The mind is the devil’s playground

Apr 13, 2014 Features / Columnists, My Column

Cats never fail to get my attention and I am sure it is the same with other people who hear them at nights more than they do during the daylight hours. As a country boy I grew up hearing cats with their caterwauling and the noise always got to me.
Sometimes the mind can play tricks. People say that if the mind conjures up something then you can bet your last dollar that you will see what the mind wants you to see. I have heard of people who saw ghosts. I don’t believe in ghosts but there are people who would try their utmost to convince me. Poor me, recognizing that I am in a losing cause, would simply cease my protestations and life would go on.
As much as I say that I do not believe, there were times when I literally picked up my heels and sprinted to safety. I must have told this story before but it will certainly not hurt to tell it again. There I was in my native Beterverwagting heading home late.
I was about fifteen but I was already disobeying my mother. So there I was out late—it was about nine in the night but in rural Guyana that is considered late—and heading home. I had to pass by a cemetery. Before I could reach the cemetery I saw a white object that later turned out to be a piece of cloth in a drain.
My mind said ghost so I started a sprint. I ran through a huge brick pile and by the time I came to a stop huge patches of hair had disappeared from my head and skin was somewhere on the bricks. I did not even see two people who were chatting on the other side of the road, so transfixed was I on getting out of the way of that white object.
But I had started to talk about the cats. Anyone who would hear the amorous felines at nights would swear that they are hearing children crying. This week I came out of my sleep at the sound and I wondered at the child who was making that noise.
I must have been on tenterhooks having seen the body of a man stuffed under some trees in the cemetery. It is this aspect of life that sometimes gets to me. And I have seen a lot in my life. I have seen human disfigurement in many forms.
But then I tell myself that in every society there will be the things that reduce human beings to the level of the lowest of animals. I have heard people talk about mind-numbing experiences. There was a woman who swore to high heavens that she saw her dead mother standing under a tree and that she tried to point out the object to the people who were with her. Needless to say, they saw nothing.
But I have friends who made no bones about seeing dead people. One man who has security cameras at his home and who like me is skeptical about ghosts, swore that he saw his mother on his porch. He said that he happened to glance at the monitor and there she was.
He went out of his house to the spot where his mother was supposed to be but saw nothing. He was not hallucinating.
But I am willing to bet that if he had a cat and the animal had brushed against his leg at that time he would have leaped so high that he would have touched the moon. And I have known this happen to ordinary people. One day I saw a woman on the streets screaming and hopping. When the episode was over she explained that she thought that she had stepped on a snake. It was a piece of cloth that her foot hooked. But the mind does funny things. The woman almost threw a fit and it took a lot of time for people to calm her down.
Then there was the man who was walking home one night. He felt something tapping him on the back and when he looked back he saw nothing. He walked faster and the taps became more frequent. The man started to run and the taps became a staccato. It was not until the man reached home that he realized the source of his panic. It was his hat band that had become loose. A piece of cloth could have given him a heart attack.
During the crime wave there were kidnappings. One man who lived at Melanie Damishana got taken. A ransom was demanded and paid. The man was released but he was never the same again. I helped him seek counseling but it would seem that it didn’t help. One of his friends told me that this man drove into his yard and his dog simply leaped up to his window and pressed its nose against his neck. The man fainted.
It is all in the mind. That is why we daydream; it is why some of us get nightmares and it is why some of us see ghosts. It is also why cats sound so much like wailing babies and had me waking out of my sleep and sending me back to the discovery of that man under those trees in the cemetery.

Latest News

The mind is the devil’s playground

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show | November, 15th, 2024

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Hauls from Persaud and Farley highlight MVP Sports Girl’s U11...

Windies chase 219 for first win of T20 series...

Motie joins Amazon Warriors Squad for GSL

CWI announces West Indies Test Squad for Home...

𝗗𝗖𝗕 U𝟭𝟱50-overs ‘Next...

Glasgow sets new scoring record as Golden Jaguars...

Features/Columnists

The PPP is in the grip of the bourgeoisie

Rising Gun Crimes in the Caribbean: Urgent Action required by all

Excellency Ali soke – he must produce

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]

The mind is the devil’s playground

Share this:

Related

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show | November, 15th, 2024

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Features/Columnists

Publisher’s Note

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]