Supernatural South India Redux

 

               As the title suggests this is round 2 of strange events in my apartment.  At first I wasn't sure if I would include this next strange encounter but then I realized that this is a blog meant to serve as an up-to-date account of my crazy mishaps in India - so why not include it?  Especially since I already opened this can of worms earlier in two other posts.

               I suppose my uneasiness in bringing it up is due to the fact that I can't really wrap my mind around what to believe.  And since I'm living alone I can't even check in with another person to see whether I'm crazy or they notice it too.  But then again this is why a blog can be so nice - I'll use my audience here to tell me whether they think I'm crazy or not. 

               The first half of this little 'vignette' will be to go backwards and explain a little something about a previous occurrence as well as why it freaked me out.  As I mentioned in a previous post I woke up one morning to find my a door which I have never once locked somehow locked shut on its own.  And not a simple lock either - rather you have to with one hand keep the door closed shut while you slide the lock all the way through to the latch on the other side. 

               That doesn't sound all that sinister or even something to make a big deal out of and yet for some reason it freaked me out more than any of the other stuff that happened.  I thought maybe it's because the idea of having locked doors in your house is sort of an invasion of privacy when you aren't the one to be locking them.  But that didn't seem sufficient. 

               Then I realized that the reason I felt so weirded out by it is probably because I have always felt a little strange with the kitchen space.  In fact for every night I've spent in the apartment I have formed the habit of absolutely having to close the door before I go to bed at night.  When I first started doing this I rationalized it in my mind as being a way to keep bugs from coming into the other rooms (as they seemed to gather in the kitchen area specifically) but that doesn't make much sense.  You see there is a rather large gap between the floor and the bottom of the door that a medium-sized mouse could easily fit through - a cockroach would have no problem scuttling on by. 

               It also didn't make any sense because I also shut the doors in my bedroom as well which means I can't even see the kitchen from my bed at night.  So why is it that I absolutely have to have the door closed before I go to bed? 

               Then I realized that also from the beginning of my stay here in Madurai I have often gotten a creepy vibe in the kitchen.  Perhaps creepy is the wrong word - just plain uncomfortable.  I didn't like taking too much time to wash dishes in there because I would sometimes get this weird feeling like something brushing against the bottom half of my legs or crawling up my legs at the same time yet I would never find anything there.  I would shake my legs a bit but it didn't seem to make a difference. 

               Beyond that the kitchen is a cramped spot so there are many different reasons (outside of the paranormal) as to why I don't like that particular place in my house.  That didn't matter though - to see that particular door being locked gave me the instant impression that someone was trying to give me the message that yes, I am trying to tell you that this is not your space.  You don't belong here, you have good reason to feel uncomfortable, this is my spot and I control it - not you. 

               Anyways that was the first half of this vignette (which is turning out to be far too long to be considered a vignette - oh well).  The second half has to do with an actual event that happened a while back but I didn't tell anyone.  The reason is because this one like the door rattled me a little bit but was also just implausible enough for me to think (hope rather) that I made it up.

               I was getting ready for bed, in the bathroom brushing my teeth, and as I left to go back to my bedroom there was an incredibly loud noise.  VERY loud.  So loud in fact that it didn't even seem like it was outside my apartment or even in my apartment - it sounded like it was right in front of my face, in my ears. 

               I can't really describe what the noise was - even at the time I could barely tell what the hell it was but the best I can say is that it sounded almost like a very loud scream combined with a banging crash.  But the two noises were so muddled together I couldn't make sense of it.  Not to mention hearing it was like when you put your headphones in without realizing the sound is all the way up and you shock yourself with the noise. 

               I could have made it up - perhaps it was just my ears shorting out for a minute and losing some kind of frequency.  Except that my entire body registered the noise.  And by that I mean as soon as I heard it my heart immediately jumped and started pounding in my chest going a mile a minute.  Every hair in my body immediately stood up and I felt like my whole body was tingling.  From the back of my neck to my fingers and down my spine, I was tingling all over.  It was like someone I couldn't see came right up to my face and screamed as loud as they could - an incredible shock to my system.    

               All I could do was stand there rooted to the spot where it happened thinking, did that just happen?  Did I just hear something?  And what the HELL did I just hear?  What in the world happened?? 

               Even after staying like that for a minute I had to go back to my bed and simply sit there for another 5 minutes.  Basically letting my heartbeat slow back down and try to figure out whether or not I was going crazy.  I think that's why I didn't want to tell anyone because it was all so implausible and hard to explain that I was almost positive I had to make it up.  And if I didn't make it up - well then acknowledging it would be much more disturbing than simply pretending it didn't happen.  Because if whatever that was happened on purpose then whoever did that meant to freak me out - and I didn't want to think about that.   Sitting on my bed I made up my mind that I would just pretend it never happened because otherwise I might actually start feeling nervous about living here. 

               But now there's been some time and nothing has happened since then so I feel ok bringing it up.  Actually, no, more than that I want to at least share it because I have no idea what to think at this point.  My attitude towards this, I've decided, will simply have to be the same as it is towards everything in India.  Just accept it and move on - cause there's nothing else you can do about it. 

               In fact really only have 5 more months in which to share my home and I'm certainly not opposed to the idea of having a roommate.  Well, so long as they stop trying to give me a heart attack right before I go to bed.