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From Mensagenda - October 2003
Partly Cloudy
by Karen Cyson
I Don’t Believe in Ghosts
I don’t believe in ghosts. How could I?
Does the concept even make sense? It’s
absurd. Dead is dead. And the living are
left to dwell or deal.
There is just one rather small problem
with my belief system. Or, actually, now
there are two.
The first problem occurred at the home
in Roseville where I grew up. It was, as I
came to think of it, “The Man Who Didn’t
Come to the Door.”
I was the official dish
dryer after dinner. My mom
washed, I dried (no comment
on where my sister
might be). And we’d stand
at the kitchen sink, facing
south. Over the sink was a
window that looked out over
the driveway on the side of
the house.
To our left was the table,
and an east-facing double
window, and to the left of
that, the back door.
Downstairs, in the basement, my dad
would be working in his shop. There was
a basement window just below the sink
window.
Many’s the time that I’d think I saw
someone pass below the sink window. It
would be just a blur, perhaps the top of a
head — a hat? hair? And I’d glance to my
left expecting to see someone pass the
window over the table or perhaps appear
at the door.
I never saw a person. Sometimes a
shadow; nothing more. And I’d glance at
my mom and we’d share a perplexed look
and go back to the task at hand. I knew
she’d seen it, too. Several times even my
dad saw it and he’d call upstairs, “Marian!
Who’s here?” No one. Just the Man Who
Didn’t Come to the Door.
It’s not as if we live in a haunted house,
or even a house with a “history.” My dad
had built the house. We were the first
occupants. Our suburban development had
previously been a farm field. There’d been
no tragic death, no unrequited love, no
drama of any kind there.
Who was coming to visit us? I never
did find out. He/she/it never made it to
the door.
I’d never had any similar close encounter
in my current home. Twenty-five years
and nary a blurry visitor — until last month.
I was doing an “end of
picnic season” cleaning of
my two picnic baskets —
making sure all the plates,
utensils, napkins, etc., were
clean and ready for next
year. The baskets were airing
out on the patio outside,
and I was sorting the
innards to make sure the
baskets received the correct
accouterments.
I lifted up the redchecked
tablecloth and was
about to fold it when the
program from this summer’s
Shakespeare in the Park production fell
from the folded fabric. We’d seen Twelfth
Night and I must’ve tucked the program in
with the tablecloth and forgotten it.
Looking at the program, I remarked
out loud (and I was by myself at the time,
for what that’s worth...) “You know, Will,
your comedies are fun, but don’t you think
you overdid the mistaken identity/lost
twin plot line by using it in so many plays?”
I’m not, believe me, in the habit of talking
to myself, or to dead playwrights for that
matter. But, program in hand, a soliloquy
seemed somehow appropriate. Until I saw
the blur outside my dining room window —
a cape? a cloak? — and heard the rush of
wind. Followed by the sound of both picnic
baskets toppling over.
Methinks the Bard does not agree with
my review of his plot devices. If he had
come to the door, we could’ve discussed it.
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