Pinned

I lived in the top floor of this house on Cathedral Street in Mount Vernon years ago. 

I loved my apartment; it was light, airy and circular but walking down the basement stairs made my chest tight.   I suspected that something horrible had happened in a little red rectangle of a room at the base of the steps.

My second year there, I awoke to the horrible sense that something else was in my bedroom.  The air was cold.  The something else could smell me, smell my fear.  I could hear it breathe, ragged and gulping.  It pinned me to the mattress; I couldn’t move my arms.  Gathering all my strength, I rose up and reached for my bedside lamp.  I read the Bible to make it go away or to make my fear go away.  Is there a difference?

Book of John or not, it returned.  Some nights it whispered gibberish into my ears, some long forgotten language. 

It did not follow me to my house in Hamilton when I moved.

Ghost folklore is riddled with stories of the living awaking to a cold presence that pins them to the bed.  Are we more accessible in sleep?  My friend Korinne told me to surround myself with light every night just before I fall.