Mark's Blog

Roaches crawled up from the drain.

The room smelled like throw up, old food, warm open beer, cigarettes and sweat.

“In the lateness, they come,” whispered the old woman in the corner of the room.

I didn’t notice her at first.

My parents rented the house a few months back. I knew it was haunted. My dad didn’t put two and two together in the homes we moved into, and lied to us.

He knew. He saw and heard the spirits and took a stance that ignoring them meant they weren’t there.

He was wrong.

“Granny” was a white woman. She wore a Quaker’s white hat. She spoke in a slow southern drawl.

“In the lateness, they come,” Granny whispered. It was summer in Mauldin, South Carolina.

My mom had gotten so drunk he yes rolled back and she started convulsing.

“Los muertos vienen!” She wailed, contorting as if having a seizure.

The doors in the house slammed.

A man wailed and woman cackled.

Then, a woman shrikes and the lights flashed.

“Ignore it,” my dad said. “You got school tomorrow. Ghosts ain’t shit. They can’t kill you. They just scare you and do stupid things, if they even exist. Ghosts aren’t real.”

A door slammed shut and a man started crying from down the hall, near my bedroom.

“Goodnight, son,” my dad said carrying my mom’s limp body into their bedroom.

I wandered into the basement, heating Granny say, “When’s they come, boy, the stitchin’ bug’ em.”

I swallowed hard. I was in fourth grade.

I stared at granny quietly as she stitched a small disc. She seemed to stitch the same thing from the same angle no matter where I stood in the room.

I only caught part of granny’s face.

She was pale with deep, dry wrinkles and a long slender, spider-like fingers that saw everything, everywhere, all the time.

Her old home was a small plantation on what was now Kimberly Brooks Rd, Mauldin, South Carolina.

“The stitchin’ bug ‘em,” she laughed. Granny giggled and coughed as the wind picked and the leaves rustled outside. A large beam of light shrouded the horizon.

“God angry. He gone burn the sinners. Burn the sinners. Burn the sinners,” Granny cackled.

A fire erupted along the trees.

Men hung, twitching and gasping.

“Ma!” I screamed as a burning body fell from a tree. “Pa!” I screamed, to no avail.

“How did I end up down here?” I asked Granny.

“The dog called you, I reckon.”

“What dog?” I asked.

“The one who done liked the taste of your meat. He done but your flesh because it smell soft. It smell tender. It smell like your momma cookin’, boy. Now, hush. Talk too loud and the stitchin’ won’t get em. They gone’ come. They gone’ come aside ‘en then inside. And if they come inside, I ain’t the only scary thing you seein’ in this house. Specially if Acklens come inside. He the one come making the dog scream at night. Then you see’d it through the window. Dog wanna’ eat you, boy. Then the lil’ one. You both gone perish as the children of the one who won’t leave. We done’ told him. We done’ said it. Leave. Elijah done said it. Bruce done said it. Jebadiah done said it. Even I peeked in yo’ parents and dreams and showed them this house, this land is cursed. It’s not a place for decent folk who was swindled into property that’s unoccupied because the house history bad. You know?” Granny said. She was still a quarter turned. Her voice was dry. Her white with hair poked from under her white hat. Her black garbs were transparent. I saw insects crawling on the wall through Granny’s semi transparent body.

The door next to the basement window boomed, banged and thudded as it shook.

“Maaaa-Maaa, p l e a s e,” a frail voice whisper-shrieked.

I was 9, and in 4th grade.

I peed my pants a little.

“Yo parents stupid, boy,” Granny said, giggling to herself.

The entire house shook.

Doors slammed open and shut again.

