strange-where-the-birds-go

[strange-where-the-birds-go]

Lights At The Top Of The Stairs

Part 1.

I lived until I was 7 years old with my Nan. My nan and granddad were like my mum and dad and I loved them dearly. I frequently had strange dreams and occurrences happen to me as a child and they have only got stronger and stranger the older I got particularly the past few years. This recurring dream involved an old film camera and strangely enough an immense feeling of euphoric pleasure, fantastic experiences and visitors at weird times and in funny circumstances. The dream was one of three that I had all the time the first one happened when I was young and involved me taking photographs of lampposts, (I know I still don’t get it even now, maybe one day I may understand it’s strange. But it gets even stranger I assure you as you will no doubt find out if you follow the story. So strange you will probably find it all very hard to believe. But on my nans life and grave god bless her it’s all true. The lampposts featured in the dream was on the street where I lived as a child. The other two dreams and all the events in my life I want to explain, I will get to as I post these episodes each day. The synchronicity events and strangeness of it all should eventually become clear and leave you questioning things in your own life and what they may mean. Maybe you have had similair experiences as myself I am almost certain there will be people out there. Get in touch and comment I will be happy to reply.

Thinking from the present as I am writing this, I felt that my childhood dreams couldn’t be ignored but now looking back maybe they shouldn't have been followed considering what happened when I followed my dreams thinking it would be nothing but all good turned into something entirely different. Hopefully eventually I will understand why, what the dream meant, if anything at all. I hope it all becomes a happy positive event and not regretting my choices as I started to after the nightmare that entered my life.

It was a warm, hopeful summer, many years after the events I explain to you here that I remembered the childhood dreams. It was a summer where dreams seemed real and obtainable. I didn't want to be just another faceless nobody, with no real reason or meaning in my life. The idea of not doing anything worth while scared me, and that's all there was to it. The dream I had as a child was going to be followed with all my will, I just didn’t expect it to lead me where it eventually did. I just wanted to do well for my family. I can’t travel back and change things. I can now only hope for the best.

My mum gave birth to me at a young age and I went to live with my grandma. I called my grandma mum and always used to get my mum and nan’s names mixed up when I talked to them so this was the appropriate solution to me as a child. When I was living with my nan-mum I had a very strange dream whilst lying on my bed upstairs. I always until this day remember the dream. It’s what I influenced me me greatly to start my photographic journey.

I was settling down in the living room waiting for my Nan to come home. Strange visions and flashbacks in daydreams. knowledge I always wondered how I knew at a young age. My mum lived in a flat and felt it would be better on that I stayed with my nan while she worked to get money and a stable life for us. I was young anyway and loved my Nan and grandad and tonight I was looking forward to spending time with my them.

My Nan had been longer than usual this evening and I was getting worried. We were going to watch a spooky film together because it was Halloween. “Where’s nan gone Grandad” My 5 year old self said “ She’s ran off with the milk man” came the reply. I never really understood what this meant, just a funny remark at the time knowing my grandads humour.

The key turned in the front door and I felt better glad his Nan was home and safe. My grandad shouted “ be back later Mary there’s some money on top of the television if you need anything I wont be too long, going to speak to a man about some work tomorow” and with that my grandad went out on foot to the local for a few pints.

Nan took off her head scarf, quickly hung it up and threw her anorak over the back of the chair. She walked slowly towards the roaring coal fire to warm up her hands, carefully avoiding the tin bath prepared for the school bath earlier. She lit up a cigarette and sat in the chair opposite the brown veneered square TV set with the 50p box on the side slowly winding its way down ready for another hexagonal queens head. The air was stale, thick with smoke and the smell of cigarettes as she inhaled twice slowly blowing the smoke towards the ceiling and away from me. Feeling satisfied She turned to me. Ive got some jacket potatoes in the oven and treacle toffee, oh and toffee apples as well your favourite. I know its early but we can treat ourselves while we watch the movie, and why not”. “Thanks mum... nan”. I regularly stuttered and got names mixed up. “Thanks nan, are you looking forward to the scary move?” I can only remember seeing a large black Alsatian but having ominous feelings about this dog and the music in the film was eerie, more scary than the actual film at the time. We didn’t get to watch much of it. The tv went black and the 50p meter clicked loudly asking for another coin. Mary got up and went to the top of the tv looking for that big silver piece, inverted triangles that meet in the centre, in the pile of coins Grandad had left for nan “ I’m afraid we haven’t got any 50ps. We will have to wait until your grandad gets back now, isn’t that a shame I was enjoying that, Just when it was getting good as well”

