Bisky's Twitterling's Scribbles! discussion

We all have stories in our lives that sound like they were meant for fiction. That's where creative non-fiction can come in. I want this thread to be full of stories that actually happened but sound too surreal to be true.

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I got on the train. It was its usual crowded mess at 11pm in the evening as I found myself a spot between the doors, one of those newer trains where the announcements are automated and there’s a board that tells you what station you’re on and which will be next. It’s New York, and no one acknowledged each other as we squeezed together, my headphones blasting music as I started to zone out.

This guy brushed up against me. Not on purpose. We were both holding the same bar, both making room for more people. In that moment I felt an electric buzz between us, that “love at first sight” tingle. Except I couldn’t see his face, and visually the rest of him wasn’t exactly my type.

Silently we rode through the stops as my heart continued to flutter, my peripheral vision picking up on his slightest movements. I wondered if he felt the same, whether he understood that awkward electricity between us.

I couldn’t help the fantasies. That overwhelming urge to just pull him in and make-out with him in that crowded train, to let all that was brewing to burst forth. I’d never do it though.

I considered it was best this way. The unknown. The mystery. Maybe this guy would open his mouth, say something ignorant or repulsive or worse, and the spell would be broken. We’d have nothing in common, or he’d be clueless as to why a random person was starting small talk on a crowded New York train. I kept my eyes to myself, forcing myself to zone out, to not be drawn to this complete stranger.

I planned to get off at the next stop, to transfer to another train on my way home. I turned in his direction to see the board, doing everything in my power to ignore his presence. At the last second, just as the doors began to open, I changed my mind, noticing a better transfer at another stop.

He floated through those open doors and up the stairs as I realized the error of my decision. We never said a word to each other as he disappeared forever, my heart breaking as I never even said Hi…

Which is strange. I love my boyfriend, that hasn’t changed. This mysterious stranger was nothing but a mental fling of passion. I guess I can’t discount cheesy romance novels after all.

Quite impressive! Maybe you were together in another life. Who knows? Did you tell your boyfriend? (Somehow, I hope not.)

I have my own story that took place in a subway. That was many years ago, before I moved to the USA. The day hadn't been bad but still, I felt sad and lonely. As always during those times, I thought about my grandfather. How kind he was and how, for unknown reasons, he always favored me. He had died some thirty years before but I never stopped talking to him in my head as if he were still around me. However, that day, after rambling to him for a while, I got mad at myself for doing so.

"Is he even there?" I wondered. "And if so, is he listening or am I just going crazy." Tears fell down on my cheeks. I noticed people looking at me but it didn't bother me. I just closed my eyes and let them wonder while an idea came to my mind. Maybe I could ask him for a sign or something. Without further thoughts, I told him, "If you are listening, prove it." Of course, nothing happened and my eyes burned with more incoming tears. "What the hell," I thought. "If you are listening make the driver hit the breaks and slow down or something. That's not too much to ask of a ghost?"

Believe it or not, the moment I said that, the metro stopped abruptly sending people flying all over the train. One fell on me; I had to hold her so she wouldn't hurt herself. A few minutes later, the lights went down. We waited in the dark wondering what had happened. After ten more minutes of it, I realized that maybe 'he' had listened. A small laugh escaped my mouth before I muttered, "Ok, that's enough. You proved your point. Let us go now." The lights came back on cue and the subway continued on its normal course.

What really happened, I don't know, but I can tell you that if I had any doubts that spirits do exist, they are long gone, and I don't care if people think me crazy.

(I did tell my boyfriend. He was mildly upset... mainly because I never crushed on him that hard. We have an open relationship, so "cheating" isn't a huge concern.)

Ghost stories are always interesting. I hear them from friends, and I have a few myself. I'm under the impression that only people who never experienced it first-hand believe that the metaphysical doesn't exist.

I love this thread. I kinda believe in ghosts and also that people have connections on very primal levels.

Adrian wrote: "This mysterious stranger was nothing but a mental fling of passion. I guess I can’t discount cheesy romance novels after all. "

That is cool, though... It's just exciting to have those feelings.

