I Bird Boxed My Imagination

Create Scary Scenes

I Bird Boxed My Imagination or How I Scared Myself Sh*tless to Get Ideas for Spooky Scenes.

I tried three different ideas, and they all worked.

1. Blindfolded in a Cemetery

I visited a cemetery during a chilling wind storm (not an electrical storm!) and blindfolded myself. With my strongest sense out of commission, I listened to all the sounds the wind and dry leaves made. I took mental note of how a granite tombstone felt when it was devoid of warmth, how the lifeless ground moved under my bare feet (oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I was barefoot), and how the freshly turned soil smelled.

Safety and respect: I wasn’t alone. Also, I didn’t want to visit any new graves where grieving relatives might show up and be offended, so I went to the older section where people were buried 100-plus years ago.

The dead, winter grass pressed against my skin. It felt like desiccated hair from an old corpse.

2. An e-Book in the Dark

I read a chapter of a scary e-book in the dark so that the only light was from my little screen. I couldn’t see anything beyond about four feet. Then I stared into a shadowed corner and asked myself what lurked there, a creature from the book I was reading? What exactly was the creature about to do? Why was it hiding in the dark and not making itself known in the daylight?

2.1. A Variation

I read from a scary e-book in the dark, but this time I lay on the floor so that my toes were poking five-and-a-half feet behind me into the darkness. Then I asked myself what non-human entity was about to nip at my toes? Or will it claw at my toes? Why now, why not last week?

A sound like oversized toenails clicked on the floor behind me. The hairless sloth was back. A creature the color of fog. The legend said the half-spirit, half-mammal hissed in pleasure just before it clawed you to death.

3. The What-If Game

I play this game often. When I’m walking or driving around and see something out of place, say, a solitary shoe in the ditch, I make up a story of how it got there. Nefarious and paranormal explanations are the best.

Teenaged offspring love this game, mother-daughter bonding time.:-) But if you have carpool duty, don’t play this game when other kids are in the car, kids who aren’t used to your imagination. Not that I ever have. That would get the parents irritated with me. Just sayin’.

51 thoughts on “I Bird Boxed My Imagination

  1. Omg omg you had courage to walk in the cemetery… Omg omg noooo not me… Can’t do that.
    I have scared myself plenty at night jumping at shadows sometimes during the day too… I am a bit of a scared cat…
    But I loved Birdbox, both the book and movie. My only lone venture in horror genre

    Liked by 1 person

  2. I’ve been playing the “What If” game for years. Not as a horror story, just as a run with the imagination when I am out walking and find delicate, red panties in the shrub or a pair of tennis shoes, laces tied together, thrown over an electrical wire. Or a cancelled check from 1945 blowing in the wind.


Leave a Reply


WordPress.com Logo


Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s