The Awakening
I never really believed in any of it, not at first, anyway.
When I was little I saw shadowy figures in my room, things standing near me. Tricks of the brain, was how my mother explained them to me. So tricks they stayed. Apparations of the imagination, shifting shadows.
I had been skeptically religious. At times I felt that, while perhaps spirits existed, their presence here as 'ghosts' was something that was simply nonsense, or was so rare sure I would never experience something like that. They existed in a sort of skeptical gray area of my belief system. While truly, what I did not consider is that such things are very much in the realm of any kind of spirituality. That these spirits are in fact very real, around us all the time. If you believe in heavens and hells, angels and demons, of any kind, is it not so strange to believe in the immutability of the soul?
My first grand witness finally came to me at an unlikely crossroad, at 17 years or so of age, going out on a date. It would be the first time that my skepticism, mt stoic, secular beliefs, would take one of their first great blows.
I had arranged for a date with a girl in Marietta, Georgia. I had planned for what was probably a rather mediocre date, to be honest. At the last minute, I got a text. She wanted to turn it into a double date with another couple, and what's more they wanted to go on a ghost tour in downtown Marietta. Oh no. I groaned to myself internally. I had imagined my mediocre plans going so well and romantically, how uncomfortable and undignified to go on something as silly and ridiculous as a ghost tour. None the less, no wanting to seem the odd man out for this plan, I agreed and picked her. Not much was remarkable about the date, unfortunately for me at the time. As I drove her there we chatted amicablly enough, met her friends, also exchanged courtesies and superficial superlatives and soon enough we were on our way on the tour.
The tour itself was interesting enough. Lots of historical information, as I had always been a history afficionado it resonated with me. Yet for all the supposed haunted locations with very interesting stories, like the trick shop with a mysterious trap door behind the register which lead to mysterious tunnels (perhaps more on this in another post), none of the spirits from these stories appeared. I was mostly interested in the history and the girl.
Finally, we were towards the end of the tour. We were now on Marietta Square, the central park like area that had existed since the Civil War. According to our guide, Marietta was once known as the city of the dead, as many bodies of the fallen from the Georgia regiments came down from the many battles in Virginia and other more northen states for their final resting places. Allegedly, the bodies were stacked in this square, the entire square being covered three to four bodies high. One might think, if I were to see a ghost, or feel something, would it not be one of these poor men? Or the figures of any of these other sad tales? Alas, who I saw had no explanation at all.
As I stood on the square, the guide, a stout man wearing a top hat and a cape for dramatic effect, explained some story I can't recall that happened in the first floor of the building behind him. It was late, so many of these shops were closed, except for the second floor of the building to the left. That floor seemed to be occupied by some kind of bar, or perhaps it was a part of a restaurant that was open later for drinks. This was many years ago, so the specifics of which building on the square are a little hazy to me now, though I believe it is where Shillings use to be, and is now a restaurant called Macs. I believe part of the issue was I was so enraptured by what I saw, some of these details were lost to me.
I stood across the street on the sidewalk as the guide stood adjacent to us in front of the building, explaining some story I cannot recall. My arm was nervously wrapped around my dates shoulders, my excuse was to help her with the balmy chill that was in the air which was so common to an early Georgia fall. In recollection, I don't think she cared for it too much. But all the same, it was enough to completely capture a young man's attention.
It was then, I saw a man staring at me. He was on the second floor bar I described earlier, leaning against the rail of an open window. The bar seemed rather populated, people laughing and talking silently behind him, the floor well lit with golden light that contrasted the dark we stood in.
In the fraction of a second our eyes met, I quickly averted my gaze, thinking it was a moment of coincidental eye contact. But he did not look away. He continued staring at me, only me. I met his gaze once or twice more, trying to give this man the hint I was uncomfortable, but he did not look away. Finally, I gazed up and saw him, and we locked eyes.
He displayed himself as a middle-aged white man, wearing a fine black suite that may have been pinstriped, even having a well golded hankerchief in his front pocket. He had salt and pepper hair that was well-kept, in addition to an equally well-kept salt and pepper circle beard.
His expression was neutral, though I felt a sort of intimidation to his stare, as if he were intently studying me. A small glass of some sort of amber liquor rested stilly in a glass on the window's ledge in front of him.
Quickly I looked around, seeing if anyone else was looking at the second floor, but no eyes but mine looked at him. When I looked back, the man was now reaching into his suite jacket, where he procured a high-value bill, I can't recall exactly if it was a fifty or one-hundred dollar bill. He then took a lighter from his jacket, and held it to the money, where it lit on fire. His stolid expression now changed to one of seemingly crazed humor, the flames and descending embers illuminated his sharp smile and wide, flame enchanted eyes. He began laughing, and waving the money in the air, ash and embers raining down from the second floor. In a mocking fashion, he began his mouth shaped into an 'o', as if he were making an ooing sound, as if he were performing some sort of sardonic party trick.
To say I was startled would be an understatement, and quickly, wildly, I looked around. No one else looked up. It was as if I was the only one who could see him. Why was he doing this? Who was he? What did he mean? How am I the only one noticing? All thoughts that coursed rapidly thorugh my mind. After a mere moment of looking around I tapped my date on the shoulder, and she turned, seeming slightly irritated, towards me.
"What?" She whispered.
"There's a man burning money!" I whispered back, pointing and looking at the man, still cackling as the embers drifted down.
"What?!" She repeated in exacerbation, but still did not look where I was pointing.
"Look he's right on the second floor!" I urged as I pointed again, but this time when I looked back, he was gone.
"There's...no one there..." She said, looking at me with a strange eye, and with a sigh and a raise of her eyebrows turned back to the tour. Feeling shaken some I did not speak much for the rest of the night and the date ended about as well as one might expect. It perhaps could go without saying I did not get a second date.
I kept this experience to myself for many years. I felt perhaps I was insane. That very well could be a plausible explanation. But if I was not...then what was it? If it was a ghost, why did he do that? Was he trying to send me a message he could not speak? Why could only I see him? Surely, in such a crowded bar, someone had to have noticed a man burning money. Or the crowd of thirty or so people just below him should have noticed, at the least. It all made no sense, and I had no explanations. I did some research, and not only did this spirit not fit the characters of any stories I heard that night on the tour, I was unable to find any other legends of a black suited man in the Marietta area.
While this experience left a lot of other unanswered questions, one thing was for sure. I had been changed forever. My mind was now open to what I had once viewed as impossible. The dead had started to speak, and they wanted to be heard.
If you enjoyed this experience of mine, please consider following me on my social media pages to stay up to date on when I will post again! This was just a short, starting story before I figured out how to converse with these spirits. If you enjoyed this, I am sure you will enjoy what is to come even more! Thank you for being a witness, dear reader.
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