The Tallman
Kyle Wilson, '10 | Staff Reporter
Issue date: 10/30/09 Section: Lifestyle
I was eight years old when I first saw the Tall Man. To this day I don't know why. Why me? Why did I see him? Really, I guess it doesn't matter why. It just gives us a reason and a purpose for our suffering that we can explain away.
I woke up suddenly that night. I remember it was in the late fall. The air was cold and biting, so I had my windows shut. Now the layout of my bedroom had me sleeping with my bed against the wall that faces into the hall with the right side shoved into a corner. There was a small window on the wall I faced and another, larger window to my left. Back in those days I always had my blinds open. I liked seeing the moon come out at night and the sun waking me up in the morning. Sometimes a bird or two was sitting on the tree branches just outside the window, as if they were there just to greet me in the morning.
So, like I said, I woke up suddenly. I didn't know why. I was sound asleep one minute and awake the next. But this wasn't just being awake. It was like when an elevator starts, with your stomach dropping down a little bit. My eyes snapped open and it felt like my entire body was being pulled down. My stomach lurched. It was like being thrown from reality itself, like my consciousness was being tossed into a deep pit. Confused, I looked to the clock beside my bed to find out what time it was.
There was something at my window.
In a way, what I saw is completely vivid in my mind. Burned there, branded onto my subconscious. But it is also ethereal, like a nightmare that you want to forget but can't. What I saw was a man. I could see him from the shoulders up. He was dressed in a black suit, so black that it seemed to eat up all that light that was around it, with a white undershirt and a black tie. He wore a tall, black hat. "Like Abraham Lincoln," I remember thinking later. This perfectly matched his head, which was almost impossibly long. It reached out from his neck, stretching to an impossible length. His skin was pale, so sickly pale that I could clearly see the veins throbbing through his nightmare of a head. But it was his face, though...if one could even call it a face. Yes, there was an area on his head where the mouth and eyes and nose would go. But...he just didn't have them. There were two indents where the eyes should go, a bulge where the nose was supposed to be, and there was a quivering, pulsating area that represented the mouth. It was all that hideous, pale flesh, like a clay figure made by a child that they didn't bother finishing.
I woke up suddenly that night. I remember it was in the late fall. The air was cold and biting, so I had my windows shut. Now the layout of my bedroom had me sleeping with my bed against the wall that faces into the hall with the right side shoved into a corner. There was a small window on the wall I faced and another, larger window to my left. Back in those days I always had my blinds open. I liked seeing the moon come out at night and the sun waking me up in the morning. Sometimes a bird or two was sitting on the tree branches just outside the window, as if they were there just to greet me in the morning.
So, like I said, I woke up suddenly. I didn't know why. I was sound asleep one minute and awake the next. But this wasn't just being awake. It was like when an elevator starts, with your stomach dropping down a little bit. My eyes snapped open and it felt like my entire body was being pulled down. My stomach lurched. It was like being thrown from reality itself, like my consciousness was being tossed into a deep pit. Confused, I looked to the clock beside my bed to find out what time it was.
There was something at my window.
In a way, what I saw is completely vivid in my mind. Burned there, branded onto my subconscious. But it is also ethereal, like a nightmare that you want to forget but can't. What I saw was a man. I could see him from the shoulders up. He was dressed in a black suit, so black that it seemed to eat up all that light that was around it, with a white undershirt and a black tie. He wore a tall, black hat. "Like Abraham Lincoln," I remember thinking later. This perfectly matched his head, which was almost impossibly long. It reached out from his neck, stretching to an impossible length. His skin was pale, so sickly pale that I could clearly see the veins throbbing through his nightmare of a head. But it was his face, though...if one could even call it a face. Yes, there was an area on his head where the mouth and eyes and nose would go. But...he just didn't have them. There were two indents where the eyes should go, a bulge where the nose was supposed to be, and there was a quivering, pulsating area that represented the mouth. It was all that hideous, pale flesh, like a clay figure made by a child that they didn't bother finishing.