Haunt

Before I begin, I should thank my lucky stars that Nathalie likes to watch horror movies. Or, to be more precise, sit and listen to horror movies as she peeks through her fingers every so often interspaced by short emissions of frightened shrieks. 'Cause really, I could be suffering like some of my friends, who's girlfriends/wives would rather be eaten by a grizzly than have to sit through a horror flick, and thus have nobody to accompany them to the theater.

Several weeks ago, before Stephen King's new movie "1408" was about to be released, we spent some time looking at the website and watching the scary-ass preview... all before going to bed, which is really, quite stupid on our parts. But at the time, seemed perfectly logical.

And then, as we're about to wrap it up, my pager goes off.

It's a surgical emergency. I have to go to the hospital and operate on some poor shmuck whose appendix turned against him.

I tell this to Nathalie, whose eyes turn as big as saucers. I know what she's thinking, and that is: "Holy Shit! We just watched a bunch of scary stuff and now you're going to leave me here all by myself?!" And it's times like this when your brain goes haywire and begins to think of various interesting concepts that one would normally ever consider:

Could my house be built on an old cemetary?
Worse yet, could this have been an Indian burial ground?
Has anyone died in my house?
What did happen to the previous tenants?
Why is it always so cold in that one corner of the house?
What the hell is under that bundle of clothes?
And why does it seem to be pulsating?!

Nathalie: We're watching something funny before you leave.

So we watch the preview to "Surf's Up". Which has the effectiveness of urinating on a forest fire.

I do my best to downplay everything and shoo away all the spookiness before I leave. I'm not sure what good it might have done, but I have to get to the hospital. So I kiss her goodnight and take off.

Halfway to the hospital my phone goes off, it's Nathalie.

Nathalie: Something crazy happened.

Me: Really?

Nathalie: The frickin' light cover for the hallway ceiling light fell down and shattered. For no reason.

Me: What?

Nathalie: I was sitting there watching TV when the light cover just fell down.

Me: Why would that happen?

Nathalie: I DON'T FRICKIN' KNOW! [wimper]

[I know Nathalie and I were both thinking of the same thing: poltergeists.]

[Hmm... must not freak out wife]

Me: That's strange...

[I mull it over for a bit and come up with a logical explanation]

Me: It was probably the vibrations from the AC that loosened the nut on the glass cover.

And it probably was right. But it is strange that the glass cover for the hallway light would just spontaneously fall off. Especially considering that it's only a few years old and not worn out like everything else in the place. But it was just a bizarre and unfortunately spooky coincidence that we happened to be watching scary movie previews prior to its event and that I got called to the hospital... and that she's left alone. Wait, isn't this how all those scenes in scary movies start?

All of a sudden my mind was coming up with hundreds of insane macabre scenarios without any basis of reality. I shook those thoughts out of my head and got a grip. I'm sure Nathalie was thinking them as well. So I offered the best comforting bit of advice I could think of:

Me: Be careful picking up the glass shards.