S U B J E C T MATTER
STORIES ABOUT
STRANGE AND SUPERNATURAL EXPERIENCES
S U B J E C T MATTER
in this issue editors’ letter
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The Appalachians
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Thank You
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Gracie
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Nightmares
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Dancing With Ghosts
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Asylum
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Artificial Experience
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CVS Parking Lot
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To Protect & Guide Us
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Waco
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credits colophon
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EDITOR’S LETTER this issue of subject matter is about strange and supernatural experiences.Human experiences with beings and realities outside of our earthly perception or understanding are nearly universal; they have been recorded across countless cultures and have spanned centuries. These are experiences that, despite the ubiquity with which they occur, are often doubted and treated as fiction. Those that share them are at best dismissed or at worst treated as though they are mad. In this issue, without judgement or censure, we explore the ideas of liminal spaces, entertain the notion of ghosts, unpack the emotions around tragedy and change, but most importantly we act as a conduit to share these stories that might otherwise go unheard. We give these stories to you to believe and carry as you will.
RACHEL BOSTICK & HANNAH GASKAMP
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T H E A P PA L A C H I A N S JESSIE RICHARDSON When I was a child, my father told me not to go up into the woods at night. Folks disappear in the mountains. The woods in the Appalachian are an entity of superstition and liminal space, where time bends to the laws of the woods. If you think something is watching you, it is. But it’s just a bobcat right?
I was following the calls of a hysterical crow, looking for an owl it may be harassing. I went off the path, only maybe ten feet, to the brush and the ferns. That’s when the crow stopped. No crow, no birds, no wind or bugs. Everything stopped except the low buzzing in my ear. Something else was there too, but I couldn’t see it or hear it. I could only feel its presence on the hairs of my neck and that low buzzing in my ear. I thought of my father’s warning and tried to find the trail. Somehow I went from being ten feet to 100 feet away and that thing was still watching me the whole time. Like a record replaying a loop the crow started back up and the buzzing disappeared once I was on the trail again. How far would I have gone? And what could have been following me in such a way to only make its presence known off a trail I thought I had sight of when I stepped off. It’s too easy to disappear in the mountains. ◊
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IF YOU THINK SOMETHING I S W AT C H I N G Y O U , I T I S .
TO PROTECT AND GUIDE US RONDA ROMANO
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The first supernatural encounter I had when I was seventeen years old. We lived in Corpus, in a house on 14th street that my mother and brother bought. I was in high school. We had a fence and a small sort of garage on the side of the house. It didn’t even have a garage door. Behind that, there was an area where we hung clothes and we had a little garden back there. It wasn’t anything great, but we were out of the projects and it was a house. It was late at night. I went outside to get some clothes off the line. It was really, really dark, but I didn’t think anything of it. I go around the corner and I see this—the best way to describe it is like this white figure. It wasn’t a person. There wasn’t a face. It was like a white glow, but it was in the shape of a being. It scared me to death. I thought, “Holy smoke, what is it?” It scared me enough that I ran back into the house. And I thought to myself that nobody’s going to believe me when I tell them what I saw: this white faceless figure, just floating in the air. Its presence had scared me enough that I didn’t go behind that garage. I believe that it was like a guardian angel—because I do believe that we have guardian angels here. It was protecting me from going behind that garage. We didn’t live in the best part of town, and there may have been a person hiding
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SOMETHING DANGEROUS WAS B E H I N D T H AT G A R A G E AND THIS BEING WAS PROTECTING ME.
behind there. Something dangerous was behind that garage and this being was protecting me. Later on I did tell my mom. She didn’t really say anything about it. The second time I had an encounter was when my mother died and I was forty years old. I had two young children and I tried not to cry in front of them and let them know that I was in a lot of pain. Sometime during the first six months without her, I was by myself at home and I went into my son’s room. I laid in his bed in a fetal position and just cried and cried and cried. Not only had my mother just passed away, but my family was also in financial hardships. It was a tough time and I knew I was going to have to go back to work. I was looking for a job, but I needed a job where I could leave the children for school and then come back and pick them up and go home with them. I was in the fetal position, just crying and missing my mom when all of a sudden I opened my eyes and in the doorway there was the same white figure
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THIS TIME I WASN’T AFRAID O F I T. I D I D N ’ T WANT IT TO L E AV E. IT NEVER CAME BACK AGAIN.
