{"id":3411,"date":"2023-11-02T08:55:27","date_gmt":"2023-11-02T14:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irenenorth.com\/writings\/?p=3411"},"modified":"2024-04-22T02:46:03","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T02:46:03","slug":"the-visitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/2023\/11\/02\/the-visitor\/","title":{"rendered":"The visitor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time he\u2019s come to visit me. Michael Myers<\/a> has appeared to me in dreams before. He always scares me. I\u2019m conditioned to be afraid of him. He is, after all, a multiple murderer. Last night, he appeared just outside my window at 15 Corwin Avenue, the house in which I grew up.<\/p>\n

He gently tapped on the glass with the tip of his knife. He stood there, looming over all the shadows filtering in from the moonlight. I was terrified, of course. Who wouldn\u2019t be. Was he there to kill me? To kill someone else? I didn\u2019t know. I rolled over and faced the wall, trying to pretend he wasn\u2019t there. In my little mind, that would mean he would go away.<\/p>\n

I nodded off and slept for a while. At some point in time, I had rolled over and was no longer facing the wall. When I opened my eyes, Michael Myers<\/a> was standing in the hall between the front door and my bedroom door. The front door was still open and my automatic assumption was it had not been locked. This, too, was a common occurrence in my house. Sometimes we locked the front door. Sometimes we didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I was scared again, but this time there was a bit of annoyance mixed in. I wanted to sleep, but there\u2019s a mass murderer standing in my house.<\/p>\n

I nodded my head upward to acknowledge his presence and then closed my eyes. When I was little, I always closed my eyes in an attempt to make whatever bad thing was happening disappear. It didn\u2019t work then. It didn\u2019t work now. When I opened my eyes again, he had not disappeared. He was standing beside my bed.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a sort of calm that runs through you when you know an inevitable danger is able to take place. You\u2019re still afraid \u2013 terrified this is the end. Thoughts race through your mind about how it will go down. If you can fight back. Should you fight back. Can you get away. What happens if you can\u2019t get away. Then, there is the quiet acceptance. I sighed deeply and sat up in bed. I didn\u2019t know what else to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou okay?\u201d I asked. It\u2019s a stupid question. A mass murderer is standing over my bed, knife in hand. No, he\u2019s not okay. He just stalks people and kills them.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t respond. I didn\u2019t really expect him to. The question was more for me anyway. He stared at me for a few moments, his dead eyes locking in tandem to mine. He cocked his head slightly to the right and shifted the grip he held on his knife. <\/p>\n

There was a sober fear radiating from within me. I could feel my heart beating in my throat. I closed my hands into fists, but had no intention to use them. I was a little kid. How the hell do you defeat a murderous giant when you\u2019re so small? You don\u2019t. So, I stared into the black holes where his eyes should be. Squinting in the dark, I swore I could see the whites of his eyes.<\/p>\n

Michael Myers moved his right hand. My gaze shifted from his face to his movements. He leaned to the right and put his blade over the top of the pink and blue polyester quilt my paternal grandmother made for me when I was born. My first thought was, \u201chow the hell is Mom going to get the blood stains out of it.\u201d
\nAs he gently let go of the knife, I noticed my fear had vanished. His hand no longer clutched the knife. Instead, it was open. He stood up straight and used his now-empty hand to gesture toward my bed. He was asking if he could sit down.<\/p>\n

Who am I to say no to a crazed murderer who decided to visit my room in the middle of the night? I shrugged my shoulders and retracted my legs against my chest, making a space for him to sit. He sat down and breathed deeply. I could see his chest move, but there was no audible sigh. Still, I felt he had temporarily lifted a weight off his shoulders. His hands rested in his lap. He moved them slightly, like I do sometimes when I am trying to figure out what I\u2019m trying to say. Then, he turned his head and looked at me.<\/p>\n

Michael Myers twisted his body toward me and stretched out his arms. He held them there for a second or two. It took my mind a few moments to react as well. I climbed out from under my covers and reached over to give him a hug. He wrapped his giant arms around me and softly hugged me. There was an anodyne tapping of his hand on my upper back. It was sweet and soothing, and somehow reassuring. <\/p>\n

He sighed again and let me go. I climbed back under the covers while he stood up and retrieved his knife. I nodded my head upward. He reciprocated. He stood there for a moment staring at me, then cocked his head to the left and turned around to leave.<\/p>\n

He left the door to my bedroom open, but switched the lock on the front door before exiting. I could see him and his shadow out on the porch. He was standing on the top step, motionless except the occasional turning of his head. <\/p>\n

I watched my murderous sentry for as long as I could. Eventually, my eyelids could no longer be held open and I nodded off to sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not the first time he\u2019s come to visit me. Michael Myers has appeared to me in dreams before. He always scares me. I\u2019m conditioned to be afraid of him. He is, after all, a multiple murderer. Last night, he appeared just outside my window at 15 Corwin Avenue, the house in which I grew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[120,239,257],"class_list":["post-3411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories","tag-dreams","tag-michael-myers","tag-new-york"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3515,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3411\/revisions\/3515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}