October 17th - 12:55 AM
Let me explain that for the last few nights, I’ve not been feeling well. In fact, I’ve been feeling like forty miles of bad road! Being fifty-eight years old, you tend to have a few ailments and mine all seem to spark up around this time of the year, right when the weather changes. Here in Pittsburgh, the weather was like that of August: warm and sunny. This week, the daily temperature has barely been hitting fifty with lows each night dipping near the freezing mark and living in a hundred and twenty year old house high up in the neighborhood of Carrick in the South hills, the place tends to get a bit chilly at night, even with the heat turned on, and these old bones and ligaments tend to start aching as that coldness settles into them and hurts like hell! So what I’m saying is that getting any kind of normal sleep for me is basically impossible with each movement I make, a new bit of electrified bolt of pain forces me to groan out and keeps me from drifting off into that blissful night of sleep.
Because I’m not sleeping regularly and find myself either up late or waking up in the middle of the night only after a couple of hours, I need to find things to occupy myself with and that’s usually watching a video, or playing a video game, or working on one of my book projects. Tonight, I was working on one of my book projects, doing a bit of research online. I was sitting in my office, in front of the computer, listening to some stuff off of YouTube. My cats were split up through the house, half down in the kitchen where they tend to lounge because of the coolness of the tiled floor, while the others were crashed out on my very comfortable rocker-recliner. Lights were out downstairs in the kitchen and I’d made sure that the door and all of the windows had been locked before coming upstairs to work on my project. I think that had been about an hour ago. As for the guy who rents a room from me? Well, he’d been feeling sick as well and for the most part, been hiding out and sleeping in his room with those few exceptions where he’d come out to grab a bite to eat or go out onto the porch downstairs to smoke a cigarette (I’m on oxygen so there’s a no-smoking rule inside).
Normally, I’m a pretty observant person but when I’m suffering from (as my dear old mother would put it) “a bout of the rheumatism,” my ability to be observant tends to vanish like the invisible man as I attempt to focus on something to keep me from feeling the aches and pains that I tend to feel. Also, I was working on my project and when it comes to work, I tend to focus solely onto that, so there’s my reason for working; to focus on it and not the dull aches and electrified jolts of agony which accent the dull aches. So I’m sitting here in my office, working away and as far as I know, my housemate, roommate, whatever you want to call him, is there in his room next door to my office, which he has to pass in order to go downstairs for any reason, is still in his room. So there I am, in my office listening to some video and from downstairs I hear what sounds like the door opening and closing. At the same time, I hear my downstairs cats all rush up the stairs into the living room, and that is followed by a male’s voice which sounds like that of my roommate - thick Puerto Rican accent and all, let out a loud yawn like sound while attempting to say something at the same time.
“Is that you?” I call out from my office. “How the hell did you get passed me?” Which I followed with: “Where the hell did you go?” Curious to know why he’d been gone for such a long time since I remember locking the door just after the eleven o’clock news had come on.
Instead of his reply coming from downstairs, I suddenly hear him speak from his room, his voice quite muffled behind the door: “What you talking about?” Was the reply. “I’m in my room!” It was at that moment that a chill went up my spine and I responded loudly by saying “What-the-Fu,,,” And that was followed by me jumping out of my chair (as quick as a 58 year old guy on oxygen could) and yelling at the top of my lungs: “WHO THE FUCK IS DOWNSTAIRS!?”
Now I want to remind those of you who know me and to explain to those of you who don’t know me well, I’m from Chicago, born and raised and I might be nearing sixty, but I still have that Chicago attitude where I don’t scare easily and if you ask my kids or any of my ex-wives, I have a habit of running into the “Shit” and not away from it! So, jumping out of my chair, I made my way quickly out of my office, into the living room where I grabbed a flashlight and began flipping on lights as I made my way through the house and down the stairs into the kitchen, expecting to see some stranger standing in my kitchen that I would have to beat over their head with a skillet or chair or something and then calling the police to take the intruder’s ass to the hospital to keep him alive. Instead, I found no one. No one, nothing! What the fuck!???
I did not hallucinate this and the cats certainly reacted as they normally would when the door opens and someone comes in, scattering as fast as they can, upstairs and under furniture! Windows were still closed, doors closed and securely locked, nothing out of place at the moment...
Earlier today, I’d been talking on one of the groups I belong to on Facebook, about how my cats see invisible things on one of the walls in my living room and I’d been told that where they’re looking is a vortex between the two worlds - life and death. Some of you are now gonna say “BULLSHIT” but that’s okay - come spend a couple of nights here with me... They’re not the only ones who can see things. I have a cat whose passed now fourteen months ago and I’ve seen her dashing along the floor at times, out of the corner of my eye. And then there’s another spirit that’s attached to this old house - I’m not sure if it’s the ghost of an ex-roommate who committed suicide last year (He made the news) at this time (READ THAT STORY HERE) , or one of the previous owners of the house, coming to check on me from time to time - tugging on my shirt from behind...Perhaps it was him (or her) who made the sounds a bit ago?
How about some feedback on this? Do you believe in spirits, in ghosts? And with some of you my neighbors out there, have you ever felt that your house was haunted, slightly or otherwise? Or do you think that this is just an old cat man story brought alive by the onset of dementia? Maybe this is just my way of getting all of you ready and in the mood for Halloween and I’m just having a little fun with yinz....
Respectfully submitted
October 17th, 2018 - 2:00 AM from Carrick Pa.
E. C. Stout (Marty)
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