The Frightening

There will probably be several posts of this nature. It's helping me process this enormous void my life now seems to revolve around, until I can re-shape myself around it.

I don't know exactly when this little scene played out. I must have been 14 or so, Micah, 10. We were up visiting for Christmas from Texas and I had just gotten home from hanging out with my rad cousins :) Miranda, Melanie, and Mason. It was after 10pm. and on the fantasy channel they were playing "Nightmare on Elm Street" or some sort of Freddy Krueger horror extravaganza. Micah was still up, our parents in bed. Nanaw was awake as well, of course, and couldn't have cared less what we were watching. Eventually she said her goodnights and it was just Micah and I, terrified. Wrapped in this green and yellow blanket my mom still has and lets the dog sleep with, we huddled together in rapt terror. It wasn't even scary, we'd just never seen a scary movie before. No joke. This is not something I resent my parents for.

The movie ended and we made our way to the kitchen, with it's brown and orange and yellow floral colored tile cold on our feet, opened the fridge and looked for treats. Nanaw always had lots of treats. All of sudden, we see a figure moving from the long hallway, half-lined with mirrors. It was swiftly galloping, horse-like, into the living room and headed straight towards us. Some sort of Doom Cloak shrouding it's hunched shoulders. This was the end of us. Our just reward for tarnishing our brains with horror-muck movies, had come quickly. I screamed, "Holy shit!" and Micah ducked down, hands over his head, into the fridge and part of me.

The veiled creature stopped. Dropped the green and yellow blanket from around her merry face, and started laughing so hard she had to bend over because she was afraid she was going to pee. I was shocked. Micah incredulous. It took us a full minute to realize it was just crazy Nanaw being a nut and scaring is stiff because she knew how frightened the movie would make us. Scream-laughing, we both collapsed on the floor, rambling like lunatics about how scared we were and how hilarious that prank had been.

Dad came out, scruffy and irritated from being woken up, but soon joined in the laughing when we told him what Nanaw had done.

She was a hoot.

Jazz Hands