Do you believe in ghosts?
Maybe, maybe not but it wouldn’t hurt to be extra cautious with Halloween being just around the corner. Corners, beware of dark ones for, in the movies, they hide the unrestful souls of the ones with unfinished business, emotional baggage. Back pain? Make sure you’re not unknowingly carrying dead weight. And speaking of weights, beware of wells. I don’t trust the water down there; if it is just water down there.
Do you believe in ghosts?
Maybe when you were younger; I used to. As a child, I was a perpetually scared and yet a stubborn enthusiast of paranormal fiction. As a result, I avoided going anywhere dark alone, actually, anywhere alone in fear of ghosts like Toshio jumping out from some dark, forsaken corner. Although I haven’t seen many wells in my lifetime but in the few occasions that I did, I avoided going near them at all costs. And don’t get me started about the movie, Shutter. It made me question all the bodily aches I’ve ever had.
Parokya ni Edgar’s song, Okatokat (which is pig latin for Takot Ako), perfectly encapsulates that excessively jumpy behaviour one tends to adapt after watching a scary movie. In the song, Chito sings about instances in which he thought he had encountered the paranormal but as it turns out, in one case, it was just his mom and not a White Lady; and in the other, it was only his reflection.
Do you still believe in ghosts?
Not anymore, I presume. I don’t anymore. If you are quite the horror enthusiast as well, at some point you would’ve watched one too many horror movies that you notice the same three plots playing out: the abandoned house with the murder backstory plot, the acquiring of haunted item plot, and the ouija/possession plot. Honestly, I never got the Conjuring series hype. You may disagree but I don’t recognise anything new or fresh about them; all of the movies in that series still fall within the same three plot cliches.
Of course, there’s the less-appreciated monster genre and no, the good ones are not all only about zombies. Wes Craven’s 1984 film, A Nightmare on Elm Street, is a cult classic. If you haven’t seen it, I won’t spoil it but to give you an idea of what it’s about, listen intently to the introduction of My Chemical Romance’s song, Sleep. By the way, good luck on getting any of that if ever you do watch the movie.
What are you afraid of?
Listening to Marilyn Manson’s version of This is Halloween from Tim Burton’s Nightmare before Christmas is nostalgic but the song’s description of monsters from Halloween Town don’t necessarily “make you jump out of your skin” anymore.
It’s Halloween season but as a university student, that also means that it’s midterm season, which is also lovingly known as hell month. Here is a likely scenario:
Jamming to Emperor’s New Clothes by Panic! at the Disco at 9PM, you start off with high spirits as you prepare for an all-nighter by drinking a cup of coffee as you lay out the work you need to do for that night. At 12AM, you’re listening to Follow You by Bring Me The Horizon and wondering if the lyrics, “my heart feels like a ghost”, possibly foreshadow the palpitations you’ll be experiencing later for drinking this much caffeine. At 3AM, if you’ve managed to stay awake, you find yourself singing Halik ni Hudas by Wolfgang at the top of your lungs (at least in your head so as not to wake up the household) with the passion of a friendship scorned. You hiss once the sun starts to rise, not only because you’ve now become highly sensitive to the light, but also because that means that this paper is due very soon and you’ve written the conclusion but there are some body parts missing, phantom limbs. Do this for several nights and the bags your under your eyes start growing darker by the week. You don’t really notice it until one night, you give yourself a fright in the bathroom mirror as you mistake your reflection for the ghosts from your childhood. Okatokat.
What are you afraid of, now?
Sinister, sinister forces that have taken the form of pieces of paper namely, LTs, midterms, reports and, synthesis papers bearing a grade you would love to bury 6-feet underground. Seeing the letter C, except it has a vertical spine and the gaps are closed so it looks more like a D, on the paper you worked tirelessly for nights on end. Decimal-level fluctuations in your QPI, period.
If you’re a freshman newly adjusting to the grooves of university life, living alone and far away from home, you might find yourself identifying with Paramore’s song, Ain’t It Fun on a whole new spiritual level.
I’m sure you would agree that it could be fun to be on your own; it could be fulfilling to become independent and count on no one; but living in the real world is an adjustment that takes time. Hang in there, little fish.
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If you’re planning to have one of those all-nighters this Halloween/midterms/hell month season, you might be interested in giving my playlist a listen. And as for my final remark, look for it in the playlist. It’s a very important reminder. Happy hunting!
The Spotify link to the playlist: