Somno Modo

The Drish House

So I was talking to my brother and we were discussing something we witnessed as kids on our way to visit family. My great grandmother lived in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. We were headed to a family reunion for her 90th birthday in January 2009. So I was a few months shy of being 10 at the time. There was a full moon that weekend. My dad was driving on the interstate, on the exit to Tuscaloosa when I pointed out the window to these giant flames shooting out of the forest.
   We were in a five seat car, my two brothers, dad, and step mom. My dad said that there must be some kind of crazy pyrotechnics show going on somewhere. But I said that these flames were way too tall to be in control. We all saw it. It kind of bothered me on the way to our hotel. The next day we were at my Gammy's birthday lunch at this big seafood restaurant that opened up to a patio on the river.
   We were standing out on the deck watching the ships float by when my dad's cousin Marty asked us if we wanted to hear a scary story. My dad looked annoyed but my middle brother and I were eager to hear it. He said a long time ago there was a man named Dr. Drish and he and his daughter lived in a mansion. One day he caught her messing around with a poor peasant boy and he locked her away in the tower. Supposedly she just got passed bread, water, and candles to survive in solitude. And then one day, either by mistake or because she wished not to live without her lover, the tower set ablaze.
     Giant flames shot into the sky and his daughter died. But occasionally people would come running down the street with buckets of water, banging on Drish's door saying his house was on fire again. Only to run upstairs and find nothing. We asked my dads cousin if he was joking, and told him what we saw the night before. After lunch he drove us to the house and we drove around. Most of the windows were boarded up and broken.
   When I got home from Alabama I got a weird email from a long time friend. It contained a bunch of random images. Pepsi and cola logos, random things, but as I scrolled through....there was the house I'd seen in person just days before. One of it really old. Then more soda logos and then one where the mansion appeared to be a car wash. More photos and then one where the house seemed to be a church. I freaked out and emailed her back. I didn't hear anything back until I went to school after winter break ended that week.
    I asked her why and how she knew to sent those pictures and she claimed she didn't email me at all. She had no idea what scared me and this was when I had a flip phone without internet so I couldn't pull it up to show her. Looking back now my great grandpa who I never met, had a bunch of old soda bottles in my great grandma's basement that I had been touching that trip. Maybe that's why the soda logos were in the email too.
     If you look up Drish House in Tuscaloosa, Alabama you can go through and see some of the various pictures of the house and the folklore around it. The picture used for this story collection is of how the house looked when I went to see it in person. The house has been many things and versions of Dr. Drish's house differ. Some say she lived,  some do not. There's pictures of it as a church and auto shop. It was built by slaves.
    Whatever energies lie there,  are the strongest I've ever witnessed.  For five people to see flames shooting higher than the trees.  An incredible phenomenon that one probably only would be allowed to witness once.
    Something worth mentioning would be that when I got to my great grandmother's house the first day I found a dead bird on the stove in the kitchen of her basement. The kitchen door was closed and every window was sealed and barred....