Saturday 13 May 2006

Pic of the day: Picture from real life. Really. The forest is kinda golden just as it is about to become green.

No ghosts here, move on

Tonight I woke up a little before 1 in the night. I was alone in the house as usual ... the owner will be back in the basement sometime this summer, but it is still some way off. Despite this, I heard sounds that sounded like light footsteps, as if someone was threading lightly so as to not be heard, but failed. In this house, sound carries a lot better than where I lived before.

I thought the sound came from downstairs, perhaps. I quickly dressed and (threading softly myself) went out in the corridor that connects all the rooms. There I smelled something I haven't smelled for quite a while, a faint smell of mold.

At this point I realized that this may well be the only place I have lived for any length of time that has been owned and lived in by someone who is now dead. Even though I grew up in a 100 years old house, it had been completely taken apart and moved across sea and running water before being raised again where it now stood, and the founder of the farm was still alive (my grandfather). The house where I lived for most of my adult life was almost new when I moved in, and built by the elderly couple who lived upstairs.

I quickly reminded myself that I don't actually believe in ghosts. The Bible says that the dead know nothing. "Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun."

But even were it not so, would there really be a reason to fear ghosts? Isn't the reason people fear ghosts exactly that they should not be there? Aliens are fearsome too, because they don't exist, so if you meet one, you kinda know something is not right with the world. Or your head, possibly. I guess I have more reason to be worried about that. But not quite yet. I am still able to realize that I am just not used to living in this house, not used to its sounds, not used to it being so poorly isolated and channeling sounds from outside in unfamiliar ways.

For instance my bathroom has a small ventilation opening that seems to work like a channel, bringing in the voices from neighbors that I'm not sure are even my next door ones, so clearly that it sounds like they are standing just outside the window. (They are not, I checked, and it happens all the time.) I have no idea whether this works both ways... -_-*

Where I lived before, I actually had something similar in the kitchen part of the living room. The opening where the ventilator would draw steam from the oven up and away, also worked as a sound channel when not in use. When people stood outside on the opposite side of the house, I could hear them rather loudly (but not clearly, because of the metallic echo). But I was used to that. I am not used to this house yet. I wonder if I shall be here long enough to get familiar with it?