I do not believe in ghosts. Well, at least not in the way people with theistic beliefs do. I'm highly skeptical of any ghost story even while feeling a thrill as I listen. The year I was 12, I lurked in the aisles of my school library, hunting for more and more volumes of spooky Hitchcock stories. At 17 1/2, I gorged myself for a summer on Steven King novels. In my early 20s I watched enough classic and modern scary movies to prevent me from sleeping ever again. I eventually had to call it quits, although every now and then I succumb to temptation and watch one (and generally regret it).
Both of my parents have personal stories of unexplainable phenomena. The shimmering spirit of a grandparent. Frightening coincidences involving an Ouija board. Midnight wakings filled with certainty of a loved one's illness, and the phone call that followed. A woman in a rocking chair, seen out of the corner of one's eye, and also seen by coworkers.
In my teens I had several experiences that seemed at the time to be proof of supernatural forces. My unusual presence in a church hallway at just the moment when a scared babysitter banged on a locked door, holding a choking baby. Sounds in my home that could only be footsteps, when no person was present. A shadow seen behind me in a mirror that looked enough like a boy to make me check the next room for my brothers, to find out what game they were playing.
My siblings have all had experiences, as well, things they have seen that they have determined to be ghosts. Part of me wishes I could believe in supernatural explanations. Most of me thinks that there is no "supernatural", only parts of our inner nature and the nature of the world around us that we haven't figured out yet.
And yet, I was still spooked a bit by the unexplained presence of hundreds of flies in my house in the past few days. Blowflies, to be specific, carrion flies. Too many to have come in through the door, even though it's beastly hot outside and pleasantly cool inside and the kids had left the door open 1,945 times in the past two days. We would kill two dozen and an hour later there would be more, congregating on the window and light over the kitchen sink or on the light over the deep sink in the basement. Breeding in the drains? Disgusting. And I never saw a single one crawl out of the drain.
As the death toll climbed closer to a hundred, my mind filled with scenes from Amityville Horror. Somebody mentioned that Loretta Lynn's house was haunted and had a room that always had flies in it. Yipes. When you can't find any other explanation for a problem, demonic possession starts looking reasonable.
As I swat my nine dozenth fly, send some good vibes to my house for clean drains and exorcism, ok?
