HSSC - Not An Old Hag At All, But A Thing Of Beauty, page 1

The unusual fate that befell Queam Porterhouse began when his new business venture had gotten to that frustrating point... plenty of potential, lots of activity, but not the critical mass he needed to pay off his business loan and his mortgage with the regularity demanded by his unsympathetic banker. Queam was suffering some stress.

After a couple of nights of insomnia in early October 2003, he sought medical advice and was presrcibed a short course of sleeping pills, which worked fine and provided him with the physical winding down that he needed to cope with the demands of each successive day.

That was until October 23rd, the night of the first visitation.

Queam was drifting off, now free of dependence on tranquilisers, with the thoughts of the day a little more distant as each minute passed. He was relaxed in bed, on his back, his prayers completed, in fact he felt he may have been starting to dream about his newest invention and receiving an award at some far-off place. Then something unknown grabbed his attention and jolted him awake. His eyes opened wide.

He tried to look around for the source of the noise, and found that he could not move, his neck was rigid, his torso very tight, he could barely move his extremities, only sufficient motor control to get his little pinkies to wiggle, and no hand movement at all. What is this? Why is my body failing me? He breathed short, sharp deep breaths, concerned for why he was paralyzed.

After the initial panic and realization he could not cry out for help, there came somehow to him a soothing female voice, singing softly, softly, emanating from the end of his bed, which he could not see, but the voice entered his head and his very psyche with a very calming effect. He seemed to relax, and eventually mustered the effort to lift his head just far enough off the pillow and take a look at the bedfoot, where he saw the outline of a young woman, with long auburn hair, facing away from him, with a svelte figure, in night dress, still singing, not looking at him. He fell asleep slowly, after a few minutes, to the haunting sound of the young woman.

The following day, he reflected on the experience, which he had put down to stress, but then realised that if he had hallucinated, he had better check that out.

He found that the medical establishment is quite aware of this phenomenon, giving it two names, one a folk tradition called the old hag syndrome, and the other less sensational: simply sleep paralysis or sometimes ISP ("isolated sleep paralysis").

What causes it? Queam found that sleep paralysis occurs when the brain is in the transition state between deep, dreaming sleep (known as REM sleep for its rapid eye movement) and waking up. During REM dreaming sleep, the brain has turned off most of the body's muscle function so we cannot act out our dreams - we are temporarily paralyzed.

The second visitation occured on October 26th.

As before, he was comfortable with progress he had made with his business partners that day, and satiated with food and lovemaking (he and his partner lived separately at this time, not ready for cohabitation). He slept soundly, this time in semi-foetal position, when suddenly he awoke without explanation. He managed to somehow move onto his back to listen carefully to any foreign nosies in the house. There was silence. He felt that a quick ablution and midnight snack on pasta and fish leftovers might help him, but as three nights before, found he could not move. He was not as uncomfortable about it this time, and accepted that this was nature's way of suggesting he watch his thoughts.

And the singing came again, soothing, no intelligible words, but a lullaby that got him to sleep. He could see the profile of a beautiful young woman's face, the woman wearing the same nightdress as before. He fell asleep quickly.

The following day, he read more material on the sleep disorder in order to reassure himself, and found that sleep paralysis is often accompanied by vivid hallucinations. There may be a sense someone is in the room, or even hovering over you. At other times, there seems to be pressure on the chest, as though someone or something perched there. There may even be sexual attacks associated with the hallucinations. The sound of footsteps, doors opening and closing, voices, all can be a very frightening part of sleep paralysis. These are known as hypnagogic and hypnopompic Experiences and they are what make people dread an episode of sleep paralysis.

He took comfort. The bottom line is that you really have nothing to fear, in a paranormal sense, from sleep paralysis. That old hag you feel perched on your chest may be nothing more than the anxiety of living in a stressful world. In his case, he was happy, there was no old hag - but rather a beautiful young woman, serenading him to sleep.

The third and final visitation was on the evening of October 31st, All Saints Day.

He had a few drinks with colleagues and friends at a local Irish themed bar. During the evening his partner visited and they planned weekend activities. Several children came knocking at the door trick or treating, and Queam obliged them with fudge and chewy cookies.

They watched The Exorcist together for a bit of Halloween fun, then Queam retired when his partner left, keen to make an early start for a picnic excursion with some mutual friends.

The laughter of older children doing late trick or treating rounds, and two neighbourhood cats sparring, could be heard as he fell asleep.

At about 3.15 am, he heard a door knock in his sleep, he thought. He was on his back.

The beautiful young woman he had seen twice before, his "old hag", was on the corner of his bed, singing, a little more loudly tonight, he felt.

She turned to face him. He could not make her face out at first, but as she slowly move towards him, still singing and with a smile, this is when he noticed.

Beneath the collar of her nightdress he could see quite vividly (in the moonlight glowing through his stained glass window) a gaping fresh wound that extended from just under her left ear all the way across her throat, her jugular open and visible at top and bottom. The wound extended and dropped off, not ear to ear but diagonally, as if continuing down to her shoulder and God knows where.

Queam's mouth was agape with shock. His heart was palpitating, but he realized this would soon pass, as before.

The woman leaned over him. He could not move. He could barely twitch. He knew he was dreaming or hallucinating, he knew this was a normal trick of his mind in his current circumstances, he just decided to go with it until he could sleep again.

As she leaned further, Queam first saw her eyes. More correctly, what was left where her eyes were. She had no eyes. She had only sockets. In one of them was placed a small butterfly, glued to an oval shape of black leather, and preserved with some laminate. In the other was a wild orchid, this time directly sewn across and into the socket.

He noticed as she continued to sing, that her vocal chords could not possibly have been intact, and yet the beautiful, perfect-pitched voice continued to sing its soothing lullaby, pausing and breathing at the appropriate moments.

She sat briefly next to him, and pressed her right index finger on his lips, as some signal of quiet reassurance.

Then there was a knock on the bedroom door. She went to open it.

There stood a tall, dark, gaunt figure in the doorway, with a rather dated tall hat that Queam thought may have belonged in Puritan times. He had greying hair over the collar, and his expression was flat, emotionless, businesslike.

He carried a medical bag, which he placed on the foot of the bed. Queam moved his eyes about as best he could, but could see no trace of the beautiful woman. No sound. Moonlight illuminating the hallucinatory scene on his own bed.

He now saw laid out on his chest a set of medical implements... needle and thread... what appeared to be a tiny little stuffed hummingbird... and a symbol of yin and yang carved onto a small crystal ball. All these things were clear to him. And yet he could make no sense of his dream at all.

The last thing Queam perceived, this time through his ears, was the sound of surgical steel across his throat, and the gurgling and rasping of his lungs attempting to connect with his mouth, for a few final seconds. He felt no pain, only mortal terror, and convinced himself to go with all the symbolism and palpability of his strange experience until he felt he was going to sleep.

When his girlfriend came to pick Queam up on the morning of November 1st, she thought he might be sleeping in, as he had been working so hard. She let herself in, and getting no response at his bedroom door, ventured in to find a neatly made bed, no trace of Queam.

She saw nothing unusual anywhere, except for a couple of strands of yellow thread on the bedspread, and a tiny blue feather, but she paid no mind to these.

She waited, rang her friends with apologies for the day's picnic, and decided to file a missing persons report that evening.

[Edited on 30-10-2003 by MaskedAvatar]