the sand I walked on. I saw a smooth stone lying in the dirt and I picked it up. Looking at it, a feeling overcame me: happiness and peacefulness. My feelings of before entered my mind; I decided to ignore the sadness and enjoy my happiness. The lighthouse began to appear in the distance, and every so often, I would pick up a stone that caught my attention.

  At the lighthouse, our happiness grew from the anticipation that we would finally get to go inside. The three of us went into the lighthouse and climbed the narrow iron steps that were winding, until finally we reached the top. I was nervous about the height and closed space, which is a big problem with me. Nevertheless, that day, I wanted to do everything. I succeeded and was glad about it.

  The reason for my success would have to be that my focus was centered on my son, and not myself. I was concerned about him climbing those steps with his little legs. I was not thinking about my panic as I climbed up the stairs.

  The scenery was amazing out on the balcony. Our eyes took in everything for miles; there were the sand dunes and the lake. The breathtaking view surrounded us; the elation my husband and I felt would never be forgotten. My son was still too little for the full affect of the imagery that was portrayed. After a few minutes, we reluctantly headed back down the steep staircase.

  Our day of happiness was ending. I left Ludington feeling satisfied. My ride home was a time for reflection on the day’s activities. The flags on the way home were not as dramatic as before. They saddened me, but this sadness was also filled with hope.

  After reaching our home, I noticed how everything was the same as that morning. I felt that something was missing.

  I emptied my pockets and found the stones I had picked up along the beach. A smile formed on my face as the memories of the day resurfaced. What was missing was the darkness that had filled us all in the past few days. As I looked at those plain stones in my hand, brightness that comes after the darkness dawned on me.

  I kept those simple stones in a place where I can always look at them; and to remember my escape to Ludington where even on the saddest days, I can be happy, too.

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  CHAPTER FOUR

  FEAR

  THE IONIA INCIDENT

  The one main problem with being a writer is when life is dull and there is nothing to write about that is exciting. The writer personality in my mind would wish for excitement and surprisingly the wish was always granted.

  It happened eighteen years ago that I was working with my husband as a bottle dropper. Our job was with a water softener company and we drove all over the state. We had to stop at each house and put a clear bag with an empty bottle for water samples and a paper for potential customers to fill out and leave on the mailbox for us to collect. Our route at that time was out in the country and we had to stop at each mailbox.

  I took my daughter to the babysitters that morning and then my husband and I proceeded to go to work. We were to ride together that day and drop off bottles in Ionia County.

  Ionia is a good size city, and on the outskirts of town was a prison. The country surrounding the city was mostly fields, and the houses where we had to stop at the mailboxes were far and few between. Ionia County causes you to feel isolated from the world.

  We reached Ionia County without incident; it was just like any other sunny, spring day. As we drove the countryside, I noticed many target ranges and at first thought it was strange but then I remembered the prison. I realized they must have been for the guards to practice their shooting skills. I soon put it out of my mind and enjoyed the warm sunshine. That was my last peaceful memory of the incident, from then on I think of it as a never-ending nightmare that lingers in the normal personality of my mind.

  It all began with the gunshots, three gunshots to be exact; I said to my husband, “they are out practicing early today.” Remembering all the target ranges, I had seen earlier.

  As we were nearing a curve, an eerie sound pierced deeply into my soul. It was a noise so unnerving that it penetrated your mind and left you breathless. It was the prison siren. My husband and I glanced at each other but could not say a word. Up ahead was the curve, on the other side of it, was the backside of the prison.

  We were in full view for only minutes but to me it was an eternity. It all seemed to go by in slow motion, even though my husband did not slow down too much. The first thing I noticed was a car parked beside the prison fence and the driver side door was wide open. On the ground was a figure, we drove on toward the backside of the prison, in the distance behind the fence I saw cars heading to the scene.

  As we neared the car, my writer’s senses took complete control of my mind. My eyes wide with anticipation, knowing deep in my heart I was not going to like what I saw but was prepared to take it all in, even against my own will. My eyes and mind took in the whole scene, studying and remembering everything it saw. The writer personality was jumping for joy at the exciting find it was witnessing; the gore of it all revolted the normal personality, of course, it was the normal personality that can never erase the image seared into its mind.

