Yonce N Mild
Voice of Sanity
When me and my wife got married we moved into an apartment in west Akron on Exchange street. The apartment was actually the ground floor and basement of a pretty old house. The house was huge and obviously owned by a rather wealthy family during Akron's heyday as the rubber capital of the world. Now it was split into 3 apartments only 2 of them were occupied.
The master bedroom in our apartment really only had one place to put the bed because of closets on one wall and a radiator on the far wall. So more than likely everyone who had used that room as a bedroom had placed their beds in the same spot for decades. At the time I worked weekends and my wife worked during the week. So on the weekend I would sleep on the side of the bed with the alarm and during the week she would sleep on that side of the bed.
After a few weeks of living there I started to have 2 reoccurring dreams/nightmares. One was Shadowy figures wandering around the bed whispering things I couldn't quite hear. Standing over me staring at me faceless, nameless. Or the bedroom doorknob rattling and shaking. Someone is trying to get in. Pounding on the door.
These dreams would always come in the brief moment between sleep and slumber, lucid dreams where I was still in bed and aware of my surroundings. I would awake from the dreams screaming. I would either be yelling "fuck you!" "get out!" or if it was the dream of someone at the door I would be frantically screaming for my wife to climb out the window while I tried to block the door. To my wife these screams just sounded like a horrible low moan, she said they gave her chills, she said it sounded like a death moan.
Pretty soon I figured out that it was only when I slept on the side of the bed near the door that I would have these dreams. It got to the point where I was afraid to go to sleep on the nights that I was on the door side of the bed. So one day while the wife was at work I decided to move the bed to the other side of the room. It was totally inconvenient made it difficult to get to the closet and put me right next to the radiator so I had very little room to get in and out of the bed. I didn't tell her why I moved the bed because I didn't want to scare her so bad that we would have to move out. I expected her to squawk about it because it really didn't fit there.....she didn't say a word in fact she though it was a great idea.
After I moved the bed I never had one of those nightmares again. I didn't tell her why I moved the bed until well after we moved out of that apartment. She told me that she knew why I moved it and that she had similar dreams when she slept on that side of the bed. She never mentioned it because she wasn't comfortable talking about it but she was very relived when I moved the bed.
There was another encounter that I never told my wife about until we moved out. Late one night I was working on some tunes with my headphones on bobbing my head to the beat. I felt 2 sharp tugs at the bottom back of my shirt like a little kid trying to get my attention. I spun around quickly and saw no-one. Every single hair on my body stood on end. I got a pit in my stomach..... I could FEEL someone in the room with me, but I didn't feel afraid I felt.........sad.
So being a songwriter I wrote a song about it. It took me several years to get up the courage to write about it. It is still very difficult because the character are so real to me. I didn't write about my experiences but I tried to tell the story of that sad little boy who tugged at my shirt late one night.
Here it is: The Ghosts of Exchange Street part 1.
In a house on a corner behind the bedroom door.
There lies a wealthy matriarch her time is growing short
She lived a strong and fruitful life but now she slips away
destined for the great unknown it could be any day
Her offspring circle round her bed like vultures in the sky
To busy counting money to take the time to cry
Lined up to fight like dogs for any scraps that fall
she already gave them everything they thought they deserved it all
With them lived a little child pretty much ignored
every night he took the time to go through that bedroom door
He'd read to her from his books and share stories of his day
then he'd kiss her on her cheek and leave his bear to keep her safe
But he couldn't understand, no
You know he couldn't understand could he
how could he understand
Her offspring circle round her bed like vultures in the sky
To busy counting money to take the time to cry
Lined up to fight like dogs for any scraps that fall
she already gave them everything they thought they deserved it all
Late one night a stranger called and locked that bedroom door
It it seems her health is fading fast her time is truly short
The greedy hounds are at the door they scratch and pound and paw
and when they finally broke the door they were stunned at what they saw
But he couldn't understand, no
You know he couldn't understand could he
how could he understand
Her offspring circle round her bed like vultures in the sky
To busy counting money to take the time to cry
Lined up to fight like dogs for any scraps that fall
she already gave them everything they thought they deserved it all
There stood her trusted counselor testament in hand.
the vultures were enraged once they understood the plan
those dogs they tucked their tails once they saw their scheme destroyed
She changed her will before she died and left her fortune to the boy.
