Mindscape #18

It was a sunny day, a sunny midday and everything was so lively and smooth as possible. Beautiful girls were passing by, and groups of friends, heading to and from restaurants, had conversations that looked very interesting by their gesticulations. It was just maybe a little too cold, and I wanted as much of the sun heating my skin as I possibly could. There was absolutely nothing eerie about the situation.

Except I had chosen to listen to a podcast about urban legends and scary stories. I really like when there’s no emails and messages before the theme and they can go straight into their subject. In this case, it started instantaneously with a very nice atmosphere, as the introductory song was mysterious, morbid and brightless enough to set the mood.

Unfortunately, it was getting too windy and the warmth of the sun wasn’t making it worth being outside, so I went back indoors and found a place near a window where I could still have some sun to warm me up, without the freezing wind. But the place was a little dark and the room was empty. There was nobody around. Things were getting amusingly appropriate for the ghost stories, scary tales and mysterious events I was willing to be fed with without logical reasoning.

Outside there was still some wind, and it seemed to be growing stronger. In fact, the sun had weakened and some dark clouds began to roll over the sky. There was something about them that felt twisted, as if their low altitude and the strange motion of their shapes meant something wicked. In due time, a few water drops started appearing on the window, and the room got even darker. All liveliness of the road disappeared, and few people could be sighted walking around with quick steps. A nearby playground felt conveniently abandoned.

It was such a thick experience I kept thinking about it during the rest of the day, and I even wanted to repeat the experience, listening to the same episode again the very next day. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, as it didn’t have this exact combination of elements, and so the atmosphere of the episode itself, albeit still attention-grabbing, wasn’t nearly as impacting…