Ghosts

[Lefdmae Deemalr Effaeldm]

Spoiler

IMHO, Snape's Patronus being a doe is a spoiler - he saw the doe when he went to fetch the sword, he didn't know it was Snape helping him, the readers weren't supposed to know as well. Better to hide.

As for the topic - I've seen many things, some like strange coincidences, some hazy and questionable, I usually don't like to talk about them, maybe I'm too much used to be perceived as strange and suspicious, so I don't feel like telling things that can make people question my sanity.

[MsMary]

Maybe you should clarify that your spoiler is a HP spoiler, Eff.

Spoiler

Personally, I think that if we don't dwell on it too much it won't give much away.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

As the war was winding down, my grandfather was put in charge of decommissioning Naval Air Station Clinton, Oklahoma. While in Clinton he and my grandmother had met and began a very deep and serious love affair. They were older, in their late 30s, and had both been married twice before (in fact his second divorce was not quite final at the time). My grandmother's mother had been suffering from cancer for a while, but she was a vivacious and cheerful lady despite her condition. During this time she came to be acquainted with my grandfather during his courtship of my grandmother and had taken quite a shine to him. Eventually he moved into the house with them, and supposedly took the sleeping porch as a room although we're pretty sure that he spent more than a few nights in my grandmother's room. While he was living there he used to spend time sitting with my great grandmother at night and hold her hand and tell her how beautiful she was, despite her illness. His mother had died when he was young and he probably bonded with her in that way. She was a very religious woman, the wife of a pentecostal preacher, and he was a sailor who enjoyed more than the occassional libation, but they really bonded. After a while she told my grandmother, who had had two very bad marriages prior to this, that my grandfather was perfect for her except that he drank too much.

When he was finished decomissioning the base, my grandfather was sent to Washington DC to muster out of the Navy. With my grandfather's still pending divorce and my grandmother's bad experiences with her first two marriages, neither was quite sure what the future held, or even if they wanted to get married again despite the strong feelings they had for one another. They had both just come through a depression and a war and had learned that life has a funny way with the best laid plans. So when they said their goodbyes, my grandfather told my grandmother that if she didn't hear anything more from him that she should move on with her life, but if she did hear from him again he would come back after he was discharged and they would get married.

Not long after he left, he began writing her letters, letters that he knew she would be reading to her mother, who would understand that they meant he was coming back. So these letters were kept very G-rated despite the relatively torrid love affair they had been involved in. About this time my great grandmother's health began to fail and she went into the hospital. She was on her death bed for weeks. Finally the doctors told my grandmother that they had no explanation for her still being alive. She just won't let go for some reason is all they could say. A few nights later my grandmother was sitting up with her when she called her over. "Tell Turner that I just couldn't wait any longer to see him again. But when he sees me again, I won't be old and sick I'll be young and beautiful." Not long after that my great grandmother died.

That same night in a hotel room in Washington DC, my grandfather woke up to an apparition standing at the foot of his bed, bathed in a golden glow. It was my great grandmother. Only, she wasn't old and frail as he remembered her, she was young and beautiful. Her heard her speak: "I'm sorry I couldn't wait for you any longer, Turner." She smiled at him and disappeared. He wasn't entirely sure if he was dreaming or not, but not long after that there was a knock on his door. A messenger with telegram arrived with word that she had passed away.

[Worm of Despite]

Hey guys. As was probably obvious to most of you, I was kidding about the deer. But I did witness something on the edge of the woods late this afternoon that caught my eye.

Speaking of my eye: I've always had very little dissonance in terms of seeing things--that is, if I think or believe I saw something and I take a second look at the source it always was indeed something and not just an impression. If I "swear I saw something!" one second, then the second after that it was indeed something. But all my life that "something" was just something normal or confirmed in this universe.

Until now!

I was out in the backyard with the dog, and then looked for a moment at the woods behind the house. I saw a flash, completely disembodied and appearing like a camera flash but not quite as powerful. It reminded me in its speed of a firefly, there and gone and very organic in how it appeared, but as I said--its magnitude and color (an intense blue) was similar to a flash. I didn’t look away as I saw it and clearly registered it for longer than a glance, and as I scanned the woods there was no person with a camera or anything else out of the ordinary.

The flash was quite clearly settled on the edge between the forest and the backyard. It wasn't far off and I got more than a glimpse of it before it disappeared.

Anyway. In all my life never experienced anything quite unexplained. And maybe some chemical just popped in my brain and made it up, but last checkup I had fantastic blood-work and my fitness level at 27 is outstanding.

So there ya go. I either witnessed a disembodied...thing-flash. Or a very tiny UFO taking pictures of me.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

St. Elmo's fire? Will-o-the-wisp?

[Worm of Despite]

St. Elmo's fire? Will-o-the-wisp?

I like the idea of a wisp. It was very ordered and had an intense center and a cone of light radiating outward like a flash in every possible way--just no camera or body anywhere near.

And I can only speculate; but I think it was a spirit as we seem to be hearing (much as people say all aliens are grey little men) that spirits are traveling orbs. And I think, as Fire Daughter said, the space between the corporeal and the supernatural/other world is very thin.

So I think I saw a tear in that space. Some spirit traveling in the woods.

I had a feeling like I wasn't supposed to be turning that way. For some reason I think, if ghosts are real, they don't want me to see their activities. But I remember that normally I'd be watching the dog as he's very young and playful, but I turned that way instead.

Also: I wonder what happens to spirits after the world is destroyed by the sun circa 2 billion years from now?

Yeah. I blew my mind just now.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Be careful, David.

[Worm of Despite]

Be careful, David.

It's my job. I'm a writer. Well; not for a living--BUT. Been going at it for over a decade. I have to do this.

Self-mind-blowing.

Maybe we could mod and create a Ghost/Wicca/Pagan forum centered on mystery? I think that would be kewl.

PS. Will comment on your story soon, 'tis very late.

[deer of the dawn]

Sounds like a wraith, to me.