Oh, hee hee... I've got a wee tale I put down when the idea of writing a "Best Day Of My Life" flash was floated around a local writing group (it couldn't be a wedding, or a birth or anything obvious like that, though)... and so, I ended up with this:


Swapping my eleven kilo toddler to my other arm, I fish in the back pocket of my jeans for the parking ticket to pre-pay, and the first instance of panic sets in – it’s not there. Okay, breathe. Swap the toddler back and check the other pocket. Uh oh. Not there, either. The panic switches up a gear. I was sure I put it in my pocket. I check my front pockets, knowing it won’t be there. Nothing. I scan the floor. Nothing. I give up and head for the elevator, some ever-optimistic part of my brain holding out hope that I lost the ticket right by my car, or left it in the car – but I’m sure I slid it into my pocket – almost certain (it’s not there, so I can’t be 100 percent confident – the human brain is fallible, after all).

What’s the worst that can happen? I’d have to pay from whenever the car park had opened. Despite an appointment closer to eleven, I had pulled into the car park just before ten to nab the one dollar an hour rate, rather than the usual two per hour. And all for a lost ticket, I would have to pay even more. We aren’t made of money. Grr.

The lift is empty of stray tickets. I sigh, cursing myself.

I should have been more careful checking my mobile, should have double-checked the ticket’s presence. I should have left it in the car – but you don’t do that, just in case someone steals it and can just drive out for the cost of a few dollars. Yes, I know this is Dunedin, but, still.

I step out of the lift. Turn the corner, push open the door. Maybe, just maybe, the ticket fell out of my pocket straight after I’d put it in. Maybe, just maybe, it’s on the floor of the car park right by my car. Maybe, just maybe . . .

A breeze picks up. I hear a skitter behind me. My ears prick. My hope soars. I turn.

On the ground, at the edge of a puddle, is a parking building ticket. Hope doubles.

Toddler in arm, I crouch to collect it. Standing, I examine it. 9.52 a.m. The time we pulled in. The time my ticket was printed.

I can’t remember the last time I felt this happy.

O_O That was so creepy!! What a werid guy!

I could share a few dozen ghost stories (I live in a 150 year old house... hardly ever a dull moment), or I could share some pretty twisted love triangles from my younger days. But I think I'll just say this...

Bipolar girl with Autism spectrum son and "normal" daughter meets Paranoid Schizophrenic and falls in love. Oh yeah, then we adopt my orphan teen cousin who is a little bit disturbed.

My entire life is (and always has been) a living, breathing fiction novel.

I was in my journalism class and picked up my bag to go out the door. Someone pushed out the door and those behind them kept it open. I glanced out and across the hallway was a guy. At the moment I glanced we made eye contact and recognized each other.

We have never met before but it was as if our souls said, "Hey friend!" I could tell he was also distracted by our distraction. We scrutinized each other as I began walking to the door towards the hallway. We searched each other visually looking for clues to somehow link us together. His blue eyes snapped away when a girl began to chatter in front of him breaking our connection.

I walked away shaking because I didn't know what came over us and I didn't want to be weird so I walked away glancing back only to see him watching me as I walked away.

@J Do you believe in reincarnation?

I have another strange one with ghost.
It was 3am and I heard my son (5 year old)calling me. I went to his room thinking he had a nightmare. As I entered the bedroom, I caught him in the closet bent in half. I could only see a behind in a pale pyjamas, and I could hear him rummaging through his toys. Mad that he was up and playing at that time of the night I told him, "Hey little man! What are you doing up at this time and why did you call me? Are you looking for your teddy bear?" I received an answer coming from the other side of the room. My son who was in his bed replied with a shaky voice, "It's not me mom." I looked at him sitting in the bed and turned on the light. The closet door was opened but no one was there.

The funny thing is that my son didn't ask to come sleep with us, or change room. He just told me before I kissed him and tucked him back under the blanket that if the ghost had wanted to hurt him, he would have done it already.

After that night, our dog, a newfoundland at the time, never walked in front of the bedroom door by himself, and I even had to drag him across so he could come to our room or back to the living room every night/morning. So I know it wasn't just my son and I who noticed the closet spirit.
Over twenty five years later, my son and I still talk about it but we haven't figured out who it could have been. The house was fairly new, less than ten years old. No child had died there while the previous owner, a woman and her two children, lived there.

G.G. wrote: "@J Do you believe in reincarnation?

I have another strange one with ghost.
It was 3am and I heard my son (5 year old)calling me. I went to his room thinking he had a nightmare. As I entered the b..."

I don't believe in reincarnation. Rather I believe we lived in a pre-mortal world keeping our own identity as individuals as we progress. In my shared experience above I believe that guy's soul and mine were previous friends. However I do believe in ghosts because I have encountered a few in my short life. I am unsure of how ghosts fit into this world but I do also believe in angels and demons and it only matters to me what their intent is. I think maybe that little ghost was just missing the opportunity he had once to play with his toys. Creepy for sure but rarely is a ghost experience enjoyable. :)

@Bisky That's really crazy. Thank goodness. The broken foot was a blessing in disguise, I'd say.

@Adrian How romantic. Have you ever thought about writing out what would've happened if you guys actually talked or anything? Could be the next best seller ;p


Okay, I have one, but it's not like as crazy as everyone else's.

So, once upon a time, when Little Nicole was about the age of 11, she was lying on the floor with her back to the door doing homework.

"Nicki!" she heard her brother say (in a rather stern tone) as if he was looming over her.

Little Nicole jumped and looked back but no one was there. Perhaps, she thought, that he ran back to his room (which was right next door to hers).

"Yeah?" she called back, but nobody answered. "What?" she tried again, now slightly annoyed. Again, not a sound. Finally she threw down her pencil, got up, and marched into her brother's room. She crossed her arms over her chest and said, "yeah?"

But Little Nicole's older brother just looked at her weird, glancing away momentarily from playing Ever Quest. "What?" he asked.

"Did you call me?" she inquired.

"No," he said.

At first Little Nicole did not believe him, but he looked genuinely serious. Just to be sure, she said, "Are you sure? I thought you said my name."

He shook his head and then Little Nicole trudged back into her room, confused. It sounded so loud, just like he was standing over her and called her name, but no one was ever there.

-Fin- (also, true story)

What a fab thread! I read the Fortean Times forum sometimes, especially the 'it happened to me' section, because these true life stories of strange things fascinate me!

Thirteen years ago, after the guy I was casually dating literally disappeared (later discovered to have moved out of town) I went through a very strange and very intense period of self-reflection. It had to do with dating: why had I made the choices I had made, what steps had led me into the situation I found myself in. The guy wasn't a big deal, really, and yet I found myself feeling really badly and feeling really immersed in understanding myself in a deeply spiritual way.

Reflecting back, it was a very self-centered moment in time; not selfish per se, but totally focused on healing myself. During this time I kept a daily journal and wrote through my process. It lasted about six weeks, altogether and when I began to emerge I suddenly began finding pennies. I would find a penny and then, a day or two later, I'd find two pennies. Then, I'd find a penny every day, then no pennies for a day or two, then I'd find three or four pennies. Altogether, I found about a dozen pennies over the course of about ten days. The last penny I found was on a Monday morning, at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, near a vending machine.

I traveled for my job and that night, in a hotel in a small town in New Mexico, as I settled in for bed, I picked up my journal. I kept thinking about those pennies and I realized that something felt strange. Not bad, but strange, different. I actually had the feeling that something new was coming into my life, and I felt like the work I had done on myself that summer had occurred just in time to prepare me for whatever changes were on the horizon.

In my journal, that night, I wrote "Something big is about to happen. I keep finding pennies and I've got butterflies in my stomach."

The next morning was September 11th and, like many others, I woke to the morning news as it was just beginning. I didn't get any work done and had to spend the day traveling, without cell service much of the time, and by the time I got to my destination that night, I just plopped in front of the television and called all of my family. As I prepared for bed that night, after hours of terrible footage, I opened my journal and looked back on what I had written.

