Yesterday, I had an experience that will haunt me forever.
We all know what liminal spaces are, right? Empty locations such as hallways and rooms that give off an unusual, eerie or surreal vibe. I’m sure it’s safe to say that most people have or will encounter a liminal space sometime in their life. Which is why I’m here to tell my story, to warn you all of the hidden danger lurking in those strange, unnerving places.
I’ll start off by saying I am a bit of a loner. When life gets stressful, I’ll often avoid people and look for a quiet space to just think and clear my head. Weird, I know, but that’s just how I roll.
So last week my landlord served an eviction notice. In the letter, they stated I was in violation of several HOA rules because I had let my backyard become overgrown and it served a serious fire hazard. Now, to be fair, they had warned me previously to maintain the yard. However, working two jobs to afford the rent left me no time for such a task and what little time I did have, I was far too exhausted to do yard work. Yes call me lazy if you must, but I know it’s my fault for getting evicted and I didn’t try to fight it.
As you could imagine, this brought a lot of stress into my life as I begged my dad to let me move in temporarily. Let me tell you, spending your one and only day off for the week loading and unloading a moving truck is not fun, but I digress.
When I walked into work yesterday, my boss took one look at me and shook his head.
“You look exhausted, you gonna be okay?”
I shrugged and explained the situation to him. When I mentioned that I had been up into the late hours of the night unpacking and getting situated into my dad’s house, he sighed and waived his hand.
“Why don’t you take the day off, I can’t have you operating the assembly line if you’re sleep deprived.”
Rubbing my eyes, I thanked him and apologized profusely. My mind wandered all over the place on the drive home. Stress had built up so much that my face began breaking out in acne.
“I need to find somewhere quiet to just think,” I whispered to myself.
Now, my shifts at the factory were from five in the morning til two in the afternoon, so it was just getting light outside when he told me to take the day off. Not a lot of places in our small town would be open at such an early hour. The locations that were open would be flooded with either homeless or the morning work crowd. One place did come to mind, however.
Our town’s post office sat between a playground park and a vacant lot, with a sidewalk overlooking the river across the street. While the clerk window at the post office remained closed outside of business hours, the postal boxes remained opened to the public at all hours of the day. There were a row of benches on the wall opposite of the post boxes where people could set down and sort their mail. Hopeful that nobody would be there so early in the morning, I headed for the post office.
When I arrived, the place was totally quiet. Now, I’d normally check my mail after work, during the busy hours of the day. I had grown accustomed to the lively sound of people chatting, envelopes rustling, and brass keys slotting into postal boxes whenever I visited. Seeing the place vacant and devoid of life gave it that liminal space feeling.
Taking a seat at the bench, I sighed, crossed my arms and buried my face. Sitting there in total silence, I began to sift through the many thoughts racing through my head. After about five seconds of sitting down, my heart jumped into my throat when I heard a horrible scream. Words couldn’t do any justice describing the sound, it seemed like a cross between a dying cat, a terrified child and an angry dog. My spine snapped upright as I looked around for the source of the noise.
Standing up, I walked over to the front door and peered outside. Street lights illuminated a dim circle around the parking lot, leaving a sea of shadows in the surrounding area. Looking over the river off to the east, I saw a faint band of light cresting the horizon, signaling the coming sunrise.
With no obvious source of that awful sound in sight, I shrugged and chalked it up to a coyote or something. With a slow stride, I walked over to my post box and inserted the key. After turning the bolt, I heard voices speaking all around me in every direction. Out of context, it sounded like the normal chatter and day to day life you’d hear at the post office during the afternoon. Startled by the sudden voices, I quickly spun around. The voices immediately stopped and the post office appeared empty as ever.
Feeling thoroughly unnerved, I turn to my post box and start scooping the mail out as fast as my hands allowed. Just as I’m closing the box, I feel something land on my shoulder. It felt like a hand lightly tapping the back of my shoulder, trying to get my attention. This really scared me and I turned around screaming. Again, nothing was there.
Standing there, mail in hand, I began to call out:
“Hello? Is someone there? If you’re trying to scare me, this isn’t funny. I’ll call the police if I have to.”
A slight echo followed as my words bounced off the vacant walls. Buzzing from the overhead LED lights filled the silence, a sound which seemed somehow louder than before. That feeling of being in an eerie, surreal liminal space had escalated into something more. Being in that post office made me feel downright unsafe.
Tucking my mail underneath my arm, I ran for the exit. Panick began to set in when I pushed my body into the glass double doors only to realize they would not open.
“What the actual hell?” I said out loud.
Those doors were supposed to be open to the public during all hours of the day. Hell, I didn’t even know the damn thing could be locked. I begin hyperventilating as I work the door handle, pushing and pulling it in a desperate attempt to get out.
Then I heard that scream again. Cocking my head down the hallway, I still saw nothing. I continued to wrestle with the door, screaming and panicking to get out. I cursed at myself for leaving my phone in the car, all while keeping my eyes peeled down the hallway and jostling the glass double doors. Then I heard the scream again, right in my ears, coming from right behind where I stood.
All I remember is ice streaking through my entire body as I tensed up and stopped moving. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder again. Instead of turning around, however, I fell to my knees and began crying.
“Please, don’t hurt me, please…” I whispered. I then began to feel very dizzy and lightheaded. I don’t know exactly what happened but I remember falling backwards as I lost consciousness.
The next thing I knew, I awoke to a crew of paramedics working on me in the parking lot. My dad sat by his car, smoking a cigarette and shaking his head.
“W-what happened?” I asked, still feeling foggy and dazed. One of the paramedics looked me in the eye and smiled.
“We’re getting you to the hospital, you’ll be alright.”
After spending half the day at the hospital, the doctors told me there was nothing wrong and I was in perfect health. When I asked my dad what happened, he said a stranger had found me unconscious in the doorway of the post office. He thought I was seriously hurt, since he couldn’t get me to wake up, not even by slapping my face or pouring cold water on me.
I don’t know what happened to me at the post office yesterday, but I will never try to de-stress there again.