Black Eyed Greed: My Encounter With Black Eyed Kids

 

I have had an encounter. A heart-in-your-mouth, shivers-down-your-spine, tiny-bit-of-pee-in-your-pants otherworldly encounter. I have lived a scene from that most unpleasant genre of film and life; Horror (derived from the Latin word 'horribilus' meaning 'much screaming and scariness and screechy violin music'). I never thought a terrifying supernatural type experience would happen to me, being a staunch supporter of science and all things one can actually see, but it never seems to happen to believers. The alien abduction stories never start with:

‘Oh yes, I knew from a young age that one day I would be anally probed.’

The sightings, the disembodied spirits, the possessed clowns; they all seem to happen to people who say they are skeptics, realists, atheists, scientists. Until that one horrifying moment that changes them forever. Of course there is usually a 6-point-font footnote about the victim suffering from a mental illness or recent head injury, but that is not relevant here.

So this what happened:

It was like any other day. I remember it was hot because it was near Christmas. I remember it was near Christmas because the Christmas toy catalogues had just arrived. You know they are the Christmas catalogues because they are as thick as the phone book and have just as many big numbers in them (but printed in holly clipart, fun!).

I always love the toy catalogue delivery. The kids are so full of excitement and their eyes twinkle as we sit down together ‘ooooohing’ and ‘aaaaaarhing’ at all the pretty things. You might think it encourages superficiality and uber consumerism but really it is just innocent, family-friendly entertainment. The kids circle things that they wish for and go to bed with their favourite pages under their pillows, dreaming about willy wonka worlds of endless dollhouses and trains and colourful texta towers. The pages become torn and dog-eared and you can’t see the products for all the circling. Eventually they biodegrade and other things in life come back into focus. My mother-in-law compares it to her grandma who, during The Depression, would take her kids to the cake shop. They would look through the windows and choose their favourite cake and pretend to eat it all up, licking the imaginary cream off their fingers. They sometimes chose pretend sweets to take home in their cupped hands and pockets, for later. Beautiful bad-times fun - all the joy was in the dreaming.

SO, the Christmas catalogues had arrived and I took them in to the kids who were quietly playing together in the living room. There was no warning, no sign that anything was different, nothing was untoward. And that is when it happened. As I handed the toy catalogue to my daughter I felt a cold chill pass through me. Suddenly, like a bolt of ice through the head, I was gripped by an incredible, inexplicable, overwhelming fear. It was as if someone was crushing my chest, my ears were ringing sirens and my hands started sweating and shaking uncontrollably. I went to the window looking for an explanation but saw nothing but our pet bunny shivering in the corner of the garden.

With terror in my heart, I looked back to my kids in the living (dead) room and I couldn’t make them out. All I could see was a mass of skinny white hands circling, circling, circling, toys, toys, toys. Barbie and Monster High Dolls and Lalaloopsy and Fur Real pets and Journey Girls and Zelfs and Spiderman and Jake the Pirate and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and games and DVDs and things they had never even seen or heard of before. Circling circling, circling, circling, toys, toys, toys, toys. Then their heads slowly started to turn and they looked up at me. That’s when I saw their eyes; unblinking, coal black and emotionless. I knew who they were. Black Eyed Kids. The infamous, feared, black eyed children who have been terrorizing skeptics (with a possible mental illness and/or recent head injury) for over a decade. Knocking on doors, asking to come in, talking with their minds. There they were, in my house, looking through toy catalogues with their jet black, pupil-less eyes. I had no idea what they did with my own children. I assumed they ate them. All that knocking and mind reading would make anyone hungry.

No, really, I've just been chopping onions. image:news.com.au

No, really, I've just been chopping onions. image:news.com.au

Then the chanting began ‘Santa, give us, Santa, we want, SANTA, GIVE US!!!! SANTA, WE WANT!!!’. I put my hands over my ears and I ran. I ran as fast as I could…to the computer. I Googled ‘Get rid of BEK’s’ and ‘excorcism’ and ‘what happened to my beautiful sweet children who love imagining and dreaming and wishing but expect and demand nothing, and certainly do not chant with exclamation marks!?’. Google said ‘ignore the BEK’s’, and ‘did you mean exorcism?’, and ‘no results matched your search.’ FU Google.

Eventually, as with my fellow BEK victims, the Black Eyed Kids disappeared after their chanting, whimpering and demands were appropriately and infinitely ignored. Once the toy catalogues ‘biodegraded’ (put in a barrel of acid and buried deep in a hole) my own children re-emerged - blue eyed with the required white bits, and no associated feelings of dread.

That is my encounter and life (well maybe just toy catalogue day) will never be the same. Please share your own encounter story if you have one. I still find it hard to sleep at night, my ears still ring, and I walk toward the letterbox everyday with an anxiety I have never known before. But I have learnt my lesson, and next Christmas we are just going to lick the windows of cake shops.

Mummy mummy, someone put photoshop in our eyes! image:illuminutti

Mummy mummy, someone put photoshop in our eyes! image:illuminutti