The Unexpected Visitor

I went to a land,

Where there's no one there,

And met a man,

Who wasn't there.

He wasn't there yesterday,

And he wasn't there today.

I wonder how he is,

The man that wasn't there.

After a hard day at work, dealing with some particularly difficult customers, (don't you just love them!) my body and brain had ached all over. All I wanted was a hot bath and bed. Feeding the hungry kittens, I made myself a hot mug of coffee, and collapse onto the large comfy sofa, and closed my eyes.

As hard as I tried to unwind, I was finding it difficult. A great feeling of uneasiness came over me. It was as though I was waiting for something to happen. But what?

After some supper and a bath, I curled up again on the sofa and read a book. I must fallen asleep because I was woken with a start, the kittens had jumped on me wanting to play.  AsI came to, I could smell smoke. Gently moving the kittens of me, I quickly went through the house to check where the smell was coming from. I couldn't find the source. I looked at my watch, 10.30pm.

I told myself I was imagining things. My neighbour sometimes had a little fire to burn leaves and old wood. It was probably the scents from that. I was about to go to bed when totally out of the blue, the scent of smoke wafted past me again, but this time, it was stronger, and it wasn't the smell of pine that I had smelt earlier, this time it was tobacco, cigar tobacco.

Suddenly, I felt something or someone slowly walk past me. I froze. Now trembling all over with fear, I tried hard to pull myself together. It was hard. A great sense of loneliness engulfed me. For a split second, I could hear someone breathing close by me. I slowly sat down clutching a pillow for comfort. The tears now streaming down my face, and my voice shaking I said out loud 'Whoever's there, please please go away'. A thin white mist floated past me, and a shape of an elderly man briefly appeared, looking straight at me, then equally quickly disappeared.  I was terrified. I had just seen a ghost.

Having composed myself, I walked upstairs to bed, as I turned into the bedroom I was suddenly aware of someone behind me. Turning quickly, an ice cold sensation went through me. There was nothing there. As I was about to get into bed, I was stopped in my tracks, to my left, I was immediately aware of the sound of a rocking noise, like an old rocking chair, rocking to and fro. It seemed to be coming from the left side of the bed. As I looked in total disbelief, the out line of  the elderly man that I had seen earlier appeared  in front of me, he was sitting in a large rocking chair, and he looked as though he was smoking a pipe.

A few days later I discovered that forty five years earlier, a man called Arthur, who had once lived there, had died in that room. He was a carpenter by trade, and had made the rocking chair himself. His body had been found in a rocking chair, exactly where I had seen him in it. He had  loved smoking cigars and a pipe. He had died between 10 and 10.30pm.

By Jackie. Pin No: 500285.

Next time: The dream that turned into a nightmare.