I've retold this tale many, many times over the years. It's become a common topic the more ghost tours and investigations I've attended so the story has become old hat to me at this point. But it does lay the groundwork for what's become my personal history in the realm of the unexplained.
I've mentioned for years that we grew up poor and it wasn't until I was a teenager did our family finally live in a proper home and I had an actual bedroom rather than a converted garage to sleep in. Yes, dad worked at a patio construction shop so he had access to construction materials that could almost pass for something real but when the 'walls' that separate your bedroom from the living room and the bedroom next to yours are just thin particle board and honeycomb paper, you really don't have much. But it was in this living situation, the converted garage at grandma's house that I saw my first 'entity' and realized something was amiss even then.
Now, grandma's house had stories. Oh, so many stories since as far back as I could remember. Unusual dreams were the most common among anyone who lived or even stayed there for any length of time. And in one of the bedrooms on the opposite end of the house, family claimed to have felt people tugging on their feet in the middle of the night. But what I experienced when I was probably about 8 or 9 years old, I'll never forget.
I was sleeping in my 'bedroom' when I awoke in the middle of the night. Not a clue as to what time it was other than it was dark. No bedside clock to even look at. From where my bed lied, I could look out the opening that made up the door that lead into the living room. And from there, I could see pretty much the length of the room, from the front door to a curtained alcove dad made up as a closet for the family. It was that darkness where there's a blue hue to everything, the only real light coming in from a window along the wall opposite the door. And it was in this darkness I made out a figure in front of the closed front door. Totally in black, which considering the hour of night and lack of any light, didn't seem out of place. The figure looked to be a female form, dressed in what looked like a robe and atop their head, a bundle that could be described as a turban, similar to a woman with her hair wrapped up in a towel. So my mind immediately assumed it was mom coming in from having showered in the main house.
I watched as she walked from the front door to the closet area, behind the curtain and then nothing. Dad had set a pull-chain lightbulb and that was the only light available back there. But the light never came on. It felt like minutes that I kept waiting for the light to shine from the gaps in the curtain. It may have only been seconds but it struck me as odd what mom was doing back there in the total darkness. Finally, after what felt like forever, I started to call out to her.
"Ma!" nothing.
"Ama!" silence.
"AMA!" I called out again hoping to get some kind of response. Still nothing. What is she doing back there in the dark?! I called out a couple more times before dad responded from their bedroom.
"Que quieres, mijo?" What do you want, son?
"Donde esta mi ama?" Where's mom?
"Aqui dormida. Que quieres?" Right here sleeping, what do you want?
I don't even think I replied, I just pulled the covers over my head and forced myself to try and sleep. But obviously I've never forgotten about that night.
Naturally, anyone who will deny the existence of shadow people has likely never seen one. Or if they have, they've attempted to rationalize away what they actually saw. But even my young mind realized what I saw had no explanation. There wasn't anything outside the window that could have created any sort of shadows that appeared to move, like a human would, tracking that distance in that space of time and actually pull the curtain back before going in.
That also wasn't the last time I would encounter a shadow person. But the next time wasn't in the middle of the night and I wasn't alone when I saw it.
No comments:
Post a Comment