Midnight scribblings

Recent horror writing attempts have left me struggling to describe one particular horrific experience. That of seeing something in a reflection that is not there.

Such an experience lies at the route of all terror. The humbling of our latter-day human vanities, and the supplanting of a fear and vulnerability that stretches back through the millennia of our human DNA. It plays to our fundamental struggle for survival.

Imagine you are a lone primitive human scrabbling for food and shelter in a hostile world. You take a much needed drink from a rare waterhole. Seeing your reflection in the pool you just catch a glimpse of a slight movement behind. Did you imagine it? Or is something about to pounce?

Either way your heartbeat will quicken, your nostrils widen, there will be an involuntary sharp intake of breath. Your body will ready itself for fight or flight. In short, you will benefit from a sudden adrenalin rush, much needed to deal with the danger. If you survive, you may feel something almost enjoyable about the hormonal surge as your body starts to calm down. All these reactions are exploited by the maker of horror movies.

One of the scariest of recent experiences I have had was when I was home alone one night. I glanced at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and, to my horror, the mirror image of my own face dissolved into the face of a different person, the reflection of a monstrous stranger.

Did I imagine it? Of course I did but, then again, what is real and what imaginary? Do not think we see things with our eyes. We do not. Sight is a function of imagination. The capacity of the human mind to construct visual pictures from certain sensory stimuli.

The human eye, along with that of many other species, functions by allowing rays of a narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum to penetrate its liquid interior and refocus on a membrane at its rear. Light and colour sensitive cells are stimulated to send signals to the brain. These signals are then reimagined into images that other parts of the brain readily recognise and understand through experience.

In this way, light reflected from a real-world object is translated into an imaginary image. In short, it could be argued that everything we see is imaginary. That we have two eyes facing ahead allows us to see, or rather imagine, distance, depth and perspective. We do this by interpreting visual clues.

Such interpretation is not wholly reliable and objective, however. It has to be learned and we are constantly learning. A baby lacks visual experience and has an overwhelming need for human attention and care. A baby is attracted to the image of a human face even if crudely drawn. This desire for the comfort of another human stays with us throughout our lives. If you have been recently bereaved have you noticed, for instance, that you sometimes think you have seen the person you are missing in a crowd? It is not because that person looks anything like your friend or loved one, it is because you want them to look that way. You have a need to create the face of the person you want to see out of the face of a complete stranger.

Some years ago when walking alone along a residential street at night I saw a man standing in front of a darkened doorway to a house at the far end of the road. He didn’t move and I wondered why he was just standing there. Not going in and not coming out. As I approached, I slowed down, concerned. Still, he did not move. I proceeded cautiously wondering what he might be doing, As I got closer, I realised I was not looking at a man at all. All I could see was a lantern attached to a bare white wall, unlit. Not only had my imagination interpreted the shape of the lantern as a man’s head, but I had then constructed an entire body in my imagination out of nothing. There was nothing beneath the lantern but a plain white wall.

We are so much geared to seeing another person (or a creature out to eat/destroy us) that sometimes we see them where they cannot be. Like the man in the moon, or that potato that looks like a famous celebrity.

This power to create human faces out of pretty much anything is why horror film makers often use mirrors, shadows and glimpses of something that shouldn't be there to scare us. One use of this mirror and shadow device that I thought was particular good was the recent movie:

The Conjuring: Last Rites

Trying to capture this kind of imagery in a 5-7-5 haiku wasn't easy but I hope I have gone some way to achieve this. Please let me know what you think. In each of these stories I have tried to capture that feeling of seeing something we know is not really there, but creeps us out nonetheless.

Please let me know what you think. I would be particularly interested in your thoughts on Midnight visitation. Have I made it too sexually explicit?

Mirrors, darkness and creepy terror

Sleep undone again

• Midnight visitation
• Looking glass see
• Icy tendril creep
• Poet lingers long
• Breath Held

Thanks for reading