Many years ago myself and an older colleague received a call to go to the scene of a theft in a local supermarket. When we got there we found that the owner had a young woman detained in his office. He took us outside and told us that she had stolen something small and was not a regular thief. He said that he didn’t want her to be prosecuted but he wanted her to get a good fright.
My colleague looked at the owner and told him that he shouldn’t have called the police because what he really wanted was a ghost. The owner got a little embarrassed but I thought it was brilliant.
While I have seen many strange things throughout my life, there was usually a reasonable explanation for most of them. There are some circumstances that can cause the mind to play tricks such as dealing with some incident in the dead of night where you might potentially be finding a dead body. Certain situations can cause you to see things that aren’t there and can lead you to imagine all sorts of weird scenarios.
I remember one time calling to a house during the night after neighbours had become concerned for the safety of the occupant after he hadn’t been seen for a few days. He was living on his own and there was no reply when we knocked. There was, however, a partially open window at the back of the house.
With the aid of a ladder I climbed up into the blackness and managed to open the window enough for me to squeeze through. At the point where I was half in and half out of the window I started to wonder what I was going to find. My mind went into overdrive in the darkness and I began to imagine the deceased in several different settings.
He could possibly have died in a violent struggle and there could be parts of him scattered all over the house. He could be only half dead and waiting for me to climb in further so he could bash my brains out with a three iron. He could have been murdered and the murderer could be waiting to claim his second victim of the evening.
As it happened, I found his bedroom with the bed clothes thrown back neatly. I made my way downstairs where I found a warm kettle and a warm pot on the stove. It turned out that the guy was alive and well. He had recently taken up a part-time night watchman job and was gone to work. He was fine.
As youngsters we hear stories of witches, ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night. Stories of strange unexplained events have been passed down through generations. I suppose all that lies somewhere in the recesses of our minds only to be pulled out when we find ourselves in unusual situations. But as adults we can rationalise that it’s all just a load of old bunkum. Or is it?
Are we alone? Is it possible that spirits can make contact with us from some afterlife? I was always convinced that when we die we die and that’s that but now I’m not so sure.
My daughter went to a medium not so long ago. I told her she was daft and that she would be better off putting the money towards a few gin and tonics for herself. But she went anyway. While she was with this guy she made notes as he was talking. Some of what he was saying made some sense to her and some of it didn’t. In any event she enjoyed the visit.
Over the following few days she was looking over her notes and more of what she was told began to ring a bell. Certain personal things that he told her turned out to be very accurate. Information he gave her about the deceased people he was communicating with was very close to the bone and it was difficult to see how he could have known about it.
He described a particular room to her that a spirit was telling him he liked to visit to watch over the family. He described it very accurately including a painting over the fireplace. There was one thing he told her about the fireplace being out of alignment that didn’t fit but she just put it out of her mind. The room being described, by the way, was my sitting room.
Recently my daughter and I were sitting in that very room watching the television when all of a sudden she sat bolt upright in the chair. Her eyes were wide open and she was staring at the fireplace. There is a little column or pillar on either side of it and one of them is slightly tilted to one side making it look slightly out of alignment.
So are there certain people who have some sort of psychic ability to communicate with a spirit world? If that is the case then it opens up a whole different set of circumstances. That could mean that when I’m sitting in my recliner minding my own business, just reading the paper, I might not be alone. There could be someone else in the room with me or maybe even a small crowd for all I know.
On the one hand it’s a little unnerving to think I might be sharing my room with some spirits. On the other hand, unlike dealing with the living, they don’t annoy me. I don’t have to feed them. I don’t have to give them my best whisky, entertain them or tidy up after them. All in all, they’re no bother.
A while ago since you were climbing into Windows??
I was young and fit during the war.