  The figure on the ground, I believe a man, had pools of blood surrounding him. He lay on his back, his legs straight out ahead and his arms out from his sides. He had two holes in his chest, his ripped t-shirt moistened red. His head was there, and you could barely tell that his hair was brown, with all the red mixed with it. His face was missing, though. All I saw was an empty space where his face should have been, I could even see pavement through the gap the hole made.

  Neither one of us spoke; my husband drove on with both hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. He looked straight-ahead, and was very pale as if he actually saw the person rise from the dead right before his eyes.

  Then my husband stopped and turned the car around. I asked, “what the hell are you doing?” He told me that, “we had to turn around and go to another road.” Our route on that road had ended and we had to, god forbid, backtrack.

  As we drove by the second time, nothing had changed, except the police were now there. One of the plain clothed officers gave us a dirty look, which I could not understand at first but now I know differently.

  True, that horrific scene will play over in my subconscious mind forever, but that massacred body was not the true horror for me, anyway.

  The question that played repeatedly in my head was, “what happened?” The writer personality reared its ugly head and implanted in my normal personality what might have happened. The thoughts that ran through my mind was that a prisoner had escaped and flagged down a car. He killed the driver but did not have time to jump into the get away car and drive away. Therefore, he ran off and now was out there hiding.

  As I said before, we stop at every mailbox in secluded areas. Therefore, every time we stopped I kept thinking that he would jump out, shoot us and steal our car. At each mailbox, I would look around slowly, then roll down my window, quickly drop off the bag and then roll the win
dow quickly back up. The whole time my heart pounded, my pulse raced and the vision of my husband with a hole in his head invaded my consciousness. That was what it was like for me until we got out of town, about thirty minutes later. That half hour was my true real-life horror.

  Later that night we watched the news, and then we found out what ‘supposedly’ happened. A person was throwing weapons over the fence and then he shot himself with a shotgun. That was when new questions emerged; the writer personality took over again. What they said happened, was not logical to what I saw and heard.

  There was three shots and they said only one shot was fired, him shooting his own head, so where did the two holes in his chest come from and who fired them?

  The angle in which he laid from the car, the shotgun he shot himself with would kick backwards into or near the car. I saw no weapons of any kind in the whole area.

  The body was not the only thing I viewed intently. Why did the news lie? What was the purpose? What was the police hiding? The writing personality was going nuts with excitement.

  My wish had come true, the questions and the events that had happened made me realize how important writing is to me, and the story idea that comes from this experience is amazing. I have yet to write this story and I plan to add my theory as to what might have happened that horrid day.

  I usually loved the excitement that came soon after my wish, except this one time was more than I could handle. The Ionia incident has remained in my mind; it still haunts me to this day. I swore that I would never step foot in Ionia County again, eighteen years later and I still keep that promise to myself. In addition, I do not allow the writer personality to crave excitement anymore.

  MIDNIGHT

  Midnight,

  blackness enfolds

  the dead of night

  has come.

  I wake,

  the night’s void

  calling for me

  to rise.

  I rise,

  the urge pushes

  pulls me forward…

  toward.

  I walk on,

  toward the voices

  of those long

  forgotten.

  The arrival,

  I am there…

  where?

  I am them,

  they are me

  no more am I.

  Only,

  midnight,

  only blackness,

  for now it is always

  the DEAD of night.

  Daylight,

  brightness surrounds

  the first rays of dawn

  has come.

  Nowhere am I,

  lost in the dark

  in a new place.

  No more

  daylight,

  no more

  brightness,

  no more

  dawn.

  THE EVIL THAT WALKS

  The moonbeam stares down

  as the carcass is slaughtered.

  The witching hour of night has come.

  Now is the time to perish.

  The yearning shows us

  no gratification.

  All is lost to the shadows

  of the dead.

  The sacrifice still waits

  for his sensual delight.

  No one is to live

  tonight.

  The rot of the lifeless

  has taken its toll.

  The scatter of his blood

  has filled the sacred bath.

  She awaits in the mausoleum

  her longing is holding.

  The victim goes to his death,

  an embrace of savage

  ecstasy.

  As the passion dies,

  he meets an eternal rest.

  The soul is held onto by

  Satan’s hand.

  The mortal remains decompose.

  The apparition floats away.

  He knows he must stay.

  She had bewitched him.

  He lost his soul to a

  seduced passion,

  a tormenting vex.

  Now he walks during the

  killing time,

  looking for a woman craving

  sexual delight.

