The Cigaret

THE CIGARET

I've recently come across this site and was interested in reading stories and people's experiences. I myself had countless paranormal experiences in my long life and would like to share them. I'm a retired engineer from the sugar cane industry and live in Mauritius. Sorry if my English is a bit weird, I'm of French culture.

This encounter is one of the scariest I've had. In the mid 60's, I was a young adult and enjoyed going to the pictures and I would regularly attend the evening sessions on Saturdays. Movies were so much better those days with great and talented actors and were not as violent as they are nowadays. Anyway, during summer 1964 I went to watch a movie. I forgot the title. The session had finished quite late, maybe around 11-11:30 pm and I proceeded to my place walking. My house was at around 3 Km's away. I must say that it was much safer to walk at night in this period than now.

I had just started smoking and was enjoying it; therefore, as I was walking back home, I took out a cigaret but realized that I had just 2 or 3 matches left. It must have been a bad luck that none of these matches would light. They all died before I could light my cigaret. I was annoyed and carried on walking. As I was leaving the small town of Rose Hill, I got into this usual lane which was pitch black, only lit by the stars and the small diffused light of town. After about 1 km, I approached a small bridge which was said to be haunted. I had walked there countless times at night and never saw or heard anything.

As I was coming closer, I noticed someone smoking by the bridge. I could see the tiny red tip of the cigaret and could only guess the outline of the person which I supposed was a man. I was desperate to smoke and decided to ask the guy to light my cigaret with his. I came closer and said hello and asked him this favor. By the light of his cigaret, I saw that it was a mature man dressed in a costume and wearing a hat. His outfit was not very odd since many men used to dress as such in this period; however, I felt uncomfortable standing by him and wanted to leave as fast as I could.

I was relieved of being able to smoke and reached home about half an hour later still smoking.

When I arrived home I went to the toilets, had a shower, ate diner and went to bed and carried on smoking. It's weird since I did not realize that I had been smoking all this time. My mind was not focused on that.

It was well over 1am and as I was lying down with my cigaret, I just recapped my whole day, thought about the movies and remembered to have met this guy who lit my cigaret. That's when an incredible feeling of terror got hold of me. I realized that the cigaret I was smoking was the same one lit by the man by the bridge and it was about two hours ago and the cigaret was not even half burned. I "heard" a voice in my head saying to give back the fire. I was instinctively "drawn" to go back to the bridge.

I quickly dressed up and left with the cigaret still lit. I could not smoke it anymore. I walked as fast as I could, sometimes running, to the bridge. When I arrived, the man was still there smoking. I now had a lamp with me and noticed that his eyes were very intense, a bit reddish. He was very thin and his skin was full of wrinkles and "carved" if I can say. Without a word, I gave him back the cigaret. He took it, touch the tip of the cigaret with his and it turned off and gave it back to me. As I took back the cigaret, I threw it away. When I looked back at the man he had vanished. I can't describe the utter fear and panic which got hold of me then. I ran to my house and while running, I could hear a sinister laughter in the background.

I arrived home exhausted and I could hardly sleep. It was only on Sunday morning that I could rest and get some sleep. No need to tell you that from that day I stopped smoking. Fortunately, I never encountered this man again. I suspect him to be a witch.

At that time there was a lot of witchcraft in the island and a lot of people would daily make these kind of encounters. To the "best" they would be victim of "pranks" to the worst, some people would become insane and some die, being victim of a malevolent witch or entity.