Go Figure

The blog I posted yesterday began with this comment: “It’s very quiet in the house …” and ended with this comment: “It is really quiet.”

This morning I awoke to a cacophony of crashing and tinkling sounds right outside my bedroom doorway (the door was open). More accurately, I had awakened earlier but had drifted back into a semi-sleep reverie. When the sounds began, I quickly rose to one elbow and faced the doorway, trying to understand what I was hearing. It seemed like the noise was coming from the living room or from just around the corner – in the hallway between my bedroom and the living room. The noise sounded like a bunch of aluminum pie plates and glass jars falling onto the floor. It lasted about 5 seconds. I live alone, so my first concern was: is someone in my house? I mean, besides me.

I got out of bed and listened; all was quiet again. I walked to the living room and looked around. I saw nothing unusual. Everything was in its place. I checked all the rooms but found nothing to explain what I just heard.

You may be thinking “hypnopompic”, as I was partly awake. Or “hypnagogic”, as I was drifting back to sleep. And you may be right. But when the sound began, I shot into full wakefulness in an instant, but the sound continued for a few more seconds.

This happened once before, not long after I moved into this house. I was working at my computer which, at the time, was located in a back room, when suddenly I heard a series of loud, crashing sounds. It sounded like pots and pans tumbling to the floor. That sound also lasted about 5 seconds and seemed to originate near the kitchen. Because I was awake and alert when it happened, I didn’t think someone else was in my house. I just thought something in the kitchen had fallen and somehow triggered an avalanche of cooking vessels. But when I inspected the kitchen, I found nothing out of place. I never discovered what caused the sound.

One night I heard someone kick my front storm door. My porch light was on so anyone on my porch or running from it could be seen. I got to the front door fast, because I wanted to catch the person who kicked the door. The street is well lit and I looked in both directions but there was no one to be seen.

My mother passed away on a sunny day in June, 2003, after living her last years alone in this house. That night several guests, including me, stayed at the house. During the night I awoke with a strong feeling of a presence in the room. The feeling was so strong that I turned on my bedside lamp and looked around. Of course, I was alone. I went back to sleep. But I didn’t sleep long.

I awoke with the bedside lamp flashing beside me. It flashed on and off in groups of three: Flash, Flash, Flash…Pause…Flash, Flash, Flash… I reached over to the lamp and turned it on and then off. It stayed off. “Weird,” I thought, and I went back to sleep.

My visitors left the next day. I half-expected something odd to happen that night, but nothing happened. The next morning I got up, went to the kitchen, and made tea. The window blinds were closed and the living room was cool and dim. I took my tea to the living room and sat in a chair in front of the dark TV. Suddenly I heard the noise: a powerful BAM! that definitely originated in the kitchen. What the hell? Did something explode? I went to the kitchen and looked around. I even looked inside the refrigerator. I found nothing amiss. It was hours later when I realized what had caused that sound.

The kitchen at that time had 1940s-era sheet metal cabinets. One of the cabinets had a broken latch and would not stay closed. You could close the door but as soon as you moved your hand away, the door would drift open a few inches. The BAM! was the sound made when the cabinet door was forcefully slammed shut. The sound of the metal door slamming hard against the metal cabinet was unmistakable.

When I mentioned this event to the preacher next door, he said it was probably caused by a breeze. But there were no windows open; it was summer and the a/c was on. And no “breeze” would have slammed that door that hard. But as they say, “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.”

How do I explain these events? The first two – the flashing lamp and the slamming cabinet door – I like to think of as my mother’s just-released spirit saying goodbye to the house and to me in the only way she could. As for the others, I don’t know. The Germans have a word: poltergeist. It means noisy spirit, and it’s part of the folklore of many countries. But these are modern times. I can only shrug and say, “Go figure.”