[Zedbra]

I grew up close to an old coal mine outside Nanaimo that had collapsed and several workers had died in it. A friend of mine lived a few miles down the country road, in an old miner's cabin on a hill. Often just before dusk, you would hear the sound of several boots coming up the stairs to the main door - which I even heard myself a few times - even after my friend's father had removed the stairs (trying to stop the noise). Also one time in the house, I was headed to the bathroom when something clear but blurry and in no shae other than squarish came out of the bathroom, and stayed in the middle of the hall, then started slowly moving down the hall away from me towards th back door. With the front doors' stairs missing, there was no way for me to book it out of there until this 'blur' left out the back. After that one, I never went back to Shane's house, I invited him over to my place.

At my current house, I used to have various strange things happen here. When I first moved in, I was a bachelor, and one night I had a couple of my closest friends over for some drinks and poker. As we are sitting around the table, I start to tell them of the odd things happening around the house, and the interesting one being that lights would often turn on right in front of me as I walked through the house - and sometimes they would turn on if you asked nicely. My friends were calling BS and laughing as they tipped their beers. Just then, the light right above our table turned off and the kitchen lights turned on - with the switches being 20' apart. Well, they all stopped laughing and spit their beer, which made me laugh.

My ex wife would often see a 'black figure' close to me, sometimes as I sit in my chair reading, but most often it would be in our bedroom. She would always wake up first and take a shower, then it would be my turn to get out of bed, but I always stayed in bed with my eyes closed even though the lights were on. On several occasions, she would scream and say that she saw the 'black figure' once again appear and it would be bending over, with one arm on the bed, and it was either kissing my head or within a few inches of my face. I think I have caught a glimpse of this figure, but not to the level that others have around here. My current wife has seen the figure a few times and I think I just saw it a few weeks ago when I was out of town - so it is defintiely attached to me somehow.

Also, after our first child was born, we would often find that some of his toys would all of a sudden light up and start making sounds and voices at all hours of the day and night. At first, I dismissed it all as cheap Chinese junk, but there was this one toy butterfly that no matter how flat I left it, that thing would start to sing through the night. To activate the butterfly, you needed to bend the plastic wings towards you. I was telling a neighbour of mine about all this stuff one night, him and I tipped many cocktails and I considered him as a father figure and part of my family. He replies, "Oh! That's Jeffery, my son that passed. He's just checking up on you." So, I asked if he would come down and tell Jeffery to please stop goofing around and let us sleep; which he did actually come down to my house and 'talked to' his son on the weekend. That day forth, no more toys lit up anymore. My wife still talks about this one, it was a little surreal.

Anyways, the lights turning on and off have stopped in the last five years. Black figure thing still pops up every now and then, and sometimes things that I simply cannot find will appear next to my keys a few days later - so I write this up as something looking over me shoulder. I prefer to think that than what any alternative may be. Can't explain any of it, don't really want to think too much of it, and I kind of miss having the lights turn on in the hallway in front of me when my arms are full.