Museum “In My Mind It Hides”

“I have tried with time to come to an understanding of what I saw that night, but every attempt I have made to try and give it reason, to formulate it in my mind, fails as soon as it starts.

It does not see us in a way that can be understood really. It is all merely theoretical, and it is the pain of that knowledge that leads me to question exactly what I saw and if it really happened. If I am even real or just a story to it. Just a story...

A story with an ending.

I was driving home from a late party. I used to see people a lot back then, but there was nothing in those experiences that allows me to do that anymore. The hours before I drove home really are the last bit of happiness I have left inside of me, the last bit of sanity that makes me believe that what I saw really happened. The beers I drank linger in my memory, as do the kisses I shared. /\

A lot of people around here scream In their sleep. They see things and those things hurt them and leave them damaged. They are scared, and when they sleep they see those terrible things waiting for them in the dark spaces, where they are unable to get away and defend themselves. But I don't scream in my sleep.

I cry. And I cry because the truth is what I saw didn't scare me.

It simply took everything away.

It is why I stay away and don't return calls. I go to work, I come home, I go to sleep, and on some nights I do not dream. But on most nights I do, and my dreams are not mine anymore. I used to dream about girls and walks in the woods, but all I see now are things that cause me to wake up crying.

I quit them, the people who I saw that night, along with everyone else. I have to, or I am going to tell them what7 I saw and if I do, then this terrible terrible thing will spread far and wide. Even this, writing it down like I am now, is merely me trying to scratch around the itch instead of itching it directly.

It knows how much I want to talk, because it told me that I needed to talk.

I have to spread the word of it, about how small we are.

But I won't give in to it. I am going to tell you what I saw that night, but I am not going to tell you everything that I saw. I can't.

Please forgive me if I make a mistake, if somehow there is something in all of this that causes it to spread. I am trying really hard to not put anyone else at risk, but I have to get some relief.

I need relief from the burning...the aching in my head.

I need relief from the burning...the aching in my head.

I was driving home from the party. It was a long drive home, and I pushed it a bit further than was probably safe. It started to rain-

I can't say for sure that what I saw wasn't a dream; that it wasn't just a perversion of my mind.

It was a dream.

Itisadream.

Iamadream.

It was raining. I could smell it through my cracked window, that smell of rainfall on a hot road. But it wasn't hot that day. I didn't put that together until now. Had I been more awake it is possible that I wouldn't have-

I pulled over. I was tired. I set an alarm and I closed my eyes. The radio was playing something something...something in the background that I was listening to only with a bit of my brain. I was half listening, and when the radio stopped being a radio, it took me a few moments to come to, to see what I needed to see. What it wanted me to see.

What I heard.

It felt like I had spiders running under my skin. It sounded like my dad when he got home late from the bar. My mom hated him for that. She left him for that.

It smelled like cigar smoke...no...it smelled like burning plastic and batteries.

I heard her voice in the radio, but it wasn't her voice. It was something that sounded like her.

It was saying her lines. It was playing her part. My mom is a part in the story. My dad is back in chapter seven. I am lost. I lost my place.

I lost what page I am on.

I closed my eyes tighter, trying to fight for sleep, not believing what I was hearing...but then the light started to...

No!

I can't tell you that. I c

It wants me to tell you but I won't tell you. It won't get to you. I won't let it. Please let this lie as it is. Please don't read into it or go looking. I don't think I left enough for you to find it, but I need you to promise me that you won't go looking for it, that you won't try to figure out what is really going on. Please don't let it take you too. You are important. You are real.

Promise me. Please say it out loud so I can hear it.

Promise me.

I am not real anymore, but the hurt inside feels so real to me. I feel sad all the time, and when I try to work it out it only gets worse and worse. Sometimes we see things or hear things that aren't for us to hear or see. We work backwards from that point, and our future is taken from us. We can't say what day it is. We don't know what year it is. I don't know what time it is. I know it doesn't matter. I am not real but you are real. I have to believe you are real. You have to be because if you are real then maybe I am real. But I am not real.

Not real.

Not real.

Not real.

Oh god...Oh god. I can see it. It is looking at me. It wants me to tell you, tell you about the light. The pain. The burning-no I can't do this-I can't,

Please.

Oh god.

I am burning.

It is burning.

It I is burning.

God is not real, and neither am I. I am a series of tones in you mind. I am not real. Please be real. Please let me be real. I want to be real, to be free. If I tell you, it stops. But I can't tell you...

It is too late.

It can see you.

It shivers as it shines,

it is released.”

I have a pretty good idea of where I need to store this. It feels like such a long time ago for me. It was almost six months ago when I first heard about it, but it feels like so much longer than that.

I am starting to get the hang of this new position I think, and it seems so easy for me to simply fall into the rhythm of the day to day. I used to look at all the stuff in the back of the museum, all those objects and papers that seemed to stretch on and on. Some of the things here aren't considered safe for public display, and I think this qualifies.

Something about how things are right now just feels right to me, and it is nice to finally feel like my life is back on track. After Tracy, I thought that I was fucked and broken. The last few months have proven that I couldn't have been more wrong.

Dad and I got lunch today. It was the first time in months that we were really able to do that. It was sunny, but I didn't mind. My dad was just happy to be out and about with me.

His little girl.

My mom used to say that there are always storm clouds somewhere, so it is important to cherish the days when there is enough sun to go around.

I miss her today.

Time hasn't made it any easier, and if I am being honest I am glad they never found out who did it. If they did, it would make it feel a bit too real for me, even after all this time.

Right now her murder feels more like a dream than a reality, like something I watched on TV or something I read about at some point long ago. I am pulled away from it, and I think I am happy keeping it that way.

I hope you are well.

Please stay safe.