Clapping Hands

The mind works in weird ways. While I was at a bachelorette party in the N. Georgia woods last weekend (don't act like this isn't a common bachelorette party destination), my buddy Megan told us a story about a murder that happened years ago in the cabin next to hers. The picture above is of the actual cabin where the murder took place. Creepy. I decided to document the story-telling with photos of faces of several of the girls attending the party.

It was fun in a twisted, story-telling kind of way (this "twisted fun" was captured beautifully in the picture of Colleen below).

Anyway, the story was great until I woke up from my wine/beer/liquor stupor at 6 AM on the couch in the living room…the closest possible sleeping position to the front door of the cabin. There were 5 places to sleep upstairs and 4 places to sleep in bedrooms downstairs. There were 9 girls. I would have never selected this spot with a sober mind. The front door is obviously where the murderer enters a cabin. I immediately started hearing things…ya know, the usual night time sounds…rain, an animal breathing next to my ear, wind. Okay, so maybe not the breathing animal. This one threw me off as well. After the hearing things wasn’t enough to fully freak me out, the mind decided to take over the scary movie project. While I’m writing this, I’m playing that fun game where you arrive at a strange image or a thought, and you replay every thought it took to get you there. So, my ending image: CLAPPING HANDS.

All I kept thinking about was how I would be the first one to die. I mean, there are advantages and disadvantages to that outcome. Death would be the obvious disadvantage, but several advantages might include not seeing 8 other girls die. Once the brain hit that string, I couldn’t get over the fact that if 9 girls were murdered in one cabin, that would become a movie. That’s better than Bundy’s three in one night by a multiple of three. I assumed an intelligent murderer. Not sure why. Perhaps because I was in a cabin full of future Ph.Ds, I assumed that the man (yes, I pictured a man) that put us away would have to be smart. This led to the creepy thought of how a smart murderer would kill the first person in the cabin on the couch…ME!

I determined that he would obviously slit my throat. Why? Because then I couldn’t warn the others. But then I smirked to myself and experienced some internal dialogue, “Oh smart murderer, don’t judge a book by its cover.” By this, I meant, a girl with a slit throat is not simply a useless girl with a slit throat. In fact, she still has hands. My lasting image was me clapping my hands to warn the other girls. How clever of me. Call me Doc.

This would undoubtedly lead to them waking up from drunken slumber, and the result would be 8 v. 1. Advantage: 8 Ph.Ds.

I fell back asleep feeling much more content about the kind of person I am. What began as a selfish scary movie about me being the first one to die ended with a final unselfish gesture to save the lives of 8 amazing women.