The Edge of Madness

It was gradual you see, just the feeling of a presence at first. I’d imagine someone behind me; feel breath on the back of my neck. I’d wake in the night to experience an overwhelming comfort, the warmth of love I guess you’d call it. Reaching for the lamp, but understanding that the light would extinguish the power of it, I would realise how pleasant that sensation was and return to my peaceful slumber.

I enjoyed the company, I never felt lonely or afraid. I often sensed these things — ‘weird’ perceptions that I couldn’t name and lived with knowing I was not alone, I was comfortable with that.

Then, I’m not sure why, I began to feel intimidated. Something started to change. I felt it watching me all the time, I knew that it was there, but its attitude had altered. Don’t ask me how I knew, it was an impression, a ‘knowledge’ that the thing was becoming impatient with me, almost cross because I wasn’t seeing . . .

So instead of complacency I was anxious and mildly agitated. Yes, I know you’ve seen the report, you know what happened but you don’t understand, not really. You’ve asked me to explain so please listen and keep an open mind, if you can.

The entity had changed. It felt hostile.

Now I know you’re smiling disbelievingly, thinking I need to speak to a doctor, it has been said before, it has been done before.

But I have proof that I was being haunted, not by a ghost.

I was being observed by an angel.

You ask what makes me sure. Well, you know how you see something from the corner of the eye, you turn to check but just can’t quite catch it? Then convince yourself it was a shadow — an illusion , your mind playing tricks. That’s how it was. I believed it was there, I just couldn’t see it.

Then came the week from hell. Seven days that changed my life, and pushed me to the edge of madness.

On Monday night, I had been in bed for a while, settling down to sleep when I felt someone sit on the end of my bed. I felt someone, they lowered themselves onto my mattress and sank their weight upon it. I knew it was real, I could tell it was. I panicked, fumbled for the lamp but when I eventually found the switch whatever was there . . . was gone. Shaking and with eyes on stalks, ears strained, I cowered on my pillow, knees drawn up to my chin. I was terrified, trying to convince myself I’d dreamt it – knowing that I hadn’t been asleep. I didn’t sleep at all on Monday night.

Tuesday night was worse. I was in the bathroom drying off after a long relaxing bath, thinking it might help me sleep after the terrible night before. I glanced toward the mirror and — oh my God, instead of my own reflection I saw . . . it . . .  In a fleeting moment I saw it, then instantly it disappeared so that I had just an impression of a huge, towering being, looming from above . . . floaty . . . transparent. Ethereal! Then it was gone.

Telling myself it wasn’t real, I poured a scotch with shaking hands, a double, treble and swallowed a Temazepam. I don’t know how I stayed there in my house that night, alone and afraid, but I did. I slept until the 7.30 alarm, waking with a horrendous headache. I thought about what I’d witnessed and decided what I’d seen was nothing more than steam and reflected fairy lights; it was my nervousness that had conjured a being so strange, so indescribable.

Wednesday evening, sufficiently recovered from my hangover I went to dinner with my brother and his wife. I enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine and no, I didn’t tell them what had been happening. I knew what they would say, or perhaps just think. They were aware that I’d gone through something similar a few years back and I couldn’t bear to be judged. And this time it was not the same, this time it was different, but I hadn’t the strength to defend myself and I couldn’t risk telling them.

I smiled to myself as I turned the key and entered my lovely old house. No more nonsense, I promised myself. I was lucky to live in this beautiful Victorian villa and I needed to start enjoying it!

I closed the heavy curtains against the whitening night, poured a brandy and went upstairs to run a bath. In my bedroom, the room was pleasantly illuminated by the glow of street lamps outside the window.  From the floor, at first crouching behind the bed, there arose an enormous shape. I can’t be more specific – cylindrical maybe, towering as it rose. I stood mesmerised as it unfurled from the grey shadow it began, and became brilliant white, spreading its hugeness. Somewhere from within itself it raised a head. It lifted its head and slowly, oh so slowly, turned its beautiful face towards me. And then . . . as my mind registered what I’d perceived, it vanished. Simply disappeared!

I must have fainted because I came to, my body icy cold, shivering and confused, on the floor, the brandy glass unbroken on the carpet beside me. There was nothing, nothing weird, nothing unusual.

 Thinking about it now, I was stunned by what I’d observed. I guess you’d say I was numb – strangely untouched by the encounter, certainly not alarmed. A complete calm engulfed me. I had my bath, went to bed and slept soundly until seven am.

I worked late on Thursday, volunteering to stay over; the library was short staffed and I enjoy my job. I have a large mortgage and can always use the overtime. I took advantage of the quiet to do some research. Under A for angels I discovered An Angelic Interlude by M R  Hudson, which was vaguely interesting, and The Sound of Angels by Marian Silverton, just ridiculous. I left them both where I’d found them. On the way home I felt exhausted, unusual for me, so I grabbed a sandwich from the late-night deli rather than cooking for myself. I took off my shoes when I got inside and slumped on the sofa to watch TV.

I was woken by a thunderous roar, or shriek, I don’t know how to describe it, and saw my supper was still in the brown paper bag on the coffee table with the beer I’d taken from the fridge. I was paralysed. Seriously, I could not move. I lay there, sprawled on the sofa and barely conscious to see a giant entity . . . it was giant . . . it was kind of folded over from the ceiling, as if the ceiling were not high enough to accommodate it. It was bent over me; that beautiful face too close, suffocating me, stealing my breath, peering into my very soul.

As I stared back — I wasn’t able to move or avert my eyes — it seemed to grow. It spread out, filling the entire room. It was above, around and beyond me all at once, it bellowed this cacophony of sound. A dreadful, discordant explosion and it was directed at me.

The creature turned away at last as if leaving but turned again toward me and with what I knew was an immense effort screamed, “Leave“.

The noise, so high-pitched to pain my ears, yet clear as any word spoken, was unmistakably a warning, undeniably intended for me alone. I rubbed my eyes as if to clarify what I knew I’d seen; when I opened them, in that second, the thing I now know was an angel, was gone.

That’s more or less when someone called an ambulance. I’d run, frantic, into the road outside my house. It was a turning point; the moment of acceptance, when I knew I could take no more. If the angel had intended to unhinge me it had succeeded. I also know, in my heart of hearts, that the angel had come to warn me.

You know what happened that night, the night they sectioned me — again. You know that my beloved house burned to the ground and you probably worked out that I would have died if terror had not driven me like a mad woman into the street. You have learned that an electrical fire was the cause, that the batteries in both smoke detectors were flat and that had the fire broken out while I was in bed, I wouldn’t have woken in time to escape.

Did they also tell you about the acrid stench of burning feathers?

Susan says: I am a retired scientist. Happily living alone I enjoy gardening, reading, and needlework. Home is in the West Midlands area of England. I have been writing all my life but only recently submitting my work for publication.