I felt slightly fed up and walked into the kitchen to get a toffee apple. Pausing at the bottom of the stairs in the hallway I peered up to the bedroom landing. More scared now than after watching the actual film. I was thinking of the lights that came. I didn’t understand what they were but they made me feel anxious and scared. I wouldn’t look straight up tothe top of the stairs as it was too scary I had to peer out from the corner of my eye to check everything was ok up there and when I realised it was I hurriedly half jumped half ran across the front door hallway into the kitchen not once looking behind until I was at the toffee apples in the cupboard. Then peeling the yellow plastic wrapper off the sticky apple I took a bite as quickly as possible making sure to get as much of that red toffee in my mouth as possible and avoid the sour apple. I started hopping on the spot needing the toilet. The dread filled me as I knew I couldn’t go on my own up those stairs towards where the light came from. The light might get me. “ NANN, MUMM, NANN. I need the toilet will you sit on the stairs whilst I go please I’m bursting. “OK, But you should be able to go yourself”. I stood at the gas iron cooker and waited until nanmum appeared at the bottom of the stairs so I could approach the crooked steps, the lights formed in my sub conscious worried that very real and strange wisp of light might make another appearance. WHAT WAS IT. I ran to the bathroom at the top of the crooked stairs, terrified of the light appearing. I knew how it felt, never threatening at all the last time in fact quite the opposite but I was young and the not knowing scared me. “Nan don’t move, stay sat there please, I’m watching, if you go I wont be able to have a wee”, “ I wont move an inch you know that I wont” “I knew she wouldn’t let me down and trusted her more than anything” I ran up the stairs as quickly as possible looking back every two steps to make sure she hadn’t gone. When reaching the top step I kept my head and eyes straight forward not daring to look right or left and quickly went to the toilet pushing outwards as fast as possible always keeping the door open and making a backward glance towards Her for reassurance. No quicker was I finished and I was halfway back down those stairs again breathing heavily with the exertion and back with his nan. “ Why do you do that”, she said “The light comes nan it scares me” “What light?” “ I cant tell you, I want to, but I cant tell you”. Nan rolled her eyes and said, “You’ve been watching too many horror movies at aunty carols your imagination is wild”. I didn’t even hear Marys remark I was just so relieved to be back beside his nan and safe again.

Nan eventually found a 50p and walked over to the meter fumbling to find the right angle, the perfect spot so it would wind and drop, it clicked and fell into the empty box readily, having been emptied the day before. The TV came to life and Mary switched over to coronation street. Hilda was sat with Stan underneath the triple flying ducks in the living room and it reminded Stefan of his nan and grandad, Gail was also my other mum. I always made these comparisons with everyone in the tv and read their names backwards. “thats enough scary movies for tonight said nan. I think its best don’t you” “Aww Nan I wanted to watch till the end”.

My nan didn’t answer. She just gave me that look. She always knew the answer it was a sort of instinct she had. A knowing. We connected like that. We rarely had to speak we both knew the other like the inside of a well read secret book. I always felt content around her, it was like she could read my mind and the looks she gave me spoke a thousand words resonating on a much deeper level. When you feel the answer with your subconscious voice, those continuous thoughts, in your mind you don’t have to speak but your heart knows.

I was getting sleepy now but my stress levels were rising with the thought of bedtime, they always did especially on a Sunday night, a school night brought depression. It wasn’t school though that scared me, a small part maybe, but it was knowing I had to go to bed early on my own and face the light and the vastness of open space. The people in my dreams. The place between awake and falling asleep where the strange existed. The light outside the door on the landing, so bright and beautiful it would fill my room when I shut my eyes. When it touched my mind I was taken away to an immense blackness of what seemed like outer space. Where feelings crossed over and smells mixed with colours in ultraviolet strings that wrapped around my arms and merged with needles that pierced the tips of my fingers in moments of pleasure accompanied by a peculiar watering of the mouth, a sickly feeling. Floating around in what seemed like an endless universe of random screen images. Pixelated people and smooth two dimensional places wrapped up in tubes of light. It made no sense at all but felt strange and infinite, never endingly good at the same instant. Chattering noises and a great feeling of love wrapped in greater love and surrounded by humanoid like shapes manipulating it like a Rubin’s cube in an instance where all time stood still. silence for what felt like an eternity of singular moments posed inside each other, but was only a second in reality. Not past, present or future but only “is”. The light was so bright and perfect it became transparent emotion to the pit of my soul. To me it was normal I thought everyone must get visits by the light people. I find it hard to explain the happenings now I’ve grown up, but as a child I just couldn’t comprehend what was happening and that night was the start of something strange and beautiful that led to the worst and best time of my life all wrapped into one. If only I understood it as I understand things now as I walked towards the crooked stairs.