SEEING THE DEVILS EYES

(We all have childhood fears that we never quite outgrow and that stay with us our entire lives, whether it be spiders, mice, drowning etc they are always somewhere in our subconscious just waiting for an excuse to come out, mine were …the Devil’s Eyes.)

                    It was dark in the cellar, dank and earthy and the cold rocks of the foundation gave off a dampness that seemed to seep into your very soul if you stayed in there too long.  Sounds in this dead, dark place came out muted with a dull hollow ring as if coming from the bottom of a deep well or the interior of a long deep cave.  I felt the rough boards of the steps pressing against my back and my hand rested on the damp rocks to my side. I had curled myself up under the hatch that led from the cellar to the kitchen of the old house. In the dark I felt well concealed not only from my friends who I was playing hide and seek with, but from the world in general. I heard David Lindsay who was "it" searching all the usual nicks and crannies where we would normally hide looking for my friends and me still hidden. I'd heard his shout of "Ready or not, here I come" and I heard several yells of safe as my brothers reached the tree designated as safe before he could catch them.

                    I suppose I could have made a run for it a couple of times but I felt snug and secure knowing he'd never find me here. Getting past the person designated the seeker was the object of the goal but to have the seeker give up and cede was true victory in our game. Minutes passed that to me seemed like hours. I could sense the others boredom and knew I was the last hideaway. David finally gave in and offered me safe passage but curled up there I had drifted into a strange almost stupor and I was reluctant to give in and leave this dark dungeon of a basement. My imagination began to take me places as it often did. At times I was a miner trapped in a cave in at the Springhill Mines that I'd heard about in a song on the radio. I could picture myself as a diver trapped in a shipwreck far below the sea, a prisoner of war enduring torture trapped in a prison or other images that fitted into the strange scenario that I was in.

                    Drifting along in my half sleep/half daydream fugue kind of state I let the outside world sort of drift out of focus. It was during this time that I saw the devil's eyes. Suddenly I felt a presence and knew I was not alone and slowly opening my eyes I saw two eyes staring back at me, turning my blood to ice that only the deepest kind of fear can do to a person.

I felt paralyzed with fright; unable to move or to scream out only to sit perfectly still not taking my eyes off the eyes that so eerily stared back at me. The eyes eventually faded and their grip that had held me seemed to fade away with the disappearance of the eyes. I ran down the stairs and out into the blinding sunshine stumbling and fighting to regain the breath I'd been holding for so long. Close to tears but yet afraid to share what I had seen.

                    My brothers and friends were all there waiting and laughing but how could I explain what I had seen or the fear that lingered in my mind. I couldn't so I blocked it away to a part of my mind that I would try to keep shut forever but would always haunt me. I avoided those stairs the rest of the while we lived in that house. Adulthood and reality convinced my mind that it was an illusion but my soul never completely let go of the belief I'd seen the devil and he had looked into my soul. Adulthood may have convinced me the hallucination wasn’t real but you also won’t get me going into any dark damp places unless accompanied by another adult.