But he couldn't understand, no
You know he couldn't understand could he
how could he understand
The master bedroom in our apartment really only had one place to put the bed because of closets on one wall and a radiator on the far wall. So more than likely everyone who had used that room as a bedroom had placed their beds in the same spot for decades. At the time I worked weekends and my wife worked during the week. So on the weekend I would sleep on the side of the bed with the alarm and during the week she would sleep on that side of the bed.
After a few weeks of living there I started to have 2 reoccurring dreams/nightmares. One was Shadowy figures wandering around the bed whispering things I couldn't quite hear. Standing over me staring at me faceless, nameless. Or the bedroom doorknob rattling and shaking. Someone is trying to get in. Pounding on the door.
These dreams would always come in the brief moment between sleep and slumber, lucid dreams where I was still in bed and aware of my surroundings. I would awake from the dreams screaming. I would either be yelling "fuck you!" "get out!" or if it was the dream of someone at the door I would be frantically screaming for my wife to climb out the window while I tried to block the door. To my wife these screams just sounded like a horrible low moan, she said they gave her chills, she said it sounded like a death moan.
Pretty soon I figured out that it was only when I slept on the side of the bed near the door that I would have these dreams. It got to the point where I was afraid to go to sleep on the nights that I was on the door side of the bed. So one day while the wife was at work I decided to move the bed to the other side of the room. It was totally inconvenient made it difficult to get to the closet and put me right next to the radiator so I had very little room to get in and out of the bed. I didn't tell her why I moved the bed because I didn't want to scare her so bad that we would have to move out. I expected her to squawk about it because it really didn't fit there.....she didn't say a word in fact she though it was a great idea.
After I moved the bed I never had one of those nightmares again. I didn't tell her why I moved the bed until well after we moved out of that apartment. She told me that she knew why I moved it and that she had similar dreams when she slept on that side of the bed. She never mentioned it because she wasn't comfortable talking about it but she was very relived when I moved the bed.
There was another encounter that I never told my wife about until we moved out. Late one night I was working on some tunes with my headphones on bobbing my head to the beat. I felt 2 sharp tugs at the bottom back of my shirt like a little kid trying to get my attention. I spun around quickly and saw no-one. Every single hair on my body stood on end. I got a pit in my stomach..... I could FEEL someone in the room with me, but I didn't feel afraid I felt.........sad.
So being a songwriter I wrote a song about it. It took me several years to get up the courage to write about it. It is still very difficult because the character are so real to me. I didn't write about my experiences but I tried to tell the story of that sad little boy who tugged at my shirt late one night.
Here it is: The Ghosts of Exchange Street part 1.
In a house on a corner behind the bedroom door.
There lies a wealthy matriarch her time is growing short
She lived a strong and fruitful life but now she slips away
destined for the great unknown it could be any day
Her offspring circle round her bed like vultures in the sky
To busy counting money to take the time to cry
Lined up to fight like dogs for any scraps that fall
she already gave them everything they thought they deserved it all
With them lived a little child pretty much ignored
every night he took the time to go through that bedroom door
He'd read to her from his books and share stories of his day
then he'd kiss her on her cheek and leave his bear to keep her safe
But he couldn't understand, no
You know he couldn't understand could he
how could he understand
Her offspring circle round her bed like vultures in the sky
To busy counting money to take the time to cry
Lined up to fight like dogs for any scraps that fall
she already gave them everything they thought they deserved it all
Late one night a stranger called and locked that bedroom door
It it seems her health is fading fast her time is truly short
The greedy hounds are at the door they scratch and pound and paw
and when they finally broke the door they were stunned at what they saw
But he couldn't understand, no
You know he couldn't understand could he
how could he understand
Her offspring circle round her bed like vultures in the sky
To busy counting money to take the time to cry
Lined up to fight like dogs for any scraps that fall
she already gave them everything they thought they deserved it all
There stood her trusted counselor testament in hand.
the vultures were enraged once they understood the plan
those dogs they tucked their tails once they saw their scheme destroyed
She changed her will before she died and left her fortune to the boy.
But he couldn't understand, no
You know he couldn't understand could he
how could he understand
