The Ghost that Interrupted my Early Writing Sessions and Other Underwhelming Tales of the Paranormal
Lately I've been reading a lot of blog posts about ghost stories. Most of these are marvelously entertaining - tales of ghost ships and spooky old mansions with otherworldly inhabitants. The sort of paranormal stories you expect to hear this time of year.
The sort of place one might expect to be haunted. I must admit, the haunted hallway in my former apartment just doesn't compare.
When I was a kid, we lived in this one house for years - a decently-sized two-story place that was well over a hundred years old and had once been a parsonage. It was not scary or haunted. Nope, not so much as a peep from a ghost or anything out of the ordinary inside its aged walls. But the house's garage (a much more recent structure) was a different story.
Or at least, that's what my brothers and I thought when we were kids. The garage really creeped me out. I hated going in there alone. Sometimes I'd go inside and hear sounds that made no sense, like breaking glass when there was none. And I remember a light fixture swinging back and forth for (apparently) no reason. On these occasions I would hastily sprint in the opposite direction - after all, I didn't want to ride my bike that badly. I remember my little brothers telling me stories of weird, spooky sounds heard in there too.
I'm not saying the garage was haunted. But it was definitely creepy, and at the time I thought it might be. But the point is, it would probably be difficult to get people to take you seriously if you did have a haunted garage. After all, we usually expect historical, atmospheric places to be haunted, don't we? Stately old mansions, maybe aged farmhouses where people lived hard lives and generations lived and died. But you don't see a whole lot of movies made about haunted garages, probably because the idea of a lost soul lurking among bicycles, sacks of bird seed, tubs of outgrown toys and summer pool / lake flotation devices doesn't sound all that horrifying (unless you're 10).
And yet, I bet that somewhere out there, there's a haunted garage. I mean, there are bound to be anti-climactic hauntings in dull places, aren't there? Unless all the ghosts in the world are like "I'm not going in there, it doesn't look like a location out of a horror film or Stephen King novel at all." or "I only haunt places that are at least 150 years old - 50 if it's a hotel that a dead celebrity once stayed at." (Possible term for this: haunt snob. LOL)
Anyway, I am convinced that I've experienced some seriously lackluster hauntings - or at least, something paranormal-y. When I was a college student (and aspiring novelist) I used to rent a crappy townhouse. It had been built in the 70's (which showed) and was the kind of place where one lived because one couldn't afford to live anywhere better. It wasn't glamorous, historical or spooky (unless you were frightened by the aged electrical wiring which could, and nearly did once, lead to a spectacular apartment fire).
Mine was a two bedroom unit, so I had a spare room where I'd set up my desk. I'd sit in there and work on my writing on my laptop. My German Shepherd - a model guard dog - would lay beside my desk chair and we'd be in there for hours, totally silent as I devoted my powers of concentration to figuring out how to string a story together.
Occasionally, we were interrupted. Not by a voice, a vision, or clanking chains and woo-ooo-ooo sounds. Just the soft but clear noise of fabric whipping around the top of the curved staircase - the telltale sound of something rounding the stairs and entering the hallway. We'd hear something coming down the hall, toward the room - my little office - at the end, toward us.
My dog would lift her head, and prick her big ears toward the hallway, her expression serious. And then she'd jump up and head to the door. She'd look up, like she was staring into a person's face, and the hair on her shoulders would rise in a black crest, standing on end as she did her defensive bark, filling the whole place with the sound, like she was trying to keep someone at bay, out of the room.
I remember one time when she kept this up for several minutes. I went and stood behind her, looking out into that empty hallway. There was nothing to look at. But she obviously thought she was defending me against something. And I'd heard someone rounding the stairs and moving through the hall.
And really, even as I stood there, just a couple feet from the place my dog was staring, it wasn't very scary. The room had a big window that the sun hit at that time of day. It lit up the whole room, shining in through my gauzy curtains. It was just strange.
Of course, nobody besides me (and my dog) actually believes that anything was there. If I tell anyone that story, they inevitably say something like "Oh, I bet you had a mouse in your ceiling." And then they give me that look, a glance that dismisses me as an impractical doofus with an overactive imagination.
Because spirits don't walk the halls of income-based apartment complexes. Or at least, if they do, nobody's particularly interested in hearing that when there are ghost ships to be talked about.
But despite the fact that I do have quite the imagination, I like to think that my dog and I aren't have co-delusions. And I've owned her for six years now. I know that when she's inside the house, she only barks if someone comes to the door or tries to break in. We've had mice, and she treats them the same way as spiders - she chases them down and tries to eat them, like it's a game.
Still, I think I'll keep the ghostly contents of my books decidedly more dramatic. Like the headless horseman in Haunted Passions , the Irish family ghosts in Spirited Away or the spirits who aren't afraid to make their presence known in Wuthering Heights . Those sorts of things really do make for better stories, especially when it comes to fiction.
