Hypergraphia 4: Fatally Yours and The Greedy

Like I said before, this song seems to be very out of place compared to the other songs that the author wrote down. It's about death/dying like "Seasons in the Sun" and "The Rake's Song" and, like "The Rake's Song", it focuses on killing. But the genres are very different, and it just doesn't seem to fit.

And this is the "Greedy" segment from Raggedy Anne and Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977). It focuses on a character called The Greedy who lives in a place called The Taffy Pit and eats, and eats, and eats but can never get his fill. His song is about him regretting his existence and includes the line "Is this endless eating all there is to be?" The author seems to be particularly focused on this phrase.

Hypergraphia 3: The Rake's Song

Hypergraphia 2: Seasons in the Sun

Hypergraphia

TranscriberEllie: Hypergraphia is a behavioral condition characterized by the intense desire to write. It is often associated with epilepsy. It is also the best way to describe the contents of the next notebook. I'm not going to transcribe it; I can't even make out large parts of it. I'm instead going to upload some pictures I took and try my best to decipher what I can.

It might be kind of weird, but I actually recognize a lot of the writing that's on this page. It's all song lyrics. The first part is "Seasons in the Sun"

Then it goes into "The Rake's Song"

And at the bottom is "Fatally Yours"...which really seems out of place with the other two songs here.

This phrase isn't from any of the songs on this page. It had me really confused until I saw the next couple of pages.

I don't know how well you can see it here, but there is writing on this page, too. I'm not entirely sure, but I think it says "Is this endless eating all there is to be" but that might just be because of the next page.

Now this I didn't recognize at first. It sounded familiar but I couldn't place it. So I googled it, and it's from a Raggedy Anne and Andy movie from the 1970's.

These pages were the easiest to make out in the notebook. A lot of the rest is writing on top of writing. I'll probably upload pictures of the rest of the notebook another time, but I want to try to focus on these pages for a little while. Maybe there's a reason the author left these as the most legible.

Through the Night Pt. 3

TranscriberEllie: Since I didn't post anything yesterday, I figured I ought to post twice today. Enjoy.

"We just have to last through the night."

It went on for about a week. The days seemed safe enough, at least safe enough for us to sleep. But, at night, we could see them...the bugs, crawling on the windows. We could hear them as they crowded against the walls. A few would get in sometimes, crawling through the space under the doors even though we had blocked those off. We'd kill them when they did. I swear I could hear all the bugs outside shriek in anger or pain or both whenever I killed one. I never asked if she heard it too.

The last night was cold. It was damn near freezing. I was hoping that the cold meant that it would end soon. I was hoping that it would mean the bugs would die or go somewhere warm, or whatever it is that bugs do when the weather turns. She was shivering so I went upstairs to grab her another blanket. The ones downstairs were too thin. She needed something warmer.

I had just gotten upstairs when I heard the crash. I froze. I was too scared to move, too scared to go back and find out what happened. I stood like that for maybe a minute before I was able to remind myself that, if they had gotten in, she would need me. I wasn't sure that she'd be able to make herself run from them. She would need me there to make her run.

I didn't get all the way back down. Just far enough that I could see into the living room. Just far enough that I could see her lying on the floor. Completely still, skin cracked and broken, her eyes gone. And bugs. Bugs all over the room, heading for me. I ran back upstairs and into our bedroom.

I have all the possible openings closed and blocked off with bedsheets and towels from the bathroom. At least our bedroom has a bathroom attached. I won't go thirsty. I'll starve to death in here, but none of them have gotten in yet and it's been four days, so at least they won't be able to get me. I'll die, but they won't be what kills me. Thank Go---

Oh shit. The bathroom. The pipes. I forgot the fucking pipes!

Through the Night Pt. 2

TranscriberEllie: Sorry for the delay in posting this. I had to work a double shift yesterday, and, well it sucked and I just really didn't have time to get on here. Sorry again.

"We just have to last through the night."

Things were better once. I try to remember that, but I can't tell if that makes it worse or not. I remember when I went to bed early and I woke up early. I had to. Farms start early and require rest. I remember when I didn't panic at the sight of a bug. I would just swat it away or ignore it. After all, bugs are everywhere, and you can't ever really get rid of them. You kill one and pretty soon there'll just be another one there in its place. I learned that early and just kept an eye out for the dangerous ones.

Now I know better. They're all dangerous.

I learned that the night I heard her screaming outside. I was watching tv. Some creature feature called Critters that I knew had to be turned off before Mark saw any of it. He was terrified of monsters; in the closet, under the bed, hiding in the shadowy parts of the barn. He was starting to get over it ever since I had the idea of giving him a flashlight with one of those green lightbulbs in it and told him that monsters are scared of the color green. I don't know where I got that idea, but it seemed to work.

They had just found the mutilated cow when I heard the screams coming from the back porch. I ran outside, and I saw him. I saw Mark on the ground. Dead, of course. Bugs everywhere. It was like the ground itself around my poor boy was made of bugs. She was standing on the steps, screaming. The bugs were moving towards her. I grabbed her and pulled her to the door. She tried to get away from me, to get to Mark, I guess. She didn't want to just leave him out there, dead or not. I didn't want to, either. But I had to get her inside before she died, too.

Ten years old. Ten fucking years old! That's all he was. A ten year old boy just starting to get over his fear of monsters.

I finally got her inside. She was crying and tearing at her hair. I made her sit on the couch and kept a tight grip on her wrists. I didn't want her to hurt herself. I asked her what happened.


"He started twitching and crying...and...and he said he could feel them...then he fell down...and....we just have to last through the night. That's all. We just have to last through the night."

Through the Night

TranscriberEllie: This is from the first notebook. It's a bit shorter than some of the others, but there were breaks in it where the author would just switch to a different page. So I'm going to break it up into separate posts (one a day) in keeping with the original formatting.

"We just have to last through the night."

That's what she always said. Every single night, she would sit on the couch, chin on her knees, an aerosol can in one hand, a lighter in the other, and say "We just have to last through the night." She would say it over and over and over, like a chant. Sometimes I wanted to hit her, beat her black and blue. Just to make her shut up. It was bad enough having to deal with this every single night without having to listen to her on top of it all.

But I never touched her, at least not to hurt her. There were plenty of nights when I would wrap my arms around her, hold her against me. Just to feel safe, or to make her feel safe. I knew it had to be harder for her than it was for me. She was the one who actually saw what happened to Mark. I only saw a glimpse of the aftermath as I was pulling her back into the house. I saw his body lying there on the lawn, completely still, the skin cracked and broken, the eyes gone completely. He was ten years old. Had only been ten years old for a few days. I see his body every time I close my eyes. It was the worst thing I've ever seen, and if it weren't for her, I'd say it was the worst thing I could imagine seeing. What she saw was worse.

I could never get the full story out of her. To be honest, I didn't try that hard. The fragments were enough, more than enough. I don't want to know everything she saw. I'm glad she never told me all of it. I'm glad I didn't see it happen to her.