THE MYRTLE AVENUE ENTITY

     It was 1993, and like, I had finally made a decision to move to a new address. As you probably know, in Iowa City, moving can be a major undertaking. This particular move was no exception. My roommate and I had a bunch of personal stuff we had to move from our apartment downtown to our new digs over on 207 Myrtle. And, like, let me tell you it was no fun.

     The new place on Myrtle was a solid gray apartment building with three floors. There was no elevator in the place, and, of course, wouldn't you know it, our apartment was on the third floor (funny how that kind of stuff doesn't seem important until moving day). I guess you could call it an important bonding experience, especially when we lost a desk that plummeted to the ground after we had struggled up three floors on an outside stairwell. After it was all done, my roommate and I killed off a six-pack and called it a day. We were officially moved in. There was nothing left to do but settle-in and, like, live; far from the bumblbee "Hawkeye" fever of downtown. But my solace was only to last a few weeks.

     About three weeks later, I had come home from an early morning shift at the University Libraries where I was working. I had a small cheese sandwich for dinner and as I settled in, felt a little sleepy. I'd partied hard the night before, so a nap was definitely within the range possibilites. So, I went to my room, laid down, and went to sleep.

     Sometime during my nap, I think it might have been around 2 or 2:30 pm, I suddenly arrived into what, like, I guess you might call, some sort of semi- or quasi-awake state. You know, like when you're right on the edge of your REM sleep. I don't know the proper technical term for it. But, anyway, I was lying on my bed, still in my work clothes, half awake and aware of what was going on, but, also still asleep. Anyway, I suddenly got the impression of a head, like a human head, right atop of my sternum. It weighed, or it at least felt like it weighed, like a human head. And right below that impression was the feeling of a human shoulder, pressing againt my chest. All the time this was occuring, I felt very heavy in the areas where the head and shoulder were pressing against me. Finally, I sturggled to wake up, and in doing so, looked to see if my roommate or some friend was doing this on purpose. But, nothing was there. Nothing. The pressure had disappeared. At first I was confused, but I decided that it must have been a dream. I settled back in and attempted to reclaim my nap.

     This time around I did not fall asleep, but simply lay there with my eyes closed, resting. To be honest, I was little annoyed by this strange, waking dream and did not want to repeat it. But as I lay there, once again I felt the pressure on my chest, like, I had only moments ago. It was undeniable.

     Someone was definitely laying their head and right shoulder on top of me as I lay there. But this time, I was not asleep.

     But once again, like, out of some ghost story, the body I expected to see was not there. Just an empty space. I couldn't get over it. Was I hallucinating? I chose not to tell my roommate, but instead, moved my bed over to a different part of the room. I didn't know if what was happening was in my head or...something else. Anyway, a change in arrangement wouldn't hurt anything and I needed something to do after an experience like this.

     Two weeks later, on Friday, I came from work and prepared some food for dinner. After eating, I sat down and watched some television before going to bed at 10:00 pm. Approximately at 1:00 am, I awoke from a deep sleep with the over powering feeling that someone was in the room with me. I looked around and initially saw nothing. But my eyes kept wandering over to where my bed once was. I couldn't see anything, but, like, I dunno how to say it...someone was there. Naturally, I tried to shake it off and go back to sleep. But I couldn't. As soon as I fell asleep for a few minutes, I'd awake again, in cold sweat, staring at the corner of the room where the prescence was making its existence known. I stayed awake for half an hour, staring at the corner, half-terrified, but also compelled to look. I must've finally knocked off, 'cause I woke up the next day with an intorlerable headache. I still didn't tell my roommate or friends about this. Last thing I needed was to give my friends an excuse to tease me. Besides, I reasoned to myself, this still could all be in my head. Sometimes moving to an unfamiliar area makes people more...sensitive to things. Nothing happened the next night or the next. After a couple of weeks, I was convinced that it was a mild case of paranoia, and went back to my feckless, easy going life.

     Well, a month and a half passed by, when on a Thursday night, I awoke again about 1:30 in the morning. I looked over in the corner again, and this time, not only felt a presence, but genuinely saw a shadow of some sort, human in form, appearing against the wall. No light was on, save from a crack under the door, and some moonlight through the window. But neither were causing this shadow on the wall. And then, slowly, I began to feel a pressure on my chest, similar to before, but no longer human in shape. Like, it was some sort of large type of...numbness...spreading out over my chest. I sensed this strange, numbing pressure seemed to come from the entity in my room. And as it grew, I began to fall asleep, as if the entity were making it happen.

     But, the strangest was yet to come. While asleep, I sensed the entity in the corner assigning me task to do in my dream state. One task was to collect as many dead fish as I could off of a beach. In another dream, I had to fight a large, blue beetle-like monster. Yet another dream had the entity ordering me to climb a large rope into the heavens. It was as if these tasks had to be performed for the entity. And like the previous waking dreams, I had no control over what happend.

     I awoke at approximately 3:00 am. I had competed all the tasks in my dream. I once again sensed the presence in the corner. But, oddly, I wasn't frightened of it. It seemed as though it belonged here for some reason. Why I felt this I have no idea. But, as I stared at it, I felt the entity acknowledge me, like it was saying "Good work. You've done well." Then suddenly, I felt the thing vanish. Not into thin air, but like it simply walked out of the room. And that was the last I saw of it.

     I have tried many times to figure out what the entity was. An old resident of the complex? A wandering ghost? I have no expertise in these things. But it seems to me that the series of tasks that the entity had me do in the dream state was prepartion for something. What it would be, I haven't a clue.