Childhood Bedroom

Memories.

Most people have experienced some things that seem relatively normal, but after a few years of revisiting that moment, they seem unusually odd.

I’m a third culture kid, meaning, I was born in America but grew up in a different country - Central Asia. I’ve lived there for about %80 of my life. And I can tell you, there are a lot of superstitions and unusual stories people have shared with me, most revolve around spiritual beliefs or customs. So I was used to the supernatural world, to some extent.

I rethink the moments I’ve spent in my old apartment, it was built during the second world war and many veterans had lived there. Of Course I was a child and had irrational fears of the dark and being alone. But now that I’m writing this story, I find it strange that the one room in the apartment, which frightened me most, was my bedroom; The room that is supposed to be a sanctuary and retreat, but I was terrified to walk into that room by myself. Thank God I shared the room with my two brothers, otherwise I would have been completely out of my mind by now. I could never spend more than a few seconds in my room, whenever I needed something out of it, I would run - full speed, screaming, trying to scare off all my imaginary monsters, then dash back out in only about half a second.

I don’t know why my room seemed so terrifying to me at the time, perhaps it was the dim lighting, or the sunlight that would filer in through my transparent, blue curtains, yet the room would still remain dark. But some of my friends agreed that when they walked into that room, they felt disturbed.

Strange things occurred that seemed completely normal and natural to my nine year old self. I would hear voices and unusual noises and even see strange faces appear, which I assumed was just my eyes imagining something.

I would lay in bed for hours trying to fall asleep (I’ve always had sleeping issues) and sometimes I would hear my name being called. The voice was never familiar and always faint, a whisper, but I could hear it in the silence of the night. I once got out of bed and peered into the bunk above mine, to find that my brother was asleep. I asked my other sibling if he had addressed me, but I got no reply and assumed he was asleep too, or just trying to freak me out.

I’ve heard my name called many times at night, but I never thought anything of it, every child hears voices right? - that was my reasoning.

I’ve had other occurrences too.

I once owned a plastic maze, it was a simple children's toy. It came with a hammer and a small labyrinth. You would place an included plastic ball on top of the labyrinth, then hammer it down through an opening at the top, it would roll through the labyrinth and eventually make its way to the bottom of the maze. It was very amusing.

I was woken up by a clatter, which I immediately recognized as the labyrinth toy. The ball made its way through the maze, it was very loud compared to the night-time silence. I was confused how that could’ve happened, for the ball required a lot of force from the plastic hammer to make it through the opening. My nine year old brain reasoned: it was just a huge spider crawling across my toys, which most people would consider even worse.

I’ve had other children's toys that were strange.

For my birthday, I got a small electronic animal that would sit on a desktop and could sing songs and talk. But it required a switch to be turned to activate, but I guess it forgot about that part, because it would turn on whenever it wanted to. Finally I was so annoyed at it, I removed the batteries. But . - when I was playing a game of tag and running through my room, the toy started to sing, by the time I made it around the house (which was arranged in a loop, all the rooms were connected in two places.) and back to my room, it wasn’t singing. I threw it away after that. Another toy was removed from my room for similar reasons. It was an electric, talking bird that I had gotten from America when I visited that summer. It would start to talk at night and wake me up. But the strange thing was, I never turned it on.

I was an easily frightened kid, and honestly I myself was frightening as a kid. I had strange habits, some of which, I still possess; for example, I could never make myself look into the mirror in my old room, especially at night. Somehow, I couldn’t make myself look into any mirrors, unless I was surrounded by people. I don’t know what I expected to be looking back from behind the reflection. Another habit was: I would always stay awake in my bed, I made sure that all my body arts were covered, if they weren't, I couldn't fall asleep, this was due to my imagination telling me: a figure would appear from behind the slightly transparent curtains and look for children to eat, if I wasn't covered, I would be killed. (this figure came every 17 minutes). I think what inspired this imaginary story I would tell myself at night was that one evening, when I was preparing for bed, I saw a human figure standing behind the curtain, I was too afraid to check what it was, so I never found out what was standing behind my curtains. (I had a window that looked out onto my balcony, so if there was a person standing behind my window, they were in the house).

Perhaps, all those strange experiences were just my over-imaginative mind making its own world in my room,

Or…maybe not.