Karabasan...or Not?

First of all, I would like to apologize, if my English is not as good as yours. I am a Turkish woman, who was born in Switzerland. So English is not my first or even second language, but somewhere between third and fourth. And sadly, I cannot correct it to 100%. I am sorry for this.

The story I am about to tell you started about 9 years ago, when I was 15 years old. Like nearly every teenager I went to school. To get to my school, I had a five minutes walk to the bus stop, and a 15 minutes bus ride, after that again a 10 minutes walk, to get to the building.

On a sunny day, me and some other girls from my class decided to wear that day white clothes. (We were quite a mix in our small group: 2 Turkish, 1 Tamil, 1 Russian and two Kosova-Albanish girls.) We were all white clad, and a Tamil friend of mine even asked, why we were in white in the first place. In their culture, when someone was buried/or burned, the friends and relatives wore all white. Of course, there was no one dead. We just thought, that white is the color of innocence...

So this was the background for my story... If anyone would ask me, why I would wear on that special day all white...

It was a Tuesday. Our last lesson was English until 11:55 AM (lunchtime). When we were able to get out of school before 12 o'clock, we would be able to reach the school bus and would be home a bit earlier than usual. However, this time, I did not reach it because the five minutes were too short. So I had to take normal bus (the part I told you above: 10 minutes walk - 15 minutes bus - 5 minutes home walk).

When I came home, I found it very strange that our apartment was so very silent. I took very slow steps into my home, with the thought that something bad had happened, or worse, it was being a burglar! But all worry left me when I reached the living room. Normally, though, my mother would watch at this time of the day some Turkish TV Series, but that was not the case that day.

My elder sister, she was then about 22 years old, sat silently beside my younger sister, who was, at that time 12-13 years young. G (younger sister) sat in between the two elders and looked a bit pale. I asked them what happened. I automatically thought my grandmother died, who had back then some health problems. However, I did not expect my mother to get angry with me. She stood up, stood in front of me and eyed me from my head to my feet. She asked me how I did it. I understood absolutely nothing and asked her what she meant. And she pointed to my younger sister, who looked at me curiously, while being held by our oldest.

Then I told my mother, I did nothing today. "In case you forgot, I had school today and came back right now. So please, calm down and tell me, what happened." Then my younger sister told what she saw 15 minutes ago. She stood in the kitchen and checked the refrigerator for something cold to drink. