Lauren Breck
In the fourth grade, it was time for quiet reading hour. Not having my book with me, I went to the class bookshelf. Skimming the books, I found “Ghost Tales of Ohio.” I was instantly intrigued, and, as the teacher called us back to our seats when quiet reading was over, I found myself wanting more. At the young age of ten, I had never really thought about death, ghosts or anything supernatural. Reading stories about how people heard footsteps upstairs while they were home alone, water turning on when no one was in the kitchen or even seeing a shadow glide past the window resulted in my doing one thing: sleeping in my parents bed for two weeks. I was so into these ghost stories that every creak and groan in our house made me instantly run to my mom and dad.
As I grew older and matured, the fear of the ghost stories faded, though the interest and curiosity grew immensely. For me, one of the scariest aspects of life is not knowing what happens after death. Is there a Heaven? A Hell? Do we just float around as ghosts after we’re dead? Or is it just “lights out,” bury me in some dirt? Hearing ghost stories in a way was a comfort to me. Hearing stories about seeing deceased people in the clothes they wore, smelling the perfume they adorned themselves with, tasting the cigars they smoked meant that maybe there IS another chapter after we leave earth.
Growing up as a Catholic and going to mass, I was taught by the Church that there is a Heaven and Hell, but there is always that question: How do we truly know? Though the Catholic Church does not recognize the existence of “ghosts,” I still believe that humans can come back to this earth.
Even though ghost stories can give people a certain comfort in that there is a next step after living on Earth, they still scare the hell out of me — and I love it. The most recent movie I saw was “The Conjuring”. The psychological fear interlaced within this movie of an invisible, and eventually evil, entity is very scary. When the characters young daughter wakes up in the middle of the night thinking that someone is in the room with her and her sleeping sister, the sheer terror of the girl is chilling. Though you want to close your eyes, you can’t help to look if there is really something in the room. Why it is there? What does it want? What is it?
The curiosity of the unknown is so powerful. So when you are alone in your room at night, or are walking alone in the dark, don’t hesitate to wonder who or what may be walking alongside you.