Ghostly Encounter

When I die, I'm coming back, just to prove a point.

Every once in a while, I see dead people--or at least people who shouldn't be waltzing through my green beans and okra.

The other day I was bucketing a ration of feed for the chickens. My feed and all my gardening supplies are kept in a nice little building thirty feet across from where my chicken yard is.

The double doors were wide open since it's been so unbearably hot as of late. Greg was in the garden adjusting the sprinklers when I looked up from the feed barrel and saw a woman in a long blue and white dress walk past the doorway.

Her hair was hidden underneath a bonnet of some sort. In her hands she held something, though to be honest I wasn't sure what it was. It looked like a little book to me.

I'm staring at her with my mouth hanging open and she just vanishes--right in front of me. I walked outside to see if she would reappear somewhere else, then I called to Greg.

Me: Did you see that?

Greg: See what?

Me: That woman in the long blue skirt. She walked right past the doorway.

Greg: Seeing things again, eh?

At which point the conversation ends with me mumbling some unkind things about his ancestry.

Greg doesn't pay much attention to me anymore when I point out apparitions. He knows there are some things in this world that I'll see and he can't.

I can't explain the phenomenon. I do know it tends to happen in spates. I might go a year or more without seeing anything unusual, then BAM! within a week, there will be a whole rash of appearances.

In the same week of the lady in the blue dress, there was a shadowy man who leaned over my shoulder while I was reading some operating instructions, and several voices that became silent as soon as I walked into the room.

I've long since stopped worrying about ghosts. They're there and as oblivious of me as I am of them (most of the time).

But why do I see these people when I do? I used to blame it on my overactive imagination, but it almost always happens when I'm doing something that requires analytical thought, like measuring or counting.

The lady in blue startled me because she was so very clear. I could easily see the stiffness of her dress, the faded blue skirt, and how tiny she was. I even heard the hem of her dress drag on the grass.

It was that sound that made me look up in the first place. (I thought it was a snake rustling through the grass and I was fixing to get my hoe and make it a good snake.)

As soon as I saw what she was wearing, I knew she wasn't physical, so I didn't say anything. Though I wonder now if she would have acknowledged me if I had.

Except for a couple of instances long ago, I've never been able to communicate with these apparitions. I promised Greg that if I died first I was coming back to tell him what was on the other side.

And he said he didn't want to know! :sigh:

I'd want to know. How about you? Any takers? Maybe I could just swing by your place instead.