Laughing Shadows First Hand Account

After discussing with Alan in my first Tutorial, it was suggested that I look for a poem to help solidify my story idea and give me something to work with, he also suggested that I email Phil and see if he could recommend and poems that could be of use.

Phil’s reply to this was that maybe I should ask my sister about her experience that night and use that instead. A first-hand account of the event and maybe get her to narrate it after I have written it into something more useful for an animation. So here is my sisters rough account of the night and what she can remember.

“Before this experience I was never afraid of the dark. That was something my brother was coping with at the time, constantly waking me up, terrified of things moving around the room which I always knew were just shadows from the lamp post outside.

This event took place when I was around 7 years old. After being put to bed and falling asleep, I woke up to what I heard to be really faint laughter. Looking around the room I noticed all of the shadows in our room had begun to smile or grin, staring at me as they moved with the light around the shelves and wardrobe. The laughter began to get louder and louder, somehow to waking my brother who was an incredibly light sleeper at the time.

Shadows got louder and louder, moving around the room until I couldn’t handle it anymore and burst into tears and began screaming at them to go away, causing my parents to come running into the room, trying to calm me down. I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night, or a few nights after that. Since that day I have always had a slight fear of shadows and the dark, even when my brother grew out of his fear. Although I can safely say I have never encountered the shadows since this event. Lewis has seen things since this time but none where ever as bad as that night”.

My next step will be to turn this account into an actual story and try and convince my sister to narrate it for my final piece, if not ill find a V/A to do it for me. I love this story as it has always stuck with me and I think that it will work really well with what I am trying to convey.