The October Swing

The weather should be cold in the middle of October, you would think? Not this night, this is one of those strange, hot, Louisiana nights . . .  The night is dark, calm, hot & muggy, not even the wind blowing, nothing, except a playground swing and it is swinging!

On this peculiar night, my wife and I attend a meeting at the church where she works. You know that her office has been relocated to a new, “old house”. Her office was located in the Emelia Room, which was at one time the priest rectory. Now it has been torn down because of the church renovations.

We leave the meeting late this night. Our path to the parking lot takes us down a dark sidewalk. Ahead the lights shine dimly on the old church’s playground area.  As we walk along the playground fence, there to our amazement we notice that one of the three swings on the playground is swinging, swinging back and forth. We look around for signs of a child playing. There is no one around, for who would be playing at this time of the night. None of the other two swings beside it are moving. Just that one swing, swings back and forth. We stop and watch the swing as we talk for a while. It continues to swing and gets faster too. My wife says “I’m going over there and stop that swing.” I told her “let the little ghost swing.” We laugh as we walk to our car in the parking lot. As we leave, we can see the playground in the dim light and the swing is still swinging . . .
Back home, our teenage son remembers he has “a paper,” due in the morning. Our printer is out of ink, it is always out of ink . . .  By now the time is getting very late. I hand him the keys to the car and say “be careful, watch out for ghosts.” He says “there is no way I am going to the church office that late.” So, off we go, on the way I tell him about the swing we saw, swinging.

We arrive at the church, walking by the playground we stop to check out the swings. The yellow lights illuminate the playground and it reminds me that Halloween is approaching. Well, “nothing here,” he says, everything is still, no movement at the playground or anywhere else for that matter. As we continue past the playground, we see a black cat running cross the street. The cat stops right in front of us, looks at us, and then runs to the front porch of the old house where we are going. The cat looks like he is on a mission, a mission from God? We approach the old house and the porch light is off. We can’t see anything. The playground lights are too far off in the distance to light the house. My son and I step upon the front porch. The cat has disappeared. Where did he go? My son starts to look around the corner of the old house, stops, and says “sometimes it is just best not to look.” He remembered the old Emelia Room House. Strange things happened there. He knows.  He was there!

Entering, I unlock the front door.  It makes a creaking sound. As we search for the light switch, a strange deep voice comes from the middle of the room. Both of our heads spin as if we could see in the dark.  I find the switch, turn on the lights and there’s no one. Whose voice is that talking in the room? Looking around, the room is decorated for Halloween with scare crows, pumpkins and such hanging on the walls. Walking around the desk, we find that the TV is on. I use my best Vincent Price voice to narrate the spooky incident, trying to hide my fear and doing my best to scare my son.  We turn off the TV, laughing while the goblins on the walls stare at us with goofy grins. My son says “let’s go, I have had enough.” I said, “Print your report.”

Returning home, we relay our incident to the family. My wife asked us in a puzzled voice, “The TV was on”? Then she informed us that the cable has been out for over a week because of the construction to the church renovation . . .
Is this place or church grounds unhappy? Did the spirits move from the old house to the new one? Who are these un-resting souls? Are there new sightings to come? Is my imagination working overtime? Most people are skeptics, some believe. Do you believe my story?

Jody Raney 10.2007