It’s the faces that haunt you, more than the actions themselves. The faces that slip into your dreams unannounced, jolting you awake in the middle of the night drenched in the clammy sweat of fear. The faces that randomly enter your thoughts over the course of the day when your memory is nudged by a chance encounter, a random exchange on the street, or a newspaper headline. The faces that hover unseen around you, waiting for that precise moment to leap into view and remind you of the horrors they inflicted. The terror they inspired. The pain they wreaked.
It's the faces –the eyes –Nature’s own windows to the soul– that plant themselves deep in your memory, their roots stretching like tentacles through your psyche, embedding themselves permanently into your being; never to be uprooted, never to be excavated, never to be ploughed. It’s the eyes that come swimming into view when the memories resurface; the eyes that lock you in their gaze with their timeless intensity; the eyes that condemn you with trauma’s damnation. The eyes stay with you forever.
The unhinged rage in the eyes of your former best friend as he screams, “I’m going to tear you apart and show the world how evil you are inside,” as he chases you down a public street to administer a bone-breaking, blood-spattered beating.
The arrogant confidence in the eyes of the police officer as he warns, “You don’t want to add resisting arrest to your charges,” after your attempts to seek protection, not only for yourself but for a friend who had been sexually assaulted, see you threatened with arrest yourself for making false accusations and disturbing the peace.
The terror in the eyes of the stranger you have just beaten with a viciousness greater than self-defence requires after he assaulted you in the street with the erroneous certainty you are a paedophile.
The deranged carnality in the eyes of the pervert when you awaken to find him stroking his penis over your sleeping face.
The soul-destroying humiliation in the eyes of the friend as he screams when you decline his lonely, confused, drug-addled sexual advances –two months before his death from an overdose.
The drunken incomprehension in the bloodshot eyes of your housemate when his beloved cat is removed after the foul stench of decomposition alerted others two weeks after its death.
The victorious malice in the eyes of your case worker when she sees you break after she declares, “Nobody’s going to believe you anyway, because you’re homeless.” Those are the eyes that haunt my dreams the most.
These are the eyes –the faces– the charities don’t want you to see. The stories they don’t want you to hear. The narratives they want to stay buried. These are the true faces of homelessness that belie the faux-reality presented to the public in endless fund-raising campaigns through smiling charity-selected, charity-tailored, charity-groomed “pets” advertising the successful resolutions the charities promote. These are the faces the public needs to see; the voices the public needs to hear.
Scooby Doo was right. My mother was right. There are no ghosts in this world. There are no phantasmal apparitions floating through haunted houses waiting to shimmer into view and shriek “Boo!” There are no wraiths hiding in the shadows waiting to materialize and seek revenge for crimes long forgotten in the dusty annals of history. There are no spectral messengers twiddling their ectoplasmic thumbs in the mystical aether, waiting for the next séance to deliver their otherworldly missives. There are no ghosts. They are figments of the imagination.
There are no ghosts, but there are demons. Demons that live within us all. Demons of varying sizes, of varying strengths, of varying malevolence. Some can be tamed; others refuse control. Some are relatively inconsequential; others vent their consequences with volcanic rage; the fallout creating tragic, sometimes fatal devastation. They are our fears, our uncertainties, our weaknesses, our addictions. They slumber deep within the consciousness for days, weeks, even years, benign in their dormancy. But they sleep softly, ever alert for the trigger, the outside call to awaken them. And when the call sounds, they are rested and eager to play.
There are demons. And there are monsters. The monsters surround us. In our homes. In our offices. Our streets and our parks. They queue in the food-lines. They sleep in the shelters. They volunteer within the charities themselves. They smile, they lurk, they wait, they hunt –often staring right at us but remaining unseen. They smile. They watch. They listen. They sniff. Sniffing for weakness; sniffing for fear; sniffing for demons; sniffing for prey. When they catch their coveted scent they smile, they circle, they study, they probe –looking for the sleeping demons to awaken them. To unleash them. To exploit them. To wallow in their chaos and feed upon it. In unleashing our demons, the monsters create the eyes, the faces, the nightmares and the memories that haunt us for the rest of our lives.
I was prepared for the ghosts. I was prepared for the demons. I wasn’t prepared for the monsters.
My name is Peter Mitchell. Peter Christian Mitchell to be precise, for reasons I hope my account makes clear.
My name is Peter Mitchell, and these are the ghosts that haunt me.