  Then he steals her soul,

  so that he won’t

  walk alone.

  A NEW DAWN

  All has been foretold

  those days of long ago,

  A new power will come forth

  to spread the flames and decay

  unto the earth.

  The time of innocence is lost,

  now darkness engulfs us

  The time of his reign has come

  now we all will perish.

  The fiends of hell will sacrifice all

  for the new master

  to be set free.

  Many lives will have to end

  so the new illumination

  can begin.

  All may not be lost

  There is one last hope

  the gifts of God must unite

  only they can prevail

  to halt the

  sovereignty of hell.

  The elements together

  can take away all

  our despair.

  They need to be combined as one

  to destroy the evil beast

  that has come.

  The flames of hell streaks across

  the heavenly skies.

  The strong gale of air

  erodes the land away.

  The shaking earth crumbles

  into the black abyss.

  The tidal wave of water

  drowns the innocent.

  The time of the new power

  has come

  how many lives will

  be lost?

  The elements must unite

  or it will be

  the end

  of all mankind.

  The new dawn has arrived!

  JESSICA’S INTRUSION

  Jessica walked through the dark, lonesome woods; she was lost. Jessica wandered away from the camp to go exploring. As she walked on the twisted dirt path, the moon’s luminous light led her way.

  A small movement near the path's edge caught her eye. Jessica paused, trying to see what moved in the shadows. As she slowly walked closer, a black cat sauntered out of the bushes and crossed the path directly in front of her. Jessica jumped in fright and her heart skipped a few beats. Once the shock of the cat's sudden appearance wore off and Jessica's heartbeat returned to normal, she spoke at the cat, "you are lucky I'm not superstitious." Jessica smiled at how an innocent kitty had scared her so much. She began to walk along the path again, trying hard to find the way back to the campsite.

  Jessica saw a glow in front of her, deep in the woods. It was off the path that she was walking on. The decision to stay with the path or go off on her own weighed heavily on her mind. Jessica wanted to know what caused the mysterious spark but she also was afraid to leave the path.

  Jessica finally chose her desired course and walked into the thick trees off the path. As she moved closer, Jessica saw that the glow was a campfire. New hope filled her soul; she was not lost anymore. Jessica walked closer and then paused to glance around her; she hoped to catch a glimpse of someone, anyone at all, but no one was around. Her heart sank; she was still lost.

  Jessica decided to sit down and rest next to the fire. She needed to think about what she was going to do next. At first, the sound was faint, barely heard. Jessica thought she had imagined it. A tree moved, someone or something was out there. She at first thought it was the black cat again, but the movement the tree made was by something much larger. Jessica was scared, so frightened that she could not move.

  The noise grew louder. It was moving in on her. Closer, closer, closer and closer it came; soon whatever it was, would be in the open area by the fire and by Jessica. The frightened girl stared in silence as it emerged from the trees. Her face showed pure terror. One large scaly hand re
ached for her. Jessica’s scream grew into a startling silence.

  He turned toward the fire; his large frame formed an eerie shadow from the flames. He put his razor sharp fingers towards his mouth and tasted the blood that still clung to the long nails. He smacked his lips, savoring the blood sliding down his throat. He slowly crept away from the clearing, back into the shadows and silently began to wait.

  The quiet, peaceful night continued. The stars brilliance shined down from the black dome of the sky. The moon continued to shine down on the silent woods as the black cat sat down and began to clean his paws in the glow of a lonely fire.

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  CHAPTER FIVE

  LOVE

  SOMETHING SPECIAL

  There is something in us all,

  that was there since birth.

  It gives us life,

  it gives us love.

  This something never goes away,

  and never turns to dust.

  It gives us hope,

  it gives us peace.

  This something we cannot give away,

  though we may sometimes try.

  It could lead us to cry,

  it could lead to pain.

  This something special inside us all,

  that can only grow larger.

  It gives us life,

  it gives us love.

  Have you guessed what it is?

  It is our heart.

  PLEASE, LOVE ME FOREVER

  When there’s caring, there’s love.

  When there’s love, there’s forgiveness.

  I love you when you care.

  I love your forgiveness.

  I love you always and forever.

  When there are lies, there’s hate.

  When there’s hate, there’s hurt.

  I love you, there’s no denying.

  I love you, no lie.

  Please love me forever.

  Please love me today.

  A SINGLE TOUCH