October 20, 2010

The Man at the Foot of My Bed

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Stephanie - Ponoka, Alberta, Canada - 2004 to present

When I was 14, I started becoming aware of something in my parents' home. I would be downstairs in my bedroom, home alone, and hear the TV turn on and start channel surfing. We've always had satellite, and it has a 30-second time delay on switching channels. I could clearly hear the shows that came on through the surfing. I could clearly hear Friends, Seinfeld, TLC's Baby Story, and YTV. I went to go and check and the TV was off, but I could still hear the shows going. I would go back downstairs and then I'd hear footsteps, people talking and the TV. After awhile of this (months of enduring the sounds) I'd just start yelling up the stairs, "Shut up!" and it would go quiet.

Late one night when I was 15, I was lying in bed and had just fallen asleep. I startled awake just in time to see a mobile that was hanging in my room start moving. It had three things hanging from it and one by one they lifted until they were all suspended in the air. I simply said, "Stop, you're scaring me and I'm trying to sleep," and they calmly floated back down. I would also wake up and find that things in my room (which I had started strategically placing before going to bed) had moved across the room, into drawers, and under my bed. I would go to bed with my guitar case leaning on my closed closet, and wake up with my closet opened, and my guitar case open and under my bed. This happened almost every night for a year. Whenever I would be in the downstairs living room, usually on the sewing machine, I could feel someone watching me. One day I was home alone, mending a pair of my pants and I could feel that familiar "watching" feeling coming from the door. I glanced briefly over my shoulder and saw a tall shadow man standing in the doorway. He had an Abraham Lincoln-style top hat on, and I could make out that he had long, bushy sideburns. I could only see his outline, but he was all black with no distinct facial features.

After this first time of seeing him, I started seeing him more -- mostly when I was in that room. He usually just stood in the doorway and watched me. When I turned 16 is when he started appearing in my bedroom. He started by just standing in the doorway. After several nights of him just standing there, and me starting to sleep with a nightlight that I kept plugged in by the door (making sure it wasn't just the dark playing tricks on my eyes), I finally told him that he shouldn't come at night, he was making me sleep deprived. Every time he came after I had that nightlight plugged in, he would actually cast a shadow across the room. When I told him off, though, he only came in the mornings after that. Many mornings I would awake and he would be standing at the foot of my bed. He started getting more features the more I saw him. Eventually I saw his wrinkled face, dark brown eyes, brown pinstriped suit with long jacket, and long brown Scottish-style sideburns. He always had such a sad look on his face but when I'd make eye contact, he would just nod and fade away -- like he was acknowledging me. It's weird. Like he just stood there and watched me. I told my dad, who told me I was crazy and maybe the creep was watching over me or something. He told me maybe he's your ghost guardian.

After I turned 18, I moved away and never told anyone else. A few years later my boyfriend and I were staying a week at my parents' place. One night I was waiting in bed while my boyfriend washed up. When he came into the room he looked so scared. When I asked him what was wrong he just told me, "I don't want you to think I'm crazy, but there was a man wearing a top hat standing at the bottom of the stairs. He just stood there and stared at me." Then I told my boyfriend about all the experiences I'd had with this mystery man. He'd had similar experiences growing up in the house his birth mother died in, but his were all negative. Almost every time we stay overnight at my parents' place, both of us see him. The last time we were down for a visit (in May 2010), we were lying in bed sleeping. My boyfriend startled awake one night and said he just saw his face. He was dreaming and the dream faded away to just the shape of a man's face. The more he looked at the face, more features came out. Then it panned back and he saw the whole figure, Scottish sideburns, pinstriped suit, and top hat. Even the sad look on the man's face. Then he opened his eyes and saw the man standing next to him in the room. He looked around and there was a lady in white standing just inside the doorway. He kind of jumped upright in bed, turning on the lamp, and they were both still there. I heard him say, "Go away, we're trying to sleep." He said the woman turned and walked through the door, but the man made eye contact, walked to the end of the bed, nodded at him, and disappeared. I opened my eyes and asked who he was talking to, he asked if I had ever seen the woman. I've never seen her, but I think it's very interesting that my boyfriend has seen the man in full and that the man had nodded to him. It's neat to have someone else see exactly what you've seen when no one else believes you.