The Witch and the Room Maid, Part II
I still do not believe in the occult, in black or white magic, in ghosts or demons but this recent occurrence is something I cannot explain. I have not imagined any of this. This was no isolated incident but a series of events and, as concerns the curtains, it was not only me who could not open them.
This story reminds me of a time when I was twelve-years old. My father had taken a school friend of mine and me to London Heathrow airport for the day. At that time he worked for British European Airways (B.E.A.) before they became part of British Airways. My pal and I spent the day wandering around the airport looking at the aircraft and watching the mechanics at work.
My father collected us at the end of his shift and we walked back to the car park with a colleague of his. He then told us that the colleague would be driving us all home. Apparently my father’s car had been taken to the local garage for a service and there was a problem, which meant it would not be available until the following day. I stopped in my tracks. I could not move and I was gripped by fear. “We cannot go with him, the car will crash” I remember saying. I was told not to be ’stupid’ by my father as his colleague assured me that in fifteen years of driving he had never had an accident. I repeated my belief and steadfastly refused to enter the colleague’s car. I was eventually, forcefully, put in the car by my father and we commenced the journey home.
Within five minutes of exiting the airport we were on the Colnbrook By-Pass. There was thick fog and visibility was down to only a few meters. We crashed! We went into the back of the car in front of us and were part of a twenty car collision. There were no injuries in our vehicle, or any other as I recall. The thick fog had meant traffic was moving slowly, but the point is we had crashed. I knew we would crash! I said we would crash! And we did crash!
I have one further story in the vein from about fifteen years ago, the early ’90s. I was staying for the weekend with my good friend Martin at his house in Fulham. It was summer; the days were long with it being light through to at least nine o’clock in the evening. We had decided to go to one of our favourite local public houses and sit outside for a few beers before going off clubbing or whatever we did in those days. As we walked towards the pub I saw three males walking towards us. They were several hundred meters away and little more than dots on the horizon. I just had this bad feeling and suggested to Martin that we cross the road — I did not like the look of these men approaching us. Martin was obviously mystified by my comment and thought I had been sneaking a few early drinks. We could not see the faces of these men and there was nothing untoward in their behaviour that would justify my concerns. I heeded my own advice. I went with my instincts and crossed over the road. Martin remained on the same side of the street and, as these men approached, he stepped off the sidewalk onto the road to allow them to pass unimpeded. As they passed, for absolutely no explicable reason whatsoever, one of these men threw a punch at Martin resulting in him receiving a broken nose and our night on the town became several hours in the St. Mary’s hospital outpatients’ waiting room.
None of these events can be rationally explained. To me they merely show that within us there are senses we hardly use and others we do not even know we have. As if to prove my point, as I was writing this story my Yahoo mail box was open and minimised on my computer. It showed ‘(0 unread) Yahoo! Mail’. When I finished writing, I sat back, lit a cigarette and wondered if my friend Kevin in Hong Kong had started to read the manuscript of Riff-Raffles I sent him a few days ago. I looked up at the screen at that moment and saw it change to ‘(1 unread) Yahoo! Mail’ — which when opened revealed a new message from … Kevin.
Now things are getting rather spooky!
