The Man Next Door

When I was about 7 my grandmother passed away in our house of old age. After that I always felt as if I would bump into someone who wasn't there, especially right outside my bedroom. I would be walking at a good pace sometimes and feel as if I've hit a brick wall that wasn't there. My mother said that my grandmother didn't die in my room but I know she did. I had to share my brother's room when she was living with us during her last few weeks. I remember someone grabbing me by the arm after feeling like I had just bumped into someone real hard. I was in the basement at the time so I don't know if it was cold because of a ghost or because of bumping into a ghost. After that I always beleived in ghosts.

When I was 12 or 13 I came home from baseball practice and was told that the elderly man next house over had writen a note and blown his head off with a 12 gauge shotgun. I was told to stay inside while the police did their report and the coroner finished up. I remember my father offered to clean up the blood in the basement where the man killed himself. It was odd that someone would kill themselves in my neighborhood. We lived in a fairly decent middle class suburban area.

Ten years later the wife of the man next door died of a stroke. Later the elderly couple's children sold the house to a nice family. I came back from college and moved back in with my family while looking for work. One day the mother of the family next door asked me who the old man in the house was. I didn't know what she meant at first so I asked her about the man and she discribed my old neighbor very clearly, down to his thick black glasses and powder white hair. She said that her youngest kids see him in the house all the time. I didn't tell her about the old man blowing his head off because I didn't want to scare them off. I wouldn't live there, especially after seeing the old man's ghost.


By: mattwhatley@insightbb.com