I don't really know what to write... er... type.
I used to be an avid journal writer. I have the books and books to prove it. I loved clutching my big storybook journal and head off to Coffee Chicago. This was back in the day when I seemed to be the only person doing this. “What? You go to a place and have coffee? And that's it? ALL BY YOURSELF?!!!”
So now that I have this blog, I want to just dump all of my thoughts, etc. but the catch is, now people can READ them! (insert thunderclap and a distant scream). There are alot of things that inspire me to write and so now, here, this quiet Saturday morning, I will just randomize.
The first thing that has been on my mind of late is this Austrian Josef Fritzel jerk-wad. I will be walking down the street and just shudder thinking about it. Last night at an open mic, someone was singing “Danny Boy” and when he got to the part in the song where he talks about lying under-ground or however the lyric goes, I just had one of those freak-out body shake things. Eek! Yuck. The thought of being in a basement where apparantly you couldn't even really stand up straight just wigs me out. A day in a place like that. Yuck. So let's toss in another 24 years! 24 YEARS! He put this poor woman down there a year before I graduated from College. She helped him bring a door down to the basement not knowing that this was the last time in a long long long while she would be descending a staircase, leaving the light of day. Absolutely horrific. And then the continuing circumstances and the fact that these children grew up NEVER seeing the light of day. The hardly only possibly lucky one is the five year old who just might possibly lead a somewhat normal life.
Apparantly at the psychiatric ward where they are currently, they are each in their own rooms, adjusting to the ability to have their own private space, being able to HAVE space around them, but just as a pre-caution, they have a storage container for them to crawl into if they need to. I mean, THAT is what they are used to. Could it possibly be the opposite effect that instead of being claustraphobic in a small space, they actually are very uncomfortable in a large open space. These children knew of nothing but a dimly lit basement apartment their entire lives. The poor daughter of the daughter is in critical condition. Her illness saved their lives though. I hope she recovers. But how could anyone recover from something like this 100%?
The children are very pale (obviously) having NEVER been exposed to natural light. Their immune systems are challenged for never being exposed in a social way to germs and communicable disease.
It just has to be one of the most horrible things I have ever heard.
And it's amazing that they survived.
And amazing that he got away with it. I mean, he expanded and built more rooms during the 24 years. He had to bring supplies down there. He had to have the door open for a spell to get all the stuff in there. And not a soul found out. I imagine he had the daughter and the children locked in a room or tied up and gagged or something. And they DID knock on the pipes and ceiling and walls. Tenants in the building (tenants of this monster) noticed the sounds but he told them it was the heating making the sound.
This guy's punishment should be that HE now has to live down in that hole for the rest of his life. Drop in every five years with a five year supply of clif bars or something. And then wave bye bye and lock the door on HIM.
Also on a side note, this just is not a good day to be austrian. (which I AM partly). And I used to like being austrian because of “the sound of music” but now he and that other dude, ya know, the Hitler jerk... just make us austrians look really bad. Really bad cartoon control freaks.
My natural way of dealing with things that make me uncomfortable is to hide behind humor. But THIS just leaves me numb and baffled. I pray those people can evolve into capable and rightly deserving citizens of the earth ABOVE ground and flourish and become happy people with nothing but a properous future ahead of them.