I guess we all have small psychic/precognative abilities. I have heard stories of people who were personally involved with the terror attacks having similar experiences, particularly those who lost loved ones that day, but it always makes me curious as to why I did. It leaves me feeling personally connected to that day. I also think about that strange time, before I found the pennies, and I sometimes think it was the last time I would be allowed to be that self-centered. I was 33 years old at the time, independent and really just coming into my own as an adult. I think it was the last moment in time any of us would be allowed the luxury of living in our own little "bubbles". I don't think the world is a better place than it was in the summer of 2001 but I think I'm a much better person. And I wonder at the others who felt funny that week, who found pennies, and who feel as similarly connected to those terrible events.

G.G. wrote: "@J Do you believe in reincarnation?

I have another strange one with ghost.
It was 3am and I heard my son (5 year old)calling me. I went to his room thinking he had a nightmare. As I entered the b..."

You need to turn this into a book!!!!!!

My own experience: we lived in a SUPER haunted house, in Turkey. The longer we stayed, the more brazen the ghosts--and not so nice. Too many experiences here to list. Suffice it to say, base housing (it was on a military base) moved us to another house, and shut that house down, using it to store building materials and replacement parts for other houses. They'd had toooo many complaints about that house and it cost them too much to keep moving residents to other homes--homes being limited at Incirlik AB.
Anyhooo,
I'm in the kitchen, cooking.
Peripherally, I see my daughter walk by.
"Hey, Tye, can you set the living room up for us to eat?"
(we didn't do dining tables at that time, but rather, ate in the living room, gathered 'round the television to do 'dinner & movie')
No answer.
'TYE, can you set up for dinner?'
She yells from upstairs, 'Mom, I'm up here. What do you need?'
I went to the living room and looked up at the loft area where she was calling down from.
Not only had she never come downstairs, but the image of her that had passed by had its hair down--my daughter's hair was currently up in a heavy bun.
WTH????
Upon reflection, there's also been no 'color', what I'd peripherally seen more dark and the 'image' of my daughter.

Like I said, events escalated.
Even when we moved across base, we were still 'visited', just not as 'strongly'.
*shudders*

Awesome thread and stories.

I have partially worked some real life experiences into my stories.

I have a confession. The person I spoke of in Bisky's super powers thread was actually me. I have dreams that come true all the time. I sort of wrote that into my story "Kismet", though totally changed it - the "ability" if you will. It's totally random and I never know until the moment itself if it was or wasn't "one of those dreams". I knew my daughter would be a girl though and she would have curly hair from a dream.

Another more "mundane" experience I wrote into another story "The total depravation of Harrison Schofield" (yes I know how deprivation is spelled, it's a play on words :P).
This was in my youth:
I was on a bus and this cute alternative looking girl in a short skirt got on and sat across from me. I was reading. I glanced up a few times, she was glancing back. I look up from my book again and she was - how to put this delicately? - flashing her undies and making quite a show of it.
We got to talking and what she said is pretty much what the girl in the story says: how she broke up with her BF and how she had to go get her stuff back from him and she knew if she went they would end up having sex and she really didn't want to, and she didn't know what to do, etc. I cleaned it up for this post, FYI :P In the story it's a train not a bus. Also, in the story the character takes the girl home and things go downhill from there. I, on the other hand, bought her curly fries and was a complete gentleman. She didn't seem to like that much, lol. I never have been very good at reading signals :P Oh well.

I've also had a few ghostly encounters, may have seen a UFO once, and a love at first sight experience. We're married now, though it took over a decade for us to find each other again after she moved overseas with her mother. Oh, yeah, we were teenagers when we met. I won't be putting that in any stories :)

BTW guys, I may not reply to all of your posts but I do read them so keep them coming. I LOVE IT!

Jim, there's a thread especially for UFO (called UFO) if you feel like sharing?!?! :)

Oooh. I'm game. *searches*

Awww.

I reckon the more cute stories have more impact, at least for me. Maybe growing up with weird crap does that to you... hahaha.