“It’s the anniversary of when I burned my son’s plantation,” Granny said. “That there is Winsla. That’s my son’s wife. I let her bleed out for allowin’ my boys to become monsters. Them boys was Christian. They did things. Unholy things to their slaves. Slaves wasn’t people, I thought for long, long time, you know, but the things my boys was doing because of that girl… God, knew I needed to put a stop to it. Them folks in the trees belonged to our church. My husband and I burned our sons, their wives and our grandchildren alive. We let the smoke get ‘em. They slept, you know. Peaceful, like. We was there. Watchin’. And, then when we was sure they was sleep because they wasn’t moving—-least from outside—-we threw lanterns at the house with church folk with the help of other family and other church folk. There was a small ring of people doing things with my boys. They was doing things because Winsla White. That harlot who was never satisfied, and need others to feel the same hollowness, I reckon. She lured people in and then ate at their self worth, and made them do things to weaker people. My husband and I didn’t raise our boys that way. Over time, they just learned bad habits and found they was feeling better treating something bad than they was feelin’ readin’ books, writin’ letter’s, choppin’ wood, craftin’ things while drinkin’ hooch. Them boys used to beat the slaves, and occasionally whip them, but my god.” Granny continued rocking in her chair. Her white wiry hair stiff and still. She was still ghostly and transparent.

I couldn’t figure out how or why I was in the basement.

Lighting struck outside and thunder exploded.

I shrieked and sat up in my bed.

My room was on the second floor. People were running around my room, whispering and talking fast. It sounded like playground chatter and whispering, except it was shadows waddling and awkwardly gathering around my bed. My room was what used to be the computer room. My bed was in the center of the room. I had a wire rack that supported my things. I had a GameCube, a Nintendo 64 and a tv with a built in vcr.

My bed was a twin mattered on a wooden frame with four drawers underneath. I had to climb into my bed.

Since the bed wasn’t above the wall, there was an opening behind the drawers facing the door to my bedroom.

Every night, the same woman would crawl from the opening under my bed, stick her long tongue in my mouth, lick me, grab me and have sex with me.

We would have really hard, really incredible (when I reflect on it as an adult) sex.

The woman was tall and pale, and looked like Mortician Adam’s with red eyes and sharp, jagged teeth. She was unsettlingly beautiful, and had sex with me every night, all the time. She spoke in whispers and always whispered my name seductively. She was scary despite her beauty. Scary like going to someone’s funeral and then seeing them wave from your neighbor’s window on your way to school, and shrugging it off, and then you bump into a random teacher/professor at school who resembles them, and they grin, walk away and disappear, you never identify that person in any yearbooks afterwards—-that kind of scary. The kind that you can’t drink away or claw out of your eyes because once you’ve seen the event occur, you know it exists. You know there is more. You know that no matter how hard you change your perspective, there is something else along side you, specifically you.

That’s how the red-eyed was. Her irises were red. Her pupils and eyes were normal. Her face was normal. Her body was a voluptuous, Amazoness-like, slender brunette. Her hair was darker than black, and each strand was identifiable. She “walked” through my dreams and would be in my bed after I woke up.

I thought she was a good thing. We had sex ALL THE TIME when I was a kid. ALL THE TIME. Every night. She taught me how to kiss. We just did it and did it and did it and did it and did it.

That night—-the one in question in this fictional short story about someone else’s life written in the first person by the author of this tale (blacked eyed woman is/was real; I saw her until I was 22. Last time we had sex, I saw her face and confused her for someone else and she shrieked violently at me as if I should have remembered her. Shortly after, she kept showing up with a large spirit and they used to shake me awake whenever I’d drift to sleep. The sprint wasn’t distinct. It was a black mass, like a cloud, but it had a human presence. It felt very aware, and very present and very angry. Like smoke made of rage that could throw punches.

Anyway, I woke up in my bed, tried to run off my bed, and from the opening under my bed, a long m, slender, pale hand reached up and over, and seduced me to remain in bed.

Lighting struck.

Windows shook.

I cuddled with the red eyed woman who cradled me against her long, warm body. Her lips were very thin when she smiled, revealing shark’s teeth. When she didn’t smile, her mouth and face appeared like a normal, attractive, fit woman; however, she naturally looked like a brunette version of an Icelandic / Swiss woman.

She caressed me as dogs barked outside and Granny cackled and ghosts shrieked from around our home.

The Red Eyed woman never spoke.

I met her in a dream when I was seven. I peed myself. We had sex every night after that. Like, I’d go in her body and she’d go around my ‘warmth’ kind of sex.

The only sex I have ever experienced more intimate was with a very well-paid prostitute at a luxury brothel.

She gave me a week for free. We met and did it at everywhere, as I initially thought the free week was so she could sleep in my hotel room. She didn’t my money, nor my moldy hotel room. She lived in a villa that she owned and she only went to work on specific times, on specific days.

