I don't really know what to do about what's been going on. I've tried talking to people about this, but they just stare at me like I'm crazy - so, I've brushed it off as coincidences and too much TV. I can't deny it anymore. I don't know what this is, but it's scaring me and I'm honestly afraid that this will escalate to something I can't handle. That I can't ignore.
When I was young, I had an imaginary friend. Everyone did, I'm sure. Didn't you have someone you could rely on to just sit and listen to your everyday problems? I had Mailman. I don't know if that's what I really called him, but Mom always says that when we would eat dinner, there had to be a place for the mailman and I would always ask if the mailman could come with us to the zoo. Mom humored me. Dad discouraged it.
Mom and I were digging through photos a few months ago, ones that were so old they had been snapped with a Polaroid and developed a sepia tint over time. Mom yanked an old photograph that had been wedged in my baby book out of its confines and handed it over to me. She circled with her long, skinny finger the open seat that I was sitting next to.
"That is the mailman," she laughed lightly. "There was a designated chair for him at your tea table, even."
I brushed the picture with my fingers and felt an overwhelming sense of despair wash over me. I wanted that moment back desperately. Needless to say, traveling back through memory lane was cut short and I locked myself up in my room, feigning cramps and teenage hormones.
I had fitful dreams that night. I wrestled my blankets and pillows and when I awoke that next morning I could recall dreaming about a black figure. It, I want to say he, was tall... Almost abnormally so. He brushed the low ceilings in my playroom and was all blocky. A wide, black hat that resembled what the men in the 70's who delivered milk would wear was atop his head. He had no specific features, though.
He was all black. I couldn't see his face, hands, skin, eyes, nothing... It was like a shadow, almost. In the way that you see the outline of that person but not the features.
In the dream the man sat next to me as I poured pretend tea in a plastic, pink cup. The man would pick up the cup and I would watch gleefully as he sipped it and pretended it was much too hot. I rambled happily to the man who remained quiet the whole conversation... The whole dream. I awoke in the middle of the man gesturing for more tea.
I questioned my mom about the incident and she confirmed that, yes that sounded about what would happen during teatime with the mailman. She asked me why I asked, but I just shrugged it off. She was persistent, though. She claimed that I had found that same picture once before and acted weird afterwards, and this time she wanted to know.
"It's nothing, Mom, I just don't remember him - er, it..."
"The last time you did this you were tenish. You kept that picture in your room for weeks and finally fessed up that it was visiting you again. You told me that you woke up in the middle of the night and the mailman was watching you. You said that you knocked something over and when you looked up it was gone. Honey, are you seeing it again?"
"No, Mom," and at that moment, it wasn't a lie.
Two days later, I was painting my toenails for the homecoming dance the next day. The TV was flashing across my face wildly and the overhead light in the fan flickered quickly. I looked up at the fan and outside at the darkening night. Instead of the Bends' backyard, I was met with the dark outline of the mailman. I screeched and nearly fell off my bed from the shock that ran through my body.
"You're real," my voice was a mere whisper.
It just stared. He just stared. He pressed his noseless face to the window and I scrambled up onto the comforter. I crawled slowly across the blanket and was just about to reach the window when a crack of thunder sounded outside and the mailman vanished again.
My dance was short and when I got home that night, heels hurting my feet and shoulders aching from holding them around tall boys' necks, I collapsed in my bed. I didn't have the energy to shake when I spotted the mailman in the window. He had his featureless face cocked to the side.
"What do you want?" I whispered, dress falling to the floor and wrapping myself in my covers.
And I swear, as I cuddled into my blankets and closed my eyes, I could feel (not hear) a voice brushing my mind and saying, "You."
The next time the mailman graced me with his presence was last night. It's been almost a whole month since I had seen him. I was stretched out in my bed and he was at the window again. I rolled over onto my side, facing the window, and sighed, "You're back."
The strange feeling washed over me again, the weird brushing of my mind, and I could hear a deep male voice say, "I want you."
I shook my head and answered quietly, "You can't have me."
I was so strangely calm and, and plain okay with what was happening. He pressed closer to the window, so close to just melting into it, and repeated, "I want you."
"Why?" I retorted, pulling the blankets around me tighter.
"Let me in," he demanded.
I shook my head again and rolled over, my back to it.
Is it going to come back again tonight? What do I do? I'm nearly in tears at the moment typing this. Please, if you have any idea what's happening, let me know. I don't know what to do, but I'm terrified. I'm so afraid it's a demon or something that wants to kill me. I don't even know if it's a ghost. Why am I so calm around it? Why is it that when it leaves, I'm so afraid and scared? What does it want from me? Please help me guys...
--S
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