Essence

We moved into our apartment in September 2002. We haven't been living there too long but I’ve had that ?feeling’ about it.

I honestly can’t say that when I first walked into the place I had a feeling there was anyone there but us. In fact we were late for the showing of the apartment and only had a couple of minutes to run through it before the agent closed it up. We didn’t even get a good look at it, but I knew first off that we had to have it. We just had to. It had everything we were looking for.

The first couple of weeks we were there, I was on leave to help us get more settled into our new place and do most of the unpacking. Nothing happened then, or indeed for the next couple of months. That is, nothing noticeable anyway. But eventually I started to get the feeling that I was being watched, or someone was behind me, or walking up to me. Mostly I felt this when I was sitting down to watch T.V. Just behind the couch is a hallway that goes up the right hand side to the bedrooms, bathroom & study. It is at such an angle that you can’t see right to the end, only halfway up.

My bedroom was just at the beginning of this hallway, on the left hand side, the linen closet was on the right and on the left of the linen closet (closest to the lounge) was the kitchen doorway. Whenever I had that feeling of someone watching me it always came from this area, next to the linen closet.

O.K at this point I’ll pause to tell you a bit about myself just so you understand this feeling I had.

The best way to describe me is that I’m a thinker. Whenever I feel something about anything I analyze that feeling right down to the core, I've always done this. And because I'm so used to doing this to myself I do this to other people as well. I'm quite good now at picking up on others emotions and reading between the lines. And always this ?area’ had to it an intense curiosity. But sometimes it moved past the kitchen doorway to the wall just behind the couch and then it would be stronger. There’s a peace and calmness to it as well. It’s hard to explain. Like it knows what it is but it doesn't know what I am. I hesitate to call this thing a ?ghost’. It’s not ghost like at all really, more of a presence or an essence. Apart from the ?feeling’ I get, which could easily be put to my being paranoid about being in the house alone or whatever, a few things have happened that made me pay more attention to it or else I would have just ignored it.

I'm one of those people that will first and foremost jump to the wildest conclusion and then straight away tell themselves anything to make it seem more normal and less ?out there’. The first couple of incidents involved opening doors. Whenever I enter my bathroom I shut the door behind me otherwise it'll bang in the wind and it annoys me. Not to mention that I live with my sister and her boyfriend and at no point would I like either of them to come home when I'm not expecting them, and be in the shower with the door wide open! They do have their own bathroom though and would have no need whatsoever to open mine whether I'm in there or not. A couple of times however I have been in the shower and shaving my legs or washing my hair when I've just looked up and noticed that the door was open. The door opens inwards and the window is on the opposite side of the bathroom and there’s nothing else in the hallway to account for this, so naturally I was more than a little curious with all sorts of wild ideas running through my head.

I also suffer from insomnia. I have a lot of trouble getting to sleep and am sometimes up most of the night but once I'm asleep I'm dead to the world. This becomes a problem when I have to leave for work the next morning at 6am and I've gone to sleep at 2am.

After one such particular night, I slept through the alarm and had to call in to work sick. The next night the same thing happened, I couldn't sleep and when I did I slept through the alarm and called in sick. But the night after was a little different. That night I once again couldn't sleep and didn't get there till around 2-3am. However, one minute before the alarm went off I suddenly jolted out of sleep wide-awake. I didn't know what had awoken me and neither did I find out but this continued for two weeks. Then I stared waking up to the alarm again. About two months later I had another really hard night of going to sleep and though I woke up to the alarm I turned it off then rolled over to wake up a bit more. I must have fallen asleep because straight away I felt a hand move forcefully down my back. I opened my eyes and the feeling didn't go away, thinking it was my sister I turned around but there was no one there. I looked at the alarm and it was half an hour after it had gone off. I just figured if we did have a presence or whatever, he was just waking me up.

A couple of times we've heard knocking on our doors and when there was no one there we've asked the other what they wanted and usually receive a blank look in return.

The most recent and unusual thing that has happened to date happened only last weekend.

I had been lying on my bed eating M&M’s and I tipped them out onto the bedspread next to me (I was lying across the top part). My sister phoned to see if I wanted to see a movie and I got up to get ready. I left about half an hour later, but I had re-made my bed and straightened up my room before I left throwing out the empty packet of M&M’s while was at it. We got home about 3 or 4 hours later and I threw my bag onto my bedroom floor before going to my closet to get into my pyjamas. It was as I was getting into bed that I noticed two orange M&M’s placed neatly together in the middle of my bed. I picked them up, put them in my mouth and said "thank you" loudly without even thinking about it. After I had swallowed them I thought it a bit odd, but was sleepy and relished the chance to go to sleep soon after getting into bed so I didn't give it another thought. I don't know if perhaps I'm just imagining this or if there’s an entity or a presence or whatever you want to call it. I just know that it’s there.