What about you - do you have any underwhelming tales of the paranormal (or possibly paranormal to tell)? I'd like to hear them, and I promise not to roll my eyes and tell you there's a mouse in your ceiling. ;)
The sort of place one might expect to be haunted. I must admit, the haunted hallway in my former apartment just doesn't compare.When I was a kid, we lived in this one house for years - a decently-sized two-story place that was well over a hundred years old and had once been a parsonage. It was not scary or haunted. Nope, not so much as a peep from a ghost or anything out of the ordinary inside its aged walls. But the house's garage (a much more recent structure) was a different story.
Or at least, that's what my brothers and I thought when we were kids. The garage really creeped me out. I hated going in there alone. Sometimes I'd go inside and hear sounds that made no sense, like breaking glass when there was none. And I remember a light fixture swinging back and forth for (apparently) no reason. On these occasions I would hastily sprint in the opposite direction - after all, I didn't want to ride my bike that badly. I remember my little brothers telling me stories of weird, spooky sounds heard in there too.
I'm not saying the garage was haunted. But it was definitely creepy, and at the time I thought it might be. But the point is, it would probably be difficult to get people to take you seriously if you did have a haunted garage. After all, we usually expect historical, atmospheric places to be haunted, don't we? Stately old mansions, maybe aged farmhouses where people lived hard lives and generations lived and died. But you don't see a whole lot of movies made about haunted garages, probably because the idea of a lost soul lurking among bicycles, sacks of bird seed, tubs of outgrown toys and summer pool / lake flotation devices doesn't sound all that horrifying (unless you're 10).
And yet, I bet that somewhere out there, there's a haunted garage. I mean, there are bound to be anti-climactic hauntings in dull places, aren't there? Unless all the ghosts in the world are like "I'm not going in there, it doesn't look like a location out of a horror film or Stephen King novel at all." or "I only haunt places that are at least 150 years old - 50 if it's a hotel that a dead celebrity once stayed at." (Possible term for this: haunt snob. LOL)
Anyway, I am convinced that I've experienced some seriously lackluster hauntings - or at least, something paranormal-y. When I was a college student (and aspiring novelist) I used to rent a crappy townhouse. It had been built in the 70's (which showed) and was the kind of place where one lived because one couldn't afford to live anywhere better. It wasn't glamorous, historical or spooky (unless you were frightened by the aged electrical wiring which could, and nearly did once, lead to a spectacular apartment fire).
Mine was a two bedroom unit, so I had a spare room where I'd set up my desk. I'd sit in there and work on my writing on my laptop. My German Shepherd - a model guard dog - would lay beside my desk chair and we'd be in there for hours, totally silent as I devoted my powers of concentration to figuring out how to string a story together.
Occasionally, we were interrupted. Not by a voice, a vision, or clanking chains and woo-ooo-ooo sounds. Just the soft but clear noise of fabric whipping around the top of the curved staircase - the telltale sound of something rounding the stairs and entering the hallway. We'd hear something coming down the hall, toward the room - my little office - at the end, toward us.
My dog would lift her head, and prick her big ears toward the hallway, her expression serious. And then she'd jump up and head to the door. She'd look up, like she was staring into a person's face, and the hair on her shoulders would rise in a black crest, standing on end as she did her defensive bark, filling the whole place with the sound, like she was trying to keep someone at bay, out of the room.
I remember one time when she kept this up for several minutes. I went and stood behind her, looking out into that empty hallway. There was nothing to look at. But she obviously thought she was defending me against something. And I'd heard someone rounding the stairs and moving through the hall.
And really, even as I stood there, just a couple feet from the place my dog was staring, it wasn't very scary. The room had a big window that the sun hit at that time of day. It lit up the whole room, shining in through my gauzy curtains. It was just strange.
Of course, nobody besides me (and my dog) actually believes that anything was there. If I tell anyone that story, they inevitably say something like "Oh, I bet you had a mouse in your ceiling." And then they give me that look, a glance that dismisses me as an impractical doofus with an overactive imagination.
Because spirits don't walk the halls of income-based apartment complexes. Or at least, if they do, nobody's particularly interested in hearing that when there are ghost ships to be talked about.
But despite the fact that I do have quite the imagination, I like to think that my dog and I aren't have co-delusions. And I've owned her for six years now. I know that when she's inside the house, she only barks if someone comes to the door or tries to break in. We've had mice, and she treats them the same way as spiders - she chases them down and tries to eat them, like it's a game.
Still, I think I'll keep the ghostly contents of my books decidedly more dramatic. Like the headless horseman in Haunted Passions , the Irish family ghosts in Spirited Away or the spirits who aren't afraid to make their presence known in Wuthering Heights . Those sorts of things really do make for better stories, especially when it comes to fiction.
What about you - do you have any underwhelming tales of the paranormal (or possibly paranormal to tell)? I'd like to hear them, and I promise not to roll my eyes and tell you there's a mouse in your ceiling. ;)
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