(no subject)
Lately it seems I’ve been in a bit of a zone, which I apologize. It’s not usually like this for me. Guess I’m just tired. If we’ve haven’t got any sleep aids lying around, I’ll probably have to head out and find some. I’m starting to actually kind of miss sleep at this point and time.
Can’t shake this feeling that’s been creeping up on me these past few weeks. Between the new people showing up and the chain of events since I got to this city, it seems as if the air’s gotten a little heavier than before. Not to mention a little harder to sleep, or even close my damn eyes. Always made it a habit to avoid any major cities. Makes me wish I had kept up with that. Maybe it’s me.
Still, it’s a good thing to be having all the company in the cathedral. People are nice, and something tells me we’ll be needing all the hands we can get around here.
Hmm...
You know... Halloween. Considering some of the people lingering around here, seems to be a little fitting to be celebrating such a holiday, I think. In retrospect, it feels silly to dress up when a lot of us are already pretending to be someone else. Still, just a few days ago I got her to laugh with my stupid bedsheet ghost costume (if you could call it a costume). It was the first time she’d ever cracked a smile in front of me. On occasions when my gift starts weighing down like a burden to me, it’s instances like those which make it all worthwhile.
Now I’m just rambling. If anyone is wondering, I’ll be up in my room. Thinking about putting that old typewriter of mine to some use.
[ ooc: Strikes are so only hackable to Harry Mason. ]
[ ODD COMPANY ]
[ PRIVATE ]
[ This will be the first in a series of excerpts written on Odd’s typewriter. These are only readable in hard copy. They can only be read if they are found, and they are very well hidden in his room along with the rest of Odd’s manuscripts. ]
Nightmares have rarely been a drive for unrest to me. Like the dead, there have been more troubling things that kept me up at night, like a paranoid mother holding a gun to her heart with threats of blowing yours and her brains out if you couldn’t stop crying. Typical family matters back in the day, but that’s besides the point.
Anyway, nightmares. Everyone has them. Usually I try not to dwell much on my own, if some didn’t have a habit of coming true. It’s not something I tend to personally share. We all have our secrets, especially in this place.
Unrest, unease, and secrets are a common thing around here, it would appear. We’ll save those for a later time.
Three years ago, I sought refuge from both the living and the dead at St. Bartholomew’s Abbey. It was a peaceful getaway until the very end, and like St. Bartholomew’s, the cathedral has become something of a home to me, a meaning which I dearly value when I find myself alone in this city. A small, tiny little offer of comfort in my ring of nightmares... I was drawn here no less, a certainty that does not surprise me in the very least.
In reality we are all alone. We enter it alone and, essentially, we leave it that way as well-in life as well as in death.
Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not saying that I know a whole lot about that stuff. I’m far from being a monk myself. Life, death, nightmares... The way I live life, I prefer not to know these things. Most likely I was never meant to understand. I’m simple, thus I live simple. I came here with only a few possessions and the clothes on me, wearing t-shirts and jeans or sweatshirts for cold weather on days such as these. I choose not to stand out, be noticed. I have no desire to become famous. Life is already complicated, but we all get through it in the best way we can. I’m not perfect. Far from it, in fact, but we do the best we can. That’s what moving on is about.
Speaking from the words of a failed hero, that might not be saying a whole lot. After all, I couldn’t even save the girl I loved.
In the past, I try to stray far from heavy metaphors. I had always been told that it was best to keep a lighter tone in these manuscripts, a habit which I have pursued thus far in my previous works. Still, I will not disregard the teachings of a six-fingered man who once threatened to crush me under his six hundred pound bum if the mood strays too far in that direction, so let’s not get into that.
It always seemed wiser of me to avoid major cities. I’ve seen what has become of people like me when they are corrupted, driven mad by the same gift I was born with. In a situation where most have no choice but to try and move on, to put their pasts behind them, it would only furthermore complicate the relationships from which I have built with some of the many I have grown close to during my short stay here.
Which comes to say that it is ironic, really, despite the nature of my obligation to carry out justice to the dead, I find myself accompanied by spirits as well as their dwelling murderers. But I am not one to talk myself.