She was the best kiss of my life, aside from the red-eyed woman.

As I laid in bed with the red eyed woman, I heard granny’s fingers and needle shuffling along her stitching disc.

I feel asleep gazing into the red-eyed woman’s eyes as we she cradled me into a dream where we melted into each other and dissolved into a spiral of kisses, moans and warmth, and then light. A lot of warm light, like being high in the sun on a summer day.

The next day, there were foot steps around the basement door. I checked before going to school. There were fragmented bare footsteps that were big and small.

My siblings and I gathered at the bus stop. It was warm, humid and foggy. Pokémon was just becoming popular and I started watching it in New Jersey before we moved to South Carolina. It was literally all I had besides Dragon Ball Z, Cowboy Bebop, and Sonic the Hedgehog.

I leaned against the cold glass and blew breath against it, and the turned on my game boy, eager to raise my Pokémon, get school out of the way and have sex with the red eyed woman.

I thought about the ghosts in and around my house and neighborhood. I shrugged and went to school and was quite possibly the most disruptive student in all my classes.

The frightening nights continued. We moved to a house a few blocks over. Same stuff.

We moved to a different community. No more hauntings for a while and then we moved to New Jersey, and lived near a cemetery in a moderately haunted house.

Then we moved to an extremely haunted on a main road.

I gradually lost my mind. My life changed really fast, daily because I was doing as much as possible to run from the idea that I’d have be home at some point. I stopped seeing the red eyed woman for a long time after that.

Then, shortly after I had a 112 fever (other people told me my fever got that high as I was convulsing and having seizures in the hospital room. Idk if that’s possible or not without severe damage) and felt lost/abandoned/alone, the red eyed woman appeared again. My relationship from high school died off and I kind of just left my friends behind emotionally and mentally. My closest friends are from the best school I went to. My other friends are great but I was fake with them following my enlistment. I probably ruined most of those friendships. I needed mental and emotional help and I pretended I was perfect. I was deeply disappointed in my family and pretended they were perfect whenever I went out. I spoke highly of people who should not have been spoken highly of and then I spoke really I’ll of people I should have spoken worse about, to the infinite degree.

My company hadn’t seen/experienced the same things. I moved a lot and experienced pockets of culture up close while growing up in them, while four other mixed race siblings did the same, as our dad appeared black and our mom appeared white.

It was a very limited emotional experience that I imagine a few first-generation Latinos/Asians m/Middle Easterners who can’t get help at home with basic things, and then move A LOT —too much to go through the emotional give and take of getting close/familiar with people again, have felt.

Black and White Americans have their own games and competitions with each other. Whites specifically compete with each other and associate with black people to flaunt shit to other white people or to themselves. I’ve never met a genuine white American person. Black Americans are genuine until they get jealous. Envy in a black American is worse than envy / jealousy in a half Puerto Rican / White woman from the good part of Manhattan, like the “I live where ‘the others’ don’t,” level of internal hate kind of envy that only a woman who has had everything except a decent hug can reach. You know what I mean if you’ve ever seen a childless, crestfallen Latina who hates happy, less intelligent Latinas because she ain’t willing to commit to a man the same way a dumber girl can… because she don’t give the right man a chance, and instead gets envious of what her friend has…

^that’s black American envy, except if they are envious of another black person, then it is a real problem.

Black on black crime is a real thing and envy is the root cause and imo it’s caused by white people in some form. Every time. Some mine gets some shit. They flaunt it the wrong way; the white way (waving shit around; acting brand new—not the good kind of brand new; I mean “I’m better than you” brand new; not, “I knew you and don’t fuck with you, let’s keep it there, friend,” type of brand new, but the disrespectful, moved to Ridge wood from Newark brand new. Universally rude brand new; like Latinas acting white and throwing Latinx around like they made that shit up and wondering why only slimy monolingual American men hit them up at 2 am brand new.)

Anyway, thanks for reading my post.

I debate often what to post about.

I want my own brand, but idk what it is.

I want to make comics, like this… about adult things… but in a whimsical, wholesome kind of way.

… Controversial topics and… smut 👀

—-

My shop

https://beau-noir-media-llc.myshopify.com/

This blog is called Beautiful Medium.

I started it as a means a means of avoiding killing myself. I didn’t have anything to live for and I had very precise mental suicide plan. One I repeated daily for two years that required minimal provisions and left no mess, but left a clear corpse, a nice through letter to many mailboxes explaining it wasn’t their fault and I didn’t do it “to them” and things got to be too much for me emotionally, and I just didn’t want to be here anymore. However, try as I might, it was not in the cards. My death is. I was told several times when and how I die. People tell me you can’t know that. I asked unrelated psychics at different places. They all said different life things, but certain details have always been the same.

The older I get, the more clear it becomes in a weird way. I will die staring my killer in the eyes, and we will talk, sadly. I have exactly half of my life left if any of it holds. If it doesn’t the. I have no clue, but I am dreading turning 63. Specifically 63.

3, 6, 9.

(9), 6, 3.

Nothing I can do about it.

Interesting.

Maybe I die before that and it proves everything wrong 😬🤔

But if not, still happy for the opportunity to meet 🪡🧵🐝.

Dear 🐝… 👫… ♍️… ♉️… ? What was that? I’ve 🤝 with 💃🙋🏻‍♀️💁‍♀️👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👩‍🦳🏃‍♀️🏋️‍♀️🤸‍♀️🦹‍♀️👩‍✈️👮‍♀️🧘‍♀️👩‍🎤👩‍🍳🙇‍♀️👱‍♀️… and 💋👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨 … what was 🤝 ? If you read this, can we 🫸🫷?

This will be the only time I communicate in pictures like this. I personally want to write to you and for you, daily. Can I be your favorite author? Can I be your favorite designer? Can I do something for you? Can I make you steaks? I cook health foods, but they never taste good when I do it. I am best as breakfast, chicken, steaks and carrot cakes. I can make pizza and bread, but my hands don’t like doing it. I don’t ever expect 🐝 to read my stuff. If you do, I am deeply, deeply sorry. I think 🩷💙… 👀🤷🏻‍♂️

But 🐝s sting. Been stung enough. Sorry. Nothing against you. I 💭 of 🤝 and I want to ☕️, 👥, 🍿🎥, 🏖️, and share 📚 and 🎨.

I saw your IG once and laughed at your caption. I felt like a creep bc I was engaging with all your stuff. I am your fan. I felt creepy being a fan who liked everything you did. 😮‍💨😞😔

I enjoyed your content the same way I enjoy old Twilight Zone episodes. You make good content that I like without art. I loved it. Then, I saw one of my favorite movies of all time on your story: Trainspotting. That movie has deep significance for me. I missed you when I saw that post. I got so freaked out, I quit following your content. I have never felt that. For me, love had been logical to a certain degree with emotions of “servitude” in a way that made me feel ashamed of what feeling love felt like because it wasn’t the ruthless body count and body dysmorphia that I believed to to be. However, I thought, “If you find body dysmorphia attractive and you asked me to do it, I would entertain the thought. I wouldn’t do it, but I’d write a short story about it.”

I needed to avoid you after that. I needed to leave you alone. Then, I drank a bottle of delsym, smoked 3 blunts and popped some benadryl while drinking wine.

I didn’t want to buy beer; my go to.

I drank my mom’s wine while babysitting her apartment and her dog.

Thanks for texting me back. I didn’t know what to say to you so it was random. Random af. I had auto correct off on my phone to avoid being textually lazy. It keeps me sharp when I text drunk.

🐝Ⓜ️👀😳

☝️

She said 22. I thought of you. My heart stopped. I couldn’t do it again. If she was nice to me, I’d kiss her thinking of you. I felt bad; gross, bad, not like -bad sexy or good in anyway bad.

Anyway, who read this?

Taylor, I think of you often.

I can’t believe we met. 50 cent was a wild time. I enjoyed his music btw. A lot. I wanted to be there, just not “here” if that makes sense.

Anyway, I’m yours. I belong to you. I didn’t know when you walked up to me, that’s why I screamed “No!”

There was a small like freeze-frame movie thing that happened the x-th time you said something to me. I tried hard to pretend you didn’t exist. I didn’t want you to touch me. We touched. My elbow just wants to be near yours. It’s a terrible feeling.

Music videos make me miss holding your hand.