A Writer In Vienna: October 2013

Welcome to this month’s round robin with a great group of writers. It’s October and time for all things paranormal. The weather has changed here in Vienna and out my office window I can see the fall colors in abundance. I just got home yesterday from the States and I do apologize for being late because I’m still a little jet-lagged...make that very...so I apologize in advance if something doesn't make sense.

But back to the topic of the month and that’s all things paranormal. I got a great beginning to the subject when we landed yesterday in a fog bank. Yes, it was like the legendary London fog and total pea soup. I was thankful that by the time we got in the taxi that you could at least see a hundred feet in front of the car as there was zero visibility from the plane window. The pilot gave us a little warning but my husband said that he didn’t explain it well because the German version was a little disconcerting. Still, I think it is an appropriate beginning to this month’s column.

The question is have I or anyone I know ever had a paranormal experience? I can say that with an absolute yes. I live in a very old building here in Vienna. People have been coming and going, dead or alive, since it was built in 1867.

We haven’t figured out yet just how the original apartments were configured. We believe that many of the floors on our side of the building were single apartments or at the very most, two apartments. We’ve seen a few of the larger apartments when they’ve been updating them and they could hold at least a couple of families.

In my particular apartment on the fifth floor, although they say it’s the 3^rd floor because the garden level doesn’t count and ground level is considered the earth level, we are not alone. I became first aware of this by noticing the French doors keep coming unlocked. What I mean by this is that we can stop one of the doors from moving by pushing the lock down into place in a hole in the floor. It makes it so the door doesn’t swing and we do it because once the dog discovered the door moved, he wanted to play with it.

There are many days where the lock has been activated yet when I return the doors are open and able to swing. At first, I thought that the dog found out a way to unlock it but soon realized that if he had, it would involve a lot of jumping on the door which would make a lot of noise. I chocked this up to any number of things in the beginning: the floor was warped, I hit the door accidentally thus loosening the lock and so on.

Now some people would say this isn’t an event but it happened even before we got the dog and I again thought it was something I did. But another event convinced me otherwise. It was not long after we got our puppy and in the beginning, he would sleep in his little crate right next to my side of the bed. Once in the middle of the night, he started growling as if something were in the room with us. Again, we explained it away because we had the light on for him and there is a lot of shadow play in our room.

Matter of fact, if the small light on my side of the bed is on, the room can be absolutely eerie. Yet, that wasn’t the last time our young pup would do this. There have been at least 3 other incidents and none of them involved light of any kind. He would start growling and we’d wake up, let him out of the crate and he’d bury himself under the covers peering out to see if it were safe to come outside.

One of the times, he woke me up from a dead sleep and I just lay there, assessing the situation. I felt I wasn’t alone in the room but when I looked nothing was there of course. The presence wasn’t malevolent but it was there and it made the hair stand up on my arms. From that moment on, I had to acknowledge that we had someone else in the house with us.

Now, I take a different stance on things like this and many people have thought me odd. I talk to my ghost. I don’t know its specific gender but I do know it means no harm. So when odd things happen in my flat, I’ll ask if it did them and what’s wrong. It’s my feeling when ghosts act up, they are like a child where something has gone awry and they want what everyone wants, comfort and acknowledgement. I’ll talk to it when the doors come unlocked, when it wakes me at night or when I feel its presence anytime of the day or night.

Yes, I know this is odd but I truly feel ghosts are real and are but just one of the many paranormal phenomena that inhabit this world with us. As they say, I am a true believer and have had many experiences in my life in regards to the paranormal. And it might have to do with an experience I had as a young girl with angels. You heard me right, angels and while that’s a story for another time, just know that without a doubt I believe they exist as well. Matter of fact, the television show Supernatural is one of my all-time favorites as the subject matter delves into the paranormal world.

So, now it’s your turn…have you ever had a paranormal experience in your life? Leave me a comment and I’ll give one lucky person a copy of my ghost story on October 31 or Halloween. Have a great week and see you next month with another round robin. Also, look for some changes to this blog as I am going to start Weird Wednesdays where I tell the world about odd things I find here in Vienna. And I’ll also be starting to post with the Weekend Writing Warriors on this blog my next book in the A Taste of Vienna series.

Thanks for stopping by. Don’t forget to drop by the other great writers in this round robin. First go to Rhobin Lee Courtright’s blog as she’s the one after me. You can find her here http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com. Here’s the complete list of all the participants for this month. Please visit each and every one of them as we all tell you about our paranormal experiences. I’ve only included myself so you all can see the order.