My name is Odd Thomas. I see dead people.
And I, too, am a killer.
Can’t shake this feeling that’s been creeping up on me these past few weeks. Between the new people showing up and the chain of events since I got to this city, it seems as if the air’s gotten a little heavier than before. Not to mention a little harder to sleep, or even close my damn eyes. Always made it a habit to avoid any major cities. Makes me wish I had kept up with that. Maybe it’s me.
Still, it’s a good thing to be having all the company in the cathedral. People are nice, and something tells me we’ll be needing all the hands we can get around here.
Hmm...
You know... Halloween. Considering some of the people lingering around here, seems to be a little fitting to be celebrating such a holiday, I think. In retrospect, it feels silly to dress up when a lot of us are already pretending to be someone else. Still, just a few days ago I got her to laugh with my stupid bedsheet ghost costume (if you could call it a costume). It was the first time she’d ever cracked a smile in front of me. On occasions when my gift starts weighing down like a burden to me, it’s instances like those which make it all worthwhile.
Now I’m just rambling. If anyone is wondering, I’ll be up in my room. Thinking about putting that old typewriter of mine to some use.
[ ooc: Strikes are so only hackable to Harry Mason. ]
[ ODD COMPANY ]
[ PRIVATE ]
[ This will be the first in a series of excerpts written on Odd’s typewriter. These are only readable in hard copy. They can only be read if they are found, and they are very well hidden in his room along with the rest of Odd’s manuscripts. ]
Nightmares have rarely been a drive for unrest to me. Like the dead, there have been more troubling things that kept me up at night, like a paranoid mother holding a gun to her heart with threats of blowing yours and her brains out if you couldn’t stop crying. Typical family matters back in the day, but that’s besides the point.
Anyway, nightmares. Everyone has them. Usually I try not to dwell much on my own, if some didn’t have a habit of coming true. It’s not something I tend to personally share. We all have our secrets, especially in this place.
Unrest, unease, and secrets are a common thing around here, it would appear. We’ll save those for a later time.
Three years ago, I sought refuge from both the living and the dead at St. Bartholomew’s Abbey. It was a peaceful getaway until the very end, and like St. Bartholomew’s, the cathedral has become something of a home to me, a meaning which I dearly value when I find myself alone in this city. A small, tiny little offer of comfort in my ring of nightmares... I was drawn here no less, a certainty that does not surprise me in the very least.
In reality we are all alone. We enter it alone and, essentially, we leave it that way as well-in life as well as in death.
Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not saying that I know a whole lot about that stuff. I’m far from being a monk myself. Life, death, nightmares... The way I live life, I prefer not to know these things. Most likely I was never meant to understand. I’m simple, thus I live simple. I came here with only a few possessions and the clothes on me, wearing t-shirts and jeans or sweatshirts for cold weather on days such as these. I choose not to stand out, be noticed. I have no desire to become famous. Life is already complicated, but we all get through it in the best way we can. I’m not perfect. Far from it, in fact, but we do the best we can. That’s what moving on is about.
Speaking from the words of a failed hero, that might not be saying a whole lot. After all, I couldn’t even save the girl I loved.
In the past, I try to stray far from heavy metaphors. I had always been told that it was best to keep a lighter tone in these manuscripts, a habit which I have pursued thus far in my previous works. Still, I will not disregard the teachings of a six-fingered man who once threatened to crush me under his six hundred pound bum if the mood strays too far in that direction, so let’s not get into that.
It always seemed wiser of me to avoid major cities. I’ve seen what has become of people like me when they are corrupted, driven mad by the same gift I was born with. In a situation where most have no choice but to try and move on, to put their pasts behind them, it would only furthermore complicate the relationships from which I have built with some of the many I have grown close to during my short stay here.
Which comes to say that it is ironic, really, despite the nature of my obligation to carry out justice to the dead, I find myself accompanied by spirits as well as their dwelling murderers. But I am not one to talk myself.
My name is Odd Thomas. I see dead people.
And I, too, am a killer.