Weirdness Magnet

I was driving home from the theatre the other day, and I could feel a tug on the side of me, as if a gentle, all-over pressure was pulling me in a particular direction, in this case, toward the right.

I look. The moon is about a zillion times bigger than it usually is, and crazy bright, hanging just in the treeline and on the roofs of houses like some fat unorthodox cat burglar. Stopped at a red light, I can see it moving, and wonder if it's some optical illusion. If I closed my eyes, I could feel it, pick it out in the sky like a blind man can feel the heat of a lamp and think he can see its brightness with his nonfunctioning retinas.

There's a terrible feeling of loneliness, and need, and of some unnamed, undone feeling... for all the people of the past who have looked at the beauty of that moon, and felt her tug. For the loss of the intangible natural beauties of the world, for the simplicity of the past, for the want of love and comfort, and the want of wildness and magic. For something... that wolves might howl for.

Like an idiot, I locked myself out of the house that day. It was fifteen minutes before I had to be in front of a class teaching. I locked my car keys inside the house as well. It was about five degrees outside, with a wind chill well below zero, and one of the coldest days of the winter. I was wearing thin dress slacks, thin dress socks and wingtip-like shoes, which are not known for warmth.

I ran next door to my neighbor's house. Fortunately, she was home, and was able to take me in to school. I was only five minutes late. Not great, but not awful, either.

After class, I took the campus bus out to the road where the regular bus comes and waited in the frozen bus stop for a long time. The busses only run about every 45 minutes at that time of day, due to cuts. I was really cold by the time it finally arrived. I rode it down to the closest stop to my house--probably only a half mile away, if that, and jumped off and started to walk home.

Have I mentioned that I do not do well in the cold? I was really not dressed for the weather and by the time I had walked for only a few minutes, I was well into frozen, and by the time I had walked just a little more, I had started to hallucinate.

What did I see? Crazy stuff, sky and the bright sun, a myriad of people's faces, people riding on a plane, and then a shot of the plane flying, and then landing in the water, somewhere cold. It didn't go under, though, and soon there were people climbing out onto the wing.

Finally I got home and wrapped myself up in blankets and drank tea until feeling returned to my extremities.

Later that night, I told my roommate I "saw" this plane go down. He asked me details, I told him what I just wrote here, and then he tells me that one just went down into the Hudson River.

Ok. One for the Magnet.

I drove by the Clinic today and was stopped at a stop light. I turned to look at a person standing there on the sidewalk by where I was stopped.
The man was very pale, very grey. He looked directly at me. There were dark circles under his eyes and some sort of stain on his shirt. I thought he might be a bum, for a moment. I looked back up at the light, for just an instant, and then back at where he had been, but he was gone. There was nowhere he could have hidden himself in that span of time.

Several houses down, I have a neighbor, an older, retired gentleman named George who owns a pet cat named Marmalade. She's very old, with a mouth defect that makes her look as if her mouth is always a little bit open. She's also so skinny that her hip bones stick out at the base of her tail like two little bumps. It's not that my neighbor doesn't feed her well, either--he feeds her tuna and chicken scraps in addition to cat food every day--plus she is an active hunter, bringing George trophy chipmunks and bird heads as "presents" often. But she has a thyroid disorder which keeps her bone-thin. Her orange coat is scruffy and she always looks a little bit dirty, but every day when my neighbor walks up to the grocery store, she is right behind him. She follows him back, too. I've seen her waiting for him in the grass outside the grocery store parking lot on several occasions.

Last weekend I went up to the grocery store and saw her there again, sitting in the grass in her customary spot, waiting for George. I called out to her, as sometimes she'll come over to let me pet her, but this time she just sat in the grass, waiting. I did not intrude in her private thoughts.

As I loaded my car, she turned her head and I saw the mouth defect that makes her so distinctive. It was definitely her.

A few days after this happened, I recieved sad news: Marmalade died two weeks earlier, which is about one week before I saw her at the grocery store, waiting for George.

Different theatre, this time. Cleveland Playhouse.

I was on my way out, after rehearsal, alone. It was late, dark, and as soon as I got off the elevator, I had that ghost feeling.

There's a turn and a large room between me and the exit. I didn't want to make the turn but I did, anyway. Nothing.

However, off the large room is an incredibly long, dark hallway, with shiny floors and rooms coming off it. It looks somewhat reminiscent of that hallway in the film, The Shining.

I glanced. I couldn't resist.

About halfway down, a grey figure stood in the middle of the hall. He seemed slight, probably about my height, and entirely grey and transparent, almost like a shadow, except that there was nothing behind him to cast shadows upon, or in front of him to do the casting. Almost immediately, he leapt into, and through, the wall. It was very quick.

I work at a school where there are a number of adjunct professors. (All of whom are badly paid, unfairly treated, overeducated, and under appreciated, but that is another Grand Mystery of the Unexplained, which at this time we will not explore)

On my way into the library this Tuesday to meet with my students, I saw one of my fellow adjuncts, an art history professor. She was about ten feet away from me as I lumbered on past, my arms filled with books. I said, "Hi, Anne!" but I presumed she did not hear as she did not acknowledge my greeting.

I went on with class, and afterward, went back to the office shared by the adjunct pool. It was deserted. Typically, there are at least three to seven of us in there at one time on the days when I am working, and I thought it was odd. I graded some essays in the quiet.

About two hours later, another of my fellow adjuncts appears, in an agitated state. I am about to leave to get the key to my classroom, when she accosts me.

"Oh my God! Have you heard?" she stares at me, wide-eyed.
"No, I haven't. About what?"
"You'd better sit down."
I do so.
"What happened?" I ask.
"You're not gonna believe this. Anne's dead!"
"What? Anne the Art History professor? Blonde, sits up there?"
"Yeah! They found her this morning."
"But--"
"She died sometime over the weekend."
"But I just saw her in the library. Today."
"Today? "
"About two thirty."
"That is--you are--so weird."

So, this has happened a few times. I will be sitting at home, quite alone, when it is very quiet, when I will hear, soft and muted, a conversation or a single voice speaking. It always happens in the upstairs bedroom, almost always very late at night, or early in the morning. It seems to come from the general area where the outside wall meets the closet. I have not been able to make out the words when it is a conversation, although once when it was a single voice, I thought that I heard it say my name: Cat.

I have considered the possibility that it is someone outside, although upon further investigation, I have discovered no one outside when it occurs. I have also considered the possibility of it being my neighbors who could possibly be speaking very loudly and in different-sounding voices, I suppose, except for the fact that it usually happens when all the lights are out over there, or no one is home.

I have also considered the possibility that the computer speaker is somehow picking up some sort of cell phone or radio transmission, very faintly.

In any case, it is an interesting phenomenon for which I have no real explanation.