He’d excused himself about 20 minutes earlier to use the restroom. It was a large bathroom to serve a full lecture hall, with a bank of 8-10 stalls on one side and a row of sinks in front of a wall-length mirror across from it. He’d waited until the lecture started so he wouldn’t have to encounter anyone and be forced into idle chit-chat. When he descended the stairs, the bathroom was quiet and empty. He had his pick of any stall his socially anxious heart desired.
As he sat down, he heard footsteps coming across the tile floor. Hard soled shoes, clickety-clacking along. “Oh God,” he thought, “Just as I sit down.”
If that indignity wasn’t enough, the footsteps went into the stall directly next to him and took a seat.
“Cough, cough” from the next stall.
Pushed too far by this invasion of his sanctuary, my husband got up and walked out of the stall.
But reflected back in the giant mirror across, was an empty stall where the coughing man had just sat. There had been no one there. Or no one that is still reflected in mirrors.
He quickly washed his hands and ran back upstairs to rejoin me and ask, “Is this place haunted?”
But he already knew the answer.
With a Perspective, this is J. Moe.
J. Moe is a writer who lives in East Bay with a husband, dog and several ghosts, both familiar and uninvited.
