A Ghost Story or Time Travel? You Decide...

We drove to my friend Todd’s house in Mountainside late one night, the car taking the curves slowly as we made our way through the reservation. The night was warm with lots of stars in the evening sky. It was just getting dark and I was glad that my friend, Sue, was driving. Our dogs panted happily in the back seat and I fiddled with the radio, just as we turned to head up Todd’s street.

“What’s going on up ahead?” I asked as I trained my eyes on the group milling around the entrance to Todd’s driveway. “What’s with all the people? What do you think happened?”

There was a spotlight on up ahead. No painted dividing line in the road, and the area seemed more woods-like than I remembered it. A man in long sleeve blue pajamas, with stripes, was talking and gesturing with his hands to the woman beside him. She was short and dressed in white. A nurse, I thought. The group looked like they were waiting for something. Had something happened? I felt as if something had. The man turned to face the street and I could see he had short brown hair that was parted on the side.

I didn't recognize anyone. I turned toward Sue.

“Pull up.” I turned back to the window and pointed, but the people were suddenly gone. In a flash…poof! “What?”

“Linda, there is nobody there. What were you seeing?” Sue pulled the car into Todd’s driveway and we got out to join him inside the house.

I recounted what I had seen and said that I felt it had to do with an incident that happened in the area many years before. My reading on it was that there was no paved road and it was not as developed, but more rural. The man I saw was in pajamas and barefoot, and the scene of a fire sprang to mind. He was waiting for help while his house went up in flames. There was no line in the road because this was before 1940, and I feel they were milling around to wait for the fire department to arrive. The man was gesturing as he retold what happened to him to his nurse, as I am sure he was a patient of some kind. Or at the very least, under a doctor’s care.

Was this vision a past experience, which means they were ghosts? Or was this a vision of parallel time and the people I was seeing re-enacting a scene that happened in their lives in the spot where the memory of it is strongest?

I’ve yet to decide. Have you?
Send me your comments.