 CHILDHOOD FEARS My childhood memories are like a selection of old photographs, filled with sunshine and ice-cream or party hats perched above elastic smiles. But if I were to carefully sift through my brain-album, there would also be memories stained by darkness lurking in the corner, seeping and light-absorbing. When I was a kid, there were three main things I was scared of – life-like dolls, clowns and imaginary shapes shifting in the darkness. These fears were mainly rooted in two movies I watched: Poltergeist (1982) and Child’s Play (1988). The clown toy scene in Poltergeist had embedded itself so deeply in my subconscious that even as an adult, I’m reluctant to look under my bed at night. In Child’s Play, when I saw Chucky’s head rotate without batteries and say, “Hi, I’m Chucky. Wanna play?”, my phobia of moving dolls was cemented forever. There was also that 1980s photobook of hauntings which my sisters gleefully brought back home one day. Try as I might, I can’t remember the title, nor can I find any details of this mysterious book online. I like to think it appeared just to haunt me. What I do remember however, is the mirror-like sheen of its front cover, its inky black smell and its dead weight on my little hands. Inside, people could be seen with stuff oozing out of their mouths (which I later found out to be a substance called ectoplasm), girls were flung across their rooms by some hostile unseen force, apparitions hovered above staircases and ghostly passengers sat in the back of cars. Strong emotions would arise from the pit of my stomach when I gorged on the book, like an addict knowingly lacing themselves with poison yet helpless to do anything about it. Still, I grew up relatively normal – or so I thought. When I penned my debut Gothic poetry collection, Where Decay Sleeps (published by Haunt Publishing), I realised that not only were my demons not exorcised by the passage to adulthood, but had only laid dormant over the years, reincarnating themselves inside poems such as Porcelain, Shadow, Plain Paper, and other ghastly imaginings within the collection. In hindsight, the title Where Decay Sleeps couldn’t have been more apt; the hauntings had finally been reawakened through the pages of my book. Anna Cheung Anna Cheung is a poet based in Glasgow, Scotland. Her debut poetry collection, Where Decay Sleeps was published by Haunt Publishing in October 2021. She has also been published in Koening Mag, Driech Magazine, Dark Eclipse, Dusk and Shiver and Potluck Zine, and by Zarf Poetry. Her poem ‘Survival of Solitude’ was included in From Them, To You, an illustrated book by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (published by Speculative Books) gifted to breast cancer patients in the UK to help improve women’s body confidence and mental health. WEBSITE LINKS Where Decay Sleeps paperback: https://www.hauntpublishing.com/books/anna-cheung/where-decay-sleeps/9781916234734 Where Decay Sleeps ebook: https://www.hauntpublishing.com/books/anna-cheung/where-decay-sleeps/9781916234741 Where Decay Sleeps audiobook: https://www.hauntpublishing.com/books/anna-cheung/where-decay-sleeps/9781916234758 Haunt Publishing Twitter: https://twitter.com/HauntPublishing Anna Cheung Twitter: https://twitter.com/annasmcheung  Red across black, the blood moon smeared her lunar cycle across the night shedding the sky from scarlet to rust. His garden awakened Where Decay Sleeps lays 36 poems on the undertaker’s table, revealing to us the seven stages of decay: pallor mortis, algor mortis, rigor mortis, livor mortis, putrefaction, decomposition and skeletonisation. Readers are summoned to walk the Gothic ruins of monsters, where death and decay lie sleeping. Tread carefully through Satan’s garden. Feast your eyes on the Le Chateau Viande menu (before your eyes are feasted upon). Read the bios of monsters on Tinder. Discover the unpleasant side effects of a werewolf ’s medication. Blending traditional Gothic imagery, modern technology and Chinese folklore, Where Decay Sleeps is the debut poetry collection from the haunted mind of Anna Cheung. TODAY ON THE GINGER NUTS OF HORROR WEBSITE JASON OFFUTT IS LOOKING FOR THAT SPECIAL GIRL IN THE CORN. the heart and soul of horror featuresComments are closed.
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