Ghosts

For a long time I’ve had quite a fascination with ghosts, mostly because of the mystery that is associated with them. 
Are they the once living who have passed on, or are they something else?   Are they demons impersonating the dead
with evil intent?  Are they us from a parallel universe who’s voice and/or essence have transcended the line that divides
the universes?  Could we actually be ghosts in someone else’s parallel universe?

Okay. So there are more questions than answers.  For me that’s fodder for several more novels.

I think one of the best ghost stories that I have read is Ghost Story by Peter Straub. But to be honest I have not read
many ghost stories.  At least, not a story where the main plot is based on a ghost, or ghosts.

I would love to write a good ghost story.  But it has to be unique.  It can’t be the same old stuff.

When speaking of ghosts one experience stands out for me.  It happened a few years ago when my children were little. 
At the time we were living in an old house downtown.  It was a three bedroom.  The bedrooms were situated off the
hallway.  Our boys stayed in one room and our girls in the other.  From the living room one could see the boy’s bedroom
door on the other side of the hallway.  That was a good thing because the boys would sometimes sneak out of bed and
try to scare the girls in their bedroom.  At this particular time it was late.  My wife and I were watching a movie.  The kids
had settled down.  I hadn’t heard anything from them for a good while.  From the corner of my eye I saw one of the boys
leave the bedroom and head down the hallway.  I jumped out of my seat.  “You’d better get your butt back in that bed,” I called as I stepped in the hallway.  But the hallway was empty.  I went into the girl’s bedroom expecting to find one of the boys hiding there.  All I found were the girls sound asleep.  I went to the boy’s room thinking that maybe the guilty party
had somehow slipped back into the bedroom.  The boy’s looked to be asleep, but to be sure they weren’t pulling one over
on me I went back out of the room and hid in the hallway listening for whispers or any kind of movement.  I heard nothing.  After a couple minutes I snuck back into the bedroom.  I tried several strategies to get either of the boys to reveal
themselves, but it didn’t happen.  I finally came to the conclusion that they were indeed asleep.

I can’t say what really happened that evening.  Over the time that we lived there, however, my wife and I have heard the
faint, brief voice of a child a time or two when our children were not around.

I have to admit that all of this could have been our imagination.  Maybe it was.  I never got around to calling one of the
ghost busting teams to confirm it one way or the other.