[Listen]
I first encountered the specter when I was a fledgling theorist (in
search of a philosophy) at a conference in Central Europe. At the start
of my visit, I erred as have a few arrogant foreign early 20th Century archeologists
have before mysteriously disappearing from a tomb dig site in Egypt--I angered
the spirits. Fortunately for me, I was on a plane the within a week possessing
only certified souvenirs: conference swag, städtisch logo t-shirts, and
a contemporary perfume bottle for my mother. I noted the encounter in the poem
Utterances
in the Night.
I had not such another encounter until I was in Tribeca, New York City. I had
a "hands-on" experience with a bogeyman. Nascent was I with this otherness.
Otherness, for me at the time, was an academic term used to describe the culturally
disenfranchised. However, the 'otherness'
I was attempting to disambiguate was a physical being in the abstract sense—perhaps
more like an alter-ego, something like a conscience anthropomorphised: The
Last Night I Dreamt of the Bogeyman (p. 13-14).
Clinically, this type of anthropomorphism could be termed as a hallucination,
due to, in my case, a sleep
disorder. Was my throat occluded by my tongue, thus blocking airflow to
my brain, causing heart palpitations, raising my pulse rate--a seizure perhaps
induced by hazardous medication(s): Hags
and Nightmares. Sleep Paralysis and the Midnight Terror. The
Hidden Shadows.
As I have witnessed when my eyes were wide open, the appearances of the
Velvet Shadow were beginning to harass me when I began my diabetes treatment.
The diabetes unfortunately was a symptom of a greater ghost provocateur: Cushings
Disease. Although curable, the spiking hormonal imbalances allowed me to envision
uncanny motion-stop impressions surreally over-voiced expressions: On
Being Patient #2: Strike or Spike, part II; On
Being Patient #3: Reversion Triggers, part I; On
Being Patient #6: A Philosopher's Progress: (dis)Organization; On
Being Patient #13: Recuperation: the Recovery of a Keen Being.
A recount on the recall, a revisitation, and a hormonal addendum, I curl up
in bed, pondering my “sightings,” thinking funny thoughts--maddening,
even as I walk stiffly, not sternly, painfully stout, frank in my steps from
the office to the car, back to the castle which I refer to as home, then dinner,
later withdrawal--haunted by my writings.
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