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I had seen when I was seventeen. Although it looked the same, I don’t believe it was the same guardian angel. It was a different one. I heard my mother’s voice say, “Everything is going to be alright.” Within seconds, it started to fade away and I yelled, “No, don’t go. Don’t go. Stay. Stay. Please stay.” And then it was gone. This time I wasn’t afraid of it. I didn’t want it to leave. It never came back again. It happened in a moment when I really needed my mother. It wasn’t her physically. It didn’t look like her; it was just this white glowing being. No face, no nothing. It just said, “Everything is going to be alright.” I do believe that there are guardian angels watching us. To protect us. To comfort us. We usually can’t see them, unless God allows us to see them. It’s moments when we’re really in need. In that moment, I needed my mom. I missed her. I needed her guidance. And somehow
she was able to come back and tell me it was going to be okay. My mother was a very strong willed being. She was a single mother with ten children and she never complained. I truly feel that she somehow did come back. And why she’s not allowed to come back again, I don’t know. To see someone’s spirit is different. To actually see that shape and that glow, I just know that it was a very special moment. When I was seventeen and saw the spirit by the garage, it scared the daylights out of me and I ran inside. It was just a warning. But the second time, I wanted the spirit to stay with me. It did bring some sense of comfort to me to know that she is still watching over us. ◊
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DANCING WITH GHOSTS M. LUCILLE LANE 16
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When I was a kid, my dad worked for a church and my mom was a stay at home mom. So, needless to say, money was usually tight. My mom was thrifty and made ends meet, so I never really noticed anything lacking. It should serve as a testament to my parents’ marriage that when my dad suggested they move their family into a yurt, she said yes. I was just short of twelve years old when my father pitched a glorified tent in the desert and we moved what we could of our belongings in. The yurt was thirty minutes outside of town and at the end of several winding roads. I lived there for a year, sharing a loft space with my younger brother. It was an impressive use of 42 square feet. It had to be to fit four people almost comfortably. I don’t remember much about living there, besides the constant straining of walls against West Texas winds and the sky full of stars visible from my bed via the dome in the middle of the structure’s ceiling. I also vividly remember
the four separate times I found scorpions in my bed. I remember my habit of checking my blanket for tarantulas. And, most importantly, I still remember the names of the roads that I took to get to the yurt. Left on Paloma, right on Tierra, then right on Aries, then left on Comanche. Stop when you see a dusty Airstream trailer, still only half refurbished and full of dreams left by a dying man before he knew how quickly he was dying. This is where I found myself one autumn evening when I was seventeen, nearly four years after we’d moved back into a real house. I told my parents that I would be late home from my Bible study. I knew they wouldn’t want me driving out to our land at night alone. As I pulled my car into the long, dusty driveway, I felt my heart sink into my stomach. The yurt’s frame stood leaning drastically
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to one side, steadied by the shrinking of the wood after rain. The entire structure was built on top of a wooden deck, I suddenly imagined the possibility of rats and rattlesnakes nesting underneath. I remembered my grandfather reminding me to be wary of snakes. When I’d lived on this land, I always explored with my ears open and my eyes on the ground. My grandfather told me that I should never walk any place with grass up past my ankles. Now that the land was abandoned, the grass grew up past my knees. The earth was slowly reclaiming my grandfather’s land. It had been a long time since he had been alive and well enough to tame the yellow grass. Stepping forward, I put my fear of snakes away like I put away my cellphone in my car. I wouldn’t be afraid of snakes, I wouldn’t answer if my parents wondered where I was. It was autumn, I remembered, the snakes weren’t even going to be out. Even so, I walked swiftly through the tall grass and made it to the unstained wooden deck.
