“A Tale for a Dark October Night”

As I reread this poem the floor creaks and the hinges squeak (damn my brother). High on adrenaline and inspired I begin to construct a tale from bits and pieces, searching for an artist that could translate what I saw into an image that you may see. Should the paintings depict a face as innocent as the boy saw at the beginning of the tale or one that is familiar with the shadows? I began contemplating the beauty of the poem – the ambiguity it encompasses. “The game of light and darkness must be represented,” – I said to myself. I surrendered my time and attention to finding an artist whose style could have depicted this being and yet left most of it to the imagination of the viewer. Eventually, I found someone. I chased after the fleeing images that escaped my mind and ran across the pages – wild fickle things they were. I struggled to pin them down, to capture them. Finally, the beauty was caught, and my interpretation of the poem was presented.

Who knows what terrors the boy had seen. Was it really an otherworldly being that came to snatch him for this plane of existence or that of a metaphorical nature? The imagination of a human is a wondrous thing, and its mind a most flexible one. When trying to understand a concept we humanize it, turn it into something we can count or describe using the terms we learned in school. Could the girl represent a sibling long past away, or a girl once loved, or maybe a created delusion of a sick or changed mind, or even simply a beating heart whose time has come to stop? We do not know. And maybe neither did the parents until they had disappeared. Vinethia – an ambiguous name not commonly found, and yet, she took at least one life away.

“Down by the Well”

Down by the well where the stories are told,

Of a young girl and of a young soul,

Two stray dogs sit guarding a tomb,

Warning the strangers that get lost in the gloom.

“Don’t say her name!” – they seem to shout,

Or pay the price of seeming to doubt,

What a child might know, in their heart and their soul,

Of the terror that can instantly swallow you whole.

Down by the well where the stories are told,

Of a pure boy and of a dark soul,

Two wary hounds sit guarding the tomb,

Cautioning foreigners that seem to presume,

That they may be capable of escaping their doom.

Being a week into the month of October means it is about the time to begin telling scary stories and stocking up on sweets (Ha! Alliteration!). Beware of innocent looking children as they may not be what they seem, beware of the monsters hiding under your bed (Not mine – I already checked :)), and beware of letting your inner demons reign free during a time when the veil between this world and the next is thinned.

Hopefully, you enjoyed this dark tale and interpreted it in your own way. Who knows what happened to cause the boy to die, or where the parents went. Some claim the girl is a demon, and some – a faerie. Some claim she is a figment of the boy’s imagination, and others say she is a reaper. It’s even been proposed that the parents simply moved away and the tale remained, perpetuated by the community. What do you think? After all, guessing is part of the fun!

Lastly, a warning – Don’t Say Her Name! Who knows what might happen!

“Vinethia“ by GhostMOTH

All Art by Joonas Ennala

(Titles of paintings in order of appearance:

“It’s Raining Stars,” “Buck,” “Girl & Deer,” “Untitled,” “Lover,

“Hidden,” “Untitled #2,” “Cave,” “Untitled #3,” “Nest” & “Ballerina”)

Check out both GhostMOTH’s and Joonas’ works if you have time!

-L.L.L.

P.S. By the way, did you know about the skeleton in the closet in the department of Audiology in Boylan Hall? Won’t tell you which closet – it’s a secret ;). Her name starts with the letter P.