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The Open Door

WE had a strange sleeping arrangement when we were kids. My childhood bedroom was also bedroom for my brother and mom. Since dad worked night, it was just the three of us home. So we slept with mom even when there were rooms for us. Mom usually had her little son next to her in that big bed by the window, and I was put in the single bed which was across the room door. Basically, my bed was just, say, three meters away from the door, which was always kept open. 

The thing about open doors is that they are creepy. You switch off the room lights, the room goes pitch-dark at once but it eventually warms up when the street light or moonlight seeps through the window. Then you see familiar shadows on the wall. Perhaps of a gently swaying mango branch just before a midnight shower or of bats dashing across the porch like what I used to see on our wall. There's always activity and life even when you're safe and sleeping. But the open door will always be dark and mysterious. No shadows or signs of life but just a dark hole on the wall, and it's really creepy when you're jolted awake in the middle of darkness and you find this hole before you. 

So yeah. That door, which mom kept open for ventilation ...I loathed it. Actually, I feared it to some extend till one night when the sighting occurred. 


It was probably around 2 or 3 in the A.M. I was on my side when I woke up facing the door. I wouldn't usually fight to see beyond the door but that morning, I rubbed my eyes to focus on the figure just outside the room, at the beginning of our long hallway. Warm and familiar, my mom, dressed in her usual clothes, was smiling and calling for me. Yet it was strange and wrong to see her in such fine spirit at that juncture. So I turned around to peek over my bed headboard, and there was mom, fast asleep with my brother next to her! I could've screamed at this point but I remained calm.The next course of action was just to cover my head with the blanket and go to sleep.

I never told mom this story till years later when we had moved out of that place. My brother must've been a mess when he had spotted the same figure calling out at him during one of those nights. I mean the boy was right next to mom - our real mom! He had told her about it a few times but mom had brushed it off. 
"Probably just a dream." Or a fragment of his imagination but I knew it wasn't just an imagination. 

When we recall the story now, mom cringes. God knows what it was or what could've happened if one of us had adhered to the strange calling but I'd never forget that bedroom.

* This post is inspired by Mama Kat's prompt - What do you remember most about your childhood bedroom? 

Mama’s Losin’ It

Comments

  1. Wow that is creepy. I'd want to close the door too or get the heck out of there as fast as possible.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. but we never closed the door. it was creepy and i had only seen it once. my brother had seen it a few times.
      in recent years, i've seen things too but somehow when i encounter such situations, i tend to ignore 'them'.

      Delete
  2. This post gave me some chills Jaya, I really don't know what to think happened but I love the way you told it, awesome stuff. Thank God whether it was just your imagination playing up or something worse that nothing ever happened, I do quite like the sounds of your sleeping arrangements back then though, they sound very intimate and nice.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hahaha. it gives me chills thinking about it now! yeah, we slept together. i miss that. it was an intimate arrangement :)

      Delete
  3. Two mothers! Damn, that's spooky! And potentially a pain in the butt! I wish you'd woken your sleeping mother up and made her deal with the doppelgänger.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. lol. two moms can be just that!
      my friend recently came back from paris and he swears he saw someone who looks like just like me. i am curious.

      Delete
  4. Interesting, yet creepy, story.

    Check out my bedroom story ---much calmer than yours:
    http://proartz.blogspot.com/2012/08/butterfly-kisses-poetry.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. We had some very creepy things like that happen in an old house we used to live in - I'm convinced it was "haunted". *Shiver* Cool story, though.

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    Replies

    1. oh yeah. creepy it was. this house wasnt too old but it wasnt exactly 'clean'.
      thanks for visiting :)

      Delete
  6. Very creepy indeed! Did you live in old home? My good friend lived in haunted houses. I hated sleepovers. Always felt presence of someone therein room with us.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hi Anne. welcome here! it wasn't an old home but it was located at a junction. they say houses at junctions may attract 'unwanted' attentions!
      having to feel a presence is just so creepy. its like you know there's something but you cant see it.

      Delete
  7. Wow,interesting story! Well told

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  8. Creepy! That was such a rude awakening. I'm glad nothing became of it. The memory of it is bad enough.

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    Replies
    1. i am glad too! i cant imagine otherwise.
      looking back, it was quite an experience.
      thanks for visiting :)

      Delete
  9. That's very scary, and it makes me want to solve the mystery.

    Love,
    Janie

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    Replies

    1. yeah, but this kind of mysteries...think it's best to just walk away sometimes ?

      Delete
  10. Well, I'm sleeping with the lights on tonight! My cousin and I always used to sprint past open doors to rooms where the lights were off in my grandparents' house. Something about a door with darkness beyond it... Stopped by via Mama Kat's.

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    Replies
    1. i know rite?? spooky and doubly spooky when the interior is all wooden and dark. throw in a few antique items, i am never staying there!

      thanks for visiting :)

      Delete
  11. wow, that is SUPER creepy. I would've screamed bloody murder and woken everyone one up! lol I don't like my bedroom door shut. We all sleep with ours open.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. it was !
      i always sleep with the door shut. just makes me feel safer :p
      thanks for visiting.

      Delete
  12. WHOA! That's freaky! Maybe it's true about us having out of body experiences! I would be so flipping frightened if I saw that. Never, ever leaving a door open again!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i cant imagine out of body experiences but whatever it was, it was sooo freaky.
      :p

      Delete
  13. I remember the sound of rain on a roof from my old bedroom. And I loved it.

    That and the shadow things I saw in the open door as well. Looks like we had somewhat similar sightings. :P

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  14. Its great to see that people are sharing quite profitable information with each other and now we can move our selves to a new era.

    Beautiful,delicate,enigmatic

    ReplyDelete

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