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STEPPING THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR OF THE YU RT WA S L I K E E NT E R I N G A NIGHTMARE.
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Stepping through the front door of the yurt was like entering a nightmare. I shouldn’t even say that I stepped through the door. To be more accurate, I stepped over the door. The entire door and frame had fallen into the yurt and onto the water worn floor. When I was a kid, I had frequent, vivid nightmares. One of them was a recurring nightmare that the walls around me would rot and rats would come from the floor and climb up my legs. The memory was visceral. I felt like a child, scared and alone and fleeing from rats, but I pressed on. As it started to get dark, the wind picked up and I felt the whole structure strain against it. There was a strong current whipping the torn fabric of the yurt’s exterior, and the sound it made was ghostly. I knew I should leave before it got too dark to see. My stupid ass had left my phone — with its built in flashlight - in my car. Like I couldn’t just ignore my parents’ calls, I had to physically leave my phone thirty steps away in a locked car. It wasn’t until I caught a glimpse of myself in the broken bathroom mirror that I was ready to go home. I hadn’t even noticed I was crying.
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The image of my face was cracked and pale, I looked like a ghost. I felt like a ghost. On my way back to my car, I stepped on my dad’s old blackberry cellphone. I pocketed it as a souvenir before getting into my car and driving away. Whatever I was looking for, I didn’t find. Visiting the yurt was like dancing with ghosts. I was happy to leave the dead to whisper amongst themselves. ◊
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THE IMAGE OF M Y FA C E W A S C R A C K E D A N D PA L E , I LOOKED LIKE A G H O S T. strange and supernatural experiences
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SOMEONE TO P L AY W IT H MEGAN BOSTICK
I’ve always been a bit of a skeptic when it comes to the supernatural. Up until this incident, I had never experienced anything remotely supernatural. The small private school I used to work at had an old granite memorial stone for a four year old student that had passed away. Staff would always tell the newbies to watch out for the owner’s deceased husband. Supposedly, if you were alone in the gym with the lights off and only a flashlight, you could see the shape of a man moving around. There were also stories about
the little boy who liked to play with the staff. I didn’t put much stock into any of it. It was in my third year during summer camp that I encountered the little boy. I hated having to go to the bathroom at work, as there wasn’t one just for staff. That day, I really had to go. I got another teacher to watch my kids, and ran to the bathroom. I went into the stall closest door and went about my business. All of a sudden, I hear the voice of child in the stall next to me. “What are we going to play?” they asked.
“I’m not sure,” I answered back. I couldn’t quite place the voice of the child. They began listing off the names of different games; Tag, Hide and Seek, Dead Man. “Honey, I’m going to the bathroom right now,” I interrupted. “Sorry,” they said. I walked out of the stall and went to wash my hands. I glanced at the stalls to see if I could see the shoes of whoever was in there. I didn’t see any. “Hello?” I asked, but there wasn’t any
answer. I pushed on each door to see if maybe the child was playing a trick on me. All the stalls were unlocked, and nobody was in any of them. I’m sure many of you thought what I initially did; they must’ve left the bathroom. The door to the bathroom was in desperate need of some W40. It was heavy and made a loud creaking sound that you could hear all the way down to the classrooms. There was no way the child could’ve walked out of the bathroom without me hearing them leave.
I WASN’T A BELIEVER IN GHOSTS BEFORE THESE INCIDENTS.
A couple years later, I had my own preschool classroom. The kids were all napping, and I had a cd of classical music on for them. All of my students were sound asleep. Suddenly, the music skipped, and then stopped all together. “Everyone’s asleep,” I heard a small child’s voice, but it didn’t belong to any of my sleeping students. The music started back up. Thinking perhaps it was just the cd messing up, I pushed the back button to listen to it again. The song played all the way through. No skipping, no voice. I wasn’t a believer in ghosts before these incidents. I’ve had fellow coworkers have similar experiences. I don’t think the ghost was trying to scare any of us. I believe it’s just a lonely little child, wanting someone to play with them. ◊
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WACO M. LUCILLE LANE 28
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For the past few years, I have become increasingly interested in true crime. I love all the most popular podcasts, books, and Netflix documentaries about serial killers and cults. If you ask me to explain why, I’ll probably tell you that I’m interested in abnormal psychology, or that hearing these stories makes me feel less unprepared for how terrible the world is. Really, it’s probably just a morbid curiosity that draws me to learn the depths of human depravity. I’m particularly drawn to stories of cults, and I have a special hatred for most cult leaders. Usually, they are power hungry men with an almost superhuman charisma that allows them to control and exploit powerless people. Cult leaders like Charles Manson, L. Ron Hubbard, and David Berg, spend entire lifetimes grooming vulnerable people to do their bidding. They meticulously bend religious teachings and ideologies little by little until they become the god of their own congregations. David Koresh, born Vernon Howell, is no different from the despicable, power hungry cult leaders before him. From my passive consumption of true crime podcasts, books, and documentaries, I had come to believe that my fervent hatred for David Koresh was a universal, and more than justified, feeling. He had raped and abused young girls, taken husbands from their wives, and preached a dangerous paranoia into the hearts of his followers. His message made me sick.
His message aside, David Koresh eventually caused the deaths of more than 80 innocent civilians during the siege on his compound at Mount Carmel. The standoff between the Branch-Davidians and the FBI lasted 51 days, and ultimately ended with a fire that destroyed the entire compound. Koresh and many of his followers, including 12 young children, died on the site. I have a feeling that what drew me to visit the site during my drive through Waco was the same morbid curiosity that drew me to learn the story in the first place. I felt a righteous anger towards David Koresh, and I felt that perhaps seeing a literal monument to the failures of his teachings would somehow appease that. I hoped to see the signs that he at least had not gotten away with it. That at least people had learned their lesson. As it turned out, this was not the case. We pull up next to a large stone monument. It is covered in names of the people who passed away during the standoff. The monument was covered in rocks and coins from people who had paid their respects before. It gave me a feeling of solemn grief. I felt like the pain David Koresh had caused was at least at its end. Then, we drive further down the path. My heart is sinking further into my stomach. Why is there still a church on the grounds? Why do I keep seeing signs talking about The Branch of Righteousness? Why are they asking for donations? We enter the church, and I’m awash with a miserable,
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THIS CHURCH IS STILL O P E R AT I N G O N D A V I D K O R E S H ’ S L E G A C Y.
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hopeless feeling. This church is still operating on David Koresh’s legacy. Sure, they are no longer harboring firearms or actively preparing for the end times. But there are signs on the walls that praise Koresh. There is a whole community of people, right next door to me, that believe that David Koresh was a blameless man. A whole community of men and women that, if told they could bring forth the child of God, would give up their underage daughters to be raped. I was there,reading an informational poster on the wall, feeling swept up a whirlwind of hatred and frustration. How could a man that I so vehemently hated be seen as a blameless man of God? Men who can bend religion have that ability. Their charisma gives them the ability to be seen as anything but what they truly are. Christianity is already formulated to give power to the church. It is built upon pillars of false-humility and self-loathing that makes vulnerable people even more vulnerable. It occured to me, standing in the church atop Mount Carmel, that David Koresh and his congregation were only a few logical leaps away from the churches I had grown up in. Religion can be bent and manipulated to gain
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nearly endless power. Koresh understood that, and used his congregation’s beliefs against them. I was overcome with a sense of unease. I took a few photos, tried hard to commemorate my frustration in a productive way. As I left, I ranted to my girlfriend about how terrible Koresh was and how terrible it was that people could still see him in a positive light. However, I realized that I was wholly unsurprised. Religion can be a comfort to those who are vulnerable. Religion, especially when bent and exploited by people like Koresh, can be used to attract vulnerable people to be used. Comfort and a set of rules is traded for power and a sense of importance. When broken down to essential parts, there are very few things that can separate Koresh from any other mainstream religious leader. Churches are no stranger to sexual abuse by men in power. Many Christian churches preach just as much about hell and the ending of days as Koresh did. The Waco site is physically only a few minutes away from Baylor, a large Christian college. Morally, it is only a few steps away from the Christianity preached at Baylor. I write this story to share my frustration. I write this story to impart upon you, the reader, some of the loathing I feel towards
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systems that so easily use and abuse vulnerable people. I write this so that I am not alone in the hopelessness that the legacy of David Koresh leaves me with. Sure, morbid curiosity draws me to learn about cults, but it is a humanity much deeper that stirs inside me still. I dream of a world where vulnerable people are safe from harmful, selfish teachings. I want nothing more than to see a Waco that does not continue to celebrate a rapist for his closeness to religion. â—Š
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I WANT NOTHING MORE THAN TO SEE A WACO T H AT D O E S N O T C O N T I N U E T O C E L E B R AT E A R A P I S T FOR HIS CLOSENESS TO RELIGION.
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CVS PA R K I N G LOT HANNAH GASKAMP
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One day a few weeks ago I had a strange experience at cvs, and every time I try to tell someone about it they say something like “isn’t every experience at cvs strange?” And I have to agree. I worked at cvs for about a year, and there was some weird shit. But anyway. This day I pull up to cvs, and it’s overcast and surprisingly busy. I pull into a spot near the back corner, since not a lot was open. I’m frustrated I have to park here because I have to park next to a big suv that is parked badly and is almost crossing the line. But I notice their windows are down, and assume that maybe they were in a hurry and just needed to grab something quickly, so that’s why they parked so badly. I grumble about it and go inside.
I buy my things and I’m walking outside and now I’m extra annoyed that I had to park so far away, because now it’s starting to rain. It’s just sprinkling, but I have photos in my hand I don’t want to ruin. So I rush to my car and get in and kind of grumble about the car next to me some more. I look at it, and I notice again that the windows are all down. For a moment I’m thinking, oh no, their car is going to get wet. I hope they don’t take too much longer. But I was in there for a few minutes, and I had assumed earlier they were in a hurry, so I’m confused as to why they’re not gone yet. Then I happen to look a little closer and I notice that there are spider webs in between the seat and the window. Like, the spider webs are inside the car. I have some questions now. How long has this car been parked here? Why did they
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leave their car parked here, at cvs, so crooked and with the windows down? I let it be and start to pull out of the parking lot. I get out of my space and I’m heading towards the exit, when I see two cars parked next to each other. One car had a lady in it with the driver side window down. The other car is backed into the space, so I can see that the windshield wipers are on full blast, even though it’s barely sprinkling. The lady from this car has gotten out, left her door open, and is talking to the lady in the other car animatedly. They’re laughing and talking, and the lady who’s standing outside is handing the other lady a large ornate table lamp. I have so many more questions now. Why is cvs where you decided to make this trade off ? Why are you still out here, even when it’s raining? Why are your windshield wipers so overdramatic? I’ll never know what exactly went down, but the culmination of events made the entire trip one for the books. It’s been about two months since this incident, and yesterday I went to cvs and the car is still there. Windows down. ◊
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HOW LONG HAS THIS CAR B E E N PA R K E D HERE? strange and supernatural experiences
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THANK YOU ANONYMOUS
Sometimes there are things that happen in life that seem too coincidental to just happen by chance. The time and the place are too perfect and it feels like it was meant to be, orchestrated by some higher power. I don’t know what I believe exactly, but I do believe that there are higher powers. Although they’ve never talked to me, I’ve felt their presence deeply in my life many times. The most powerful instance happened when I was 16 years
old. I had stopped going to church regularly about a year before and had started living life in a different way than what the church would deem appropriate. I was young, I was curious, and I was ready to grow up. I started dating a boy that summer. My first date. My first boyfriend. The first boy to lie in my bed. That summer was full of firsts and things escalated far more quickly than I had imagined they would.
Looking back, I don’t think I was ready to have sex at 16 years old. I was far more innocent than I wanted to believe. But I wanted to make him happy, so it happened anyway. Even as it was happening, I remember having intrusive thoughts about what God would think about this. Sex outside of marriage was a sin, right? But why was it a sin if it didn’t hurt anyone? The day it happened, I called my best friend and I told her everything. We laughed and talked for hours, and I remember being excited that I had lost my virginity before she had. Like it was some kind of race and I had won. Growing up isn’t a race, and I wish I could tell the younger me that. A week after we had sex, my boyfriend broke up with me. It was the first time I had my heart broken,
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and although I was more upset than I had ever been, I remember feeling relieved in a way. I wasn’t ready to be having sex at the time and I was almost happy that I wouldn’t have to tell him that we couldn’t do it anymore. The day he broke up with me was the day I was supposed to start my period. And of course, I didn’t. The next day, I didn’t start it either. The third day? Nope. As the days passed, I started getting more and more anxious about potentially being pregnant. It was like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. I hadn’t been ready for sex; I sure as hell wasn’t ready for a baby. And my boyfriend had already left me; how could I count on him to be there if I was pregnant? I couldn’t even bring myself to call him and tell him that I had missed my period. I wanted to pray about it, but praying felt selfish because I hadn’t prayed to God in over a year. I hadn’t prayed for people who needed it more than I did, how could I be selfish enough to
IT WAS THE DARKEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE
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only pray when I was in trouble? I started thinking about what I would do if I were pregnant. Would I keep the baby or have an abortion or would I try to get it adopted? I couldn’t picture a future in any of these scenarios. I was still just a child and I wasn’t strong enough to make this decision. I couldn’t see my way out of this nightmare and I started to think about suicide. However, as much as I wanted to get out of this situation, I couldn’t picture myself committing suicide either. I loved my parents so much and I couldn’t imagine hurting them in that way.
I couldn’t imagine living and I couldn’t imagine dying. It was an endless cycle of indecision and I wanted to disappear. It was the darkest moment of my life, and although I didn’t pray about it, I truly feel like someone, some higher power, knew what was going through my mind and knew that I couldn’t handle it. For the first time in a long time, I went to church on Sunday morning. In the church bathroom, I got my period. I know it could have been a coincidence. But to a girl who felt like the world she knew was strange and supernatural experiences
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over, it felt like being born again. It truly felt like a miracle. Every problem I was anxious about, every scenario I couldn’t see myself in, they were all fixed. Someone had taken care of me. Some god, or guardian angel, someone was watching over me, and I felt it. I looked up at that bathroom ceiling and I said,
thank you. â—Š
I T T R U LY F E LT LIKE A MIRACLE.
NIGHTMARES M. LUCILLE LANE
Th e r e i s a g h o s t s t o r y i n m y b o n e s a lur king f eel ing i c an’t e sc ape
i ’m wa i t i n g f o r t h e o t h e r s h o e t o d r o p
i’v e s e e n s pe c t r e s been drowned by dreams, wat c h e d b y m o n s t e r s
at n i g h t, i wa i t for piano music and rasp y breath
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i h av e a g h o s t s t or y t o t e l l pen and paper do it lit tle justice
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neither tone nor diction bid my ghosts come
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i ’m wa i t i n g f o r t h e o t h e r s h o e t o d r o p
wa i t i n g f o r a w h i t e l a b c o at s p e c t r a l a n d s ta i n e d w i t h b l o o d
wa i t i n g , for there is a ghost story in my mind
and i’m t er r ified b e c au s e i d r a f t e d i t. ◊
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GRACIE R O B E RT B O S T I C K
1997–2008 Around January 1997, we adopted a little white Labrador Retriever and named her Gracie. She was my daughters’ first dog and grew up right alongside them. She loved playing with the girls, almost as much as she loved chasing and harassing the squirrels and rabbits who unwisely strayed into our back yard. She was well aware that there were also a whole other world out front and, whenever the opportunity would present itself, she would dash out the front door and barrel down the street just so she could remind any other woodland rodents who was the boss of the neighborhood.
But in 2006, Gracie’s chasing days came to an end. Cancer had insidiously entwined itself throughout her heart and lungs with two huge exterior growths on the side of her face and shoulder. Her once-snow white hair had become dull and matted. Her bright eyes listless. Her right ear would be constantly bleeding because she kept scratching at the growth there. Finally, the pain became so bad that she wasn’t able to stand or even lie upright without some kind of propping. As much as we didn’t want to say goodbye, we knew it was time to end her suffering.
No one went to work or school on that final day. That afternoon, after returning home from the veterinarian, I was sitting in the living room with the family. Nobody engaged in any kind of conversation. We just wanted to sit in silence and be together. It was more of an impression than something actually visual - I think I get what Peter Parker means when he says his spider sense is tingling-but suddenly I could feel/see/sense Gracie standing in the middle of the living room. It was such a powerful feeling that I knew it wasn’t just wishful thinking. She was a young dog again. Her
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hair was a bright white, almost glowing. She had that big Labby smile that we hadn’t seen in so long and her eyes were bright and sparkling. She was there for only a moment, almost as if she just wanted to check on us to make sure we were okay and to let us know that she was her old self again. She then ran out the front door (the fact that it was closed didn’t appear to be an issue). Where I sat, I could see out the front window and I watched her joyously run full-tilt down the street, heading off I suppose to look for squirrels and rabbits in the afterlife. ◊
IT WAS SUCH A POWERFUL FEELING
ASYLUM M. LUCILLE LANE
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Throughout my life, I’ve suffered vivid nightmares, sleep paralysis, and frequently hallucinate during periods of waking or falling asleep. I also have synesthesia, a condition that allows me to physically see sounds. I’d be lying if I said that I’d never felt like I was a little crazy. One of my recurring nightmares brought this fear to the surface. The dream starts out in a large, nice home. I can tell that it takes place in a different time. Possibly my mind’s idea of America in the late 1800s.
I’m sitting in the parlor and someone is playing the cello. I’m wearing a beautiful blue dress and the scene is peaceful for some time. I’m not really hearing the cello music, but I’m seeing it all around me. The cello looks like dark purple and red stripes, closing in around me. The music forms ropes around my body and traps me. I am suffocating in the sound. Then there is a shift. I’m in a dirty green room alone. My dress, once beautiful blue satin, is ripped and stained strange and supernatural experiences
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with blood. I feel as though I haven’t eaten for a long time. All around me I see the sounds of women screaming. It should be muffled by the walls, because I am alone in my room, but it’s not. It’s as if hundreds of women are screaming directly into my ears. My chest feels tight and I’m shaking. Everything is cold and too bright. I remember sitting for a long time, crying. Unlike the cello, I can actually hear and see the screams. I feel as if the screams are peeling away my skin and shocking the tissue beneath. It’s a raw, teder pain. All at once, the screaming stops and there is ringing in my ears. I feel no relief from the sounds, because now I feel even more helpless and alone. A tall man comes into my room from a door that wasn’t there before. He is dressed in tan slacks and a doctor’s lab coat. His coat is stained with coppery blood. He looks at me with such disgust, like I’m not even human. He seems ten feet tall. His smile is horrible, like he knows I’m in pain and he’s glad for it.
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I ’ D B E LY I N G I F I S A I D T H AT I’D NEVER F E LT L I K E I WAS A LITTLE C R A Z Y.
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MY CHEST FEELS TIGHT AND I’M SHAKING. EVERYTHING IS COLD AND T O O B R I G H T. 68
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As he moves closer, I try to scream and push him away, but I can’t move or make any sound. Just as I feel the doctor’s hands grip my arms, I wake up. I am in my own body, in my own bed with real tears on my face and a pounding headache. The cd player alarm clock on my desk, a hand-medown from my mother’s college days, reads 4:57 am. My house is silent, I’m safe but I don’t feel it. ◊
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A RT I F I C I A L EXPERIENCE HANNAH GASKAMP 70
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The first place I think of when I hear liminal space is Walmart at three in the morning. Everyone knows that’s like, a portal to a new dimension. I thought I would give it a go for the sake of this project. So this trip I didn’t super need anything, but I figured I would look, for like the third time, for some Bermuda shorts I could wear to work on the days I have to cashier outside. Also I wanted some candy. So I start walking around and trying to take some creepy photos, but there’s a surprising number of people there. The lighting in the parking lot of Walmart at night is a lot. It’s very intense and it’s basically the visibility level of daylight, even at three in the morning. I start walking around the store and go towards the women’s clothes. I find some shorts and I can’t decide if they’ll fit me. I’m usually too small for things or they’re outrageously too tiny. I’m trying to guess, because the fitting room is blocked off. Which, inconvenient, but fair. I decide to kind of test them and I take them off the hanger and I pull up one
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leg over my pants, over my shoe even. Just to kind of get a gist. And I was like yeah, okay, I’ll try them. Like two minutes later I hear over the intercom there are security cameras throughout the store. And I’m like, what? Of course there are. This is Walmart. This is America. I know that I’m watched every moment I’m not in my home, if not those moments too. Was I really being so suspicious as to warrant being reminded I was being watched? I was wondering around and taking photos and also mumbling to myself like I always do when I’m alone or when I shop alone. So I guess maybe. But still. I started to leave and I wanted a picture of this creepy van in a dark corner of the parking lot so I pull out my phone while I pass it. I figure there’s someone homeless sleeping in it so I didn’t want to get out on foot, but after I passed it I had to circle around it two more times because of the weird stickers on it. One was “what would Scooby doo?” and one was on the back, it just said “you side” with some words in between scratched off.
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E V E R Y O N E K N O W S T H AT ’ S L I K E , A P O RTA L TO A N E W D I M E N S I O N.
The spookiest thing was that the pants fit, without me having tried them on. The fact that I went with the intention of it being spooky kind of made it less spooky. As many things in life, putting pressure on it made it not as genuine. But here’s a take on a liminal space when you try to force it. ◊
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CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Rob Potter, cover Pixabay, pp. 2, 6–7, 24–25, 54–55 Annie Spratt, p. 9 Visual Hunt, p. 10 Daniel Matilla, pp. 12–13 Chad Madden, p. 14 Claudia Zuniga, pp. 16, 18–20, 23 Shttefan, p. 32 Brandon Wong, pp. 36 Hannah Gaskamp, pp. 28–29, 32–33, 35, 38–39, 72–73 M. Lucille Lane, p. 30 John Matychuk, p. 36 Aaron Burden, pp. 40–41 Eric Ward, p. 43 Kathy Hillacre, pp. 44–45 Jeroen Wehkamp, pp. 46–47 Hailey Kean, pp. 48–49 Tim Marshall, pp. 50–51 Francisco Moreno, pp. 53 Ian Espinosa, pp. 56–57 Shttefan, p. 58 Rachel Bostick, pp. 60, 63 Jan Jakub, pp. 64–65 Johanna Vogt, p. 67 Patrick Pierre, p. 68 Ali Yahya, p. 70
LEAD DESIGNERS Rachel Bostick Hannah Gaskamp
CONTRIBUTING DESIGNERS Molly Dwight Pey-Jing Li Mehrinfar Marla Mattila
EDITORS Rachel Bostick Hannah Gaskamp
CONTRIBUTORS Jessie Richardson Ronda Romano M. Lucille Lane Megan Bostick Hannah Gaskamp Anonymous Robert Bostick
NOTE ON TYPOGRAPHY Subject Matter: Stories About Strange and Supernatural Experiences employs the typefaces Adobe Caslon Pro designed by Carol Twombly and Roboto, designed by Christian Robertson.
NOTE ON P U B L I C AT I O N The human experience is made up of a series of stories, and Subject Matter was created to share these important stories. To share a story is to lift a burden, spread joy, go on an adventure. Each edition focuses on a different subject so we can explore all the varied facets of the human experience.
Š 2018 Subject Matter Design San Marcos, Texas