This story a part of the True Ghost Stories page on Obiwan's UFO-Free Paranormal Page. Please do not copy or distribute without permission from Obiwan and/or the original author!
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 21:06:14 -0700 (PDT)
To: guestbook@ghosts.org
address anonymous
story In the fall of 1997, my school was preparing to put on the play "Jabberwock", the story of author James Thurber growing up in Columbus, Ohio, my home town. This humourous and poignent play was a favorite among local residents and was expected to open to great acclaim. I was cast in the role of James Thurber's father, Charlie. About halfway through our scheduled rehearsals in preparation for the play, we were informed that we would be visiting the Historic Thurber home, which was not far from our own school. The thought of seeing where our characters were set was of course, exciting, so we jumped at the oppurtunity, and eagerly awaited the day when we would go there.
On a Saturday, we all arrived en masse, in a long troop of cars. The Thurber house looked much like other houses in Columbus that were fairly old. It had been restored in the exact fashion that it was when the Thurbers lived there, making it quite stunning when one walked in to see this completely out of place setting in a modern city. As we walked in, our tour guide, a nice, if vague lady greeted us and had us gather in the main dining room of the house. (After our tickets were payed for of course.) There, she began to recount for us, a story we were all very familar with, as it was a scene from the play. Where my character (the father), enters the house late at night from a canceled business engagement, and did not call ahead to warn anyone. The main character, James Thurber, is not aware of this and mistakes his own fathers clumisness for a ghost. In his panic, he wakes up his little brother, who joins him in an expedition to their kitchen where they find milk spilt by their father, which they mistakely believe is "ghost blood". They rush back up to their room, and their mother comes out, hearing the commotion, upon that time, she thinks their burglars. Several incidents later, the police break in the door, and the whole thing is resolved, after a great amount of confusion. The incredibly bored looks on our faces prompted our tour guide to ask "Have you heard this story before?" at which point it was explained to her that we were performing Jabberwock, about Thurbers growing up and that we were performing this exact scene and knew it far too well. About the time we announced that we would be acting out the people who had once lived here, a large screech was heard, and the chandelier above us rocked, and the lights went out. We all looked at each other and shrugged, we didn't think much about us. A few jokes were made, and we moved on to explore the rambling house.
As we neared the upstairs bedrooms, where many of the play scenes were acted out, as with most drama people, we had other art interests, mine happened to be photography, while several others had video cameras. I went through each room, snapping shots of each room where a scene was played out in the play, to help me better visulize my characters. Halfway through the tour, my fresh lithium batteries died. I was only about 14 shots into my 36 shot roll of film. This of course, annoyed me to no end, as such I walked through the rest of the house grumbling. Just the same, the people with video cameras all expierence a failure of battery power. At the time it was little more than an annoyance.
As we walked on our own through the house, we would run into a tour guide who would explain something significant about each room. In the room that was my characters private study, where he went to escape his family's often zany antics, the original couch he sat in was there. For my own curiosity, at the invite of the guide, the railing around it was removed and I was allowed to sit down and see what my Charlie saw nearly 90 years ago. As I sat there, looking around the study, the guide walked away to answer questions about a photograph nearby. I watched her go, musing at what her pay must be for working here, when out of the corner of my eye, I thought something moved. I turned quickly to the place, but there was nothing there at the small desk. But I couldn't shake the cold feeling that had come over me, sitting there. As though it was some form of sacriliege to imitate this man, in his own house. Needless to say, I vacated the study, and elected not to go back.
Sometime later, as our tour was winding up after exhaustive exploring of the house, we were shown a photograph of the family at the time when the play was set. Much to our amazement, and amusement, we all bore a strong resemblance to the people we were portraying. All long dead. As this sunk in, as their lifespans were announced, we all quieted down, thinking about the fact that these people we portrayed so lightly, were dead. But they had lived at one time, and we were in their house.
The next day, I went over to my nearest 1 hour photo developer and submitted my half used roll of film. After a good lunch, I headed back and picked up my film. I payed for it and headed out to the car. Once settled, I slowly looked through each of the photos, for the most part, they were unremarkable, exactly what I saw when I shot them. Except for the photo of the study. Charlie's study had a wavy, whitish form that was translucent, it was the afterimage of what looked like a man, sitting on the same couch where I had sat. After several moments with my mouth agape, I put the photos away and headed home, where I shared the photo with my family and friends who all agreed it was the weirdest thing they'd ever seen.
The play turned out to be the most fun time our drama crew ever had, and resulted in three consecutive sold out performances. Maybe we all gained a little bit from the real people to perform. But we still wonder about what we saw, and heard.