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Through The Window
Someone is watching me. I’m old enough to notice it, but not old enough to say anything about it. Through my cradle I can feel his gaze. Why does he ignore my sister? Is it because she’s asleep? This happens every night, always in the dark, as if the sun didn’t allow him to look through the window. My mother tries to get me to sleep, she sings a song, she reads a story and eventually manages to put me to sleep. It’s an old house located in a middle class neighborhood. My father chose it because he was in desperate need of a house. By far its best feature was the tree in the front lawn, I’ll always remember how majestic it was. In a way it reminded me that even though we were new there, the tree was a witness of past stories.
Its night time again, this time I’m three years old, and he keeps watching me through the window. I try to wake my sister up but he disappears, my sister is now mad at me. I hear my mother walking through the hallway, I stay silent so I don’t scare him away in an attempt to show my mother who’s been watching me, but again he disappears as soon as she enters. Even though I’m quite young I know my only chance of getting them to believe me is if they see him like I do. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you asleep?” my mother says “It’s an old man! “ I say, “But he disappears when you come in”. My mother explains how that is impossible as my room is located in the second floor and no old man could get there. She invites me to the balcony to show me there is no one there and she was right, but only for a few minutes, as soon as she left the room the old man was back. He’s so real I’m sure I can even touch him if I go out, but I don’t, I’m too scared.
It’s late at night and everyone is sleeping except for my dad who is watching T.V. upstairs. We all wake up as the sound of broken glass and cooking utensils hitting the floor travel through the house. “Did you hear that? Was it you? No.” we asked ourselves. My dad went down only to find nothing, there was no sign of broken glass or any mess really. He came back up and told us it was just old house noises. Through the years we got used to it and even laughed at the noises the house made. I’m older now and as I go to sleep I still see him through the window and I stop and look him closely. He’s an old man, he seems educated and wears an old brown suit with shiny shoes, he’s elegant and has quite a strong presence. What caught my attention were his eyes, he didn’t have a threatening look, but instead he looked to be begging for company, he seemed lonely. At school they mocked me and told me to stop making up stories. Eventually I just gave up and kept quiet about it.
26 years have gone by since we left the house, I haven’t seen the old man since. I found myself in a family reunion and was speaking with some ladies who had been in touch with the families that stayed in that house after us. One of them asked me “Where you happy living there for 8 years?” “Yes” I answered. Bewildered they asked if we hadn’t heard any weird noises coming from the kitchen, or if any of us had seen an old man wearing a brown suit?. The previous owner of the house committed suicide by hanging himself from the second floor balcony and some of the owners say that an old man appeared every night just standing outside the window
They say ghosts don’t exist, that they are only a figment of our imagination.
Me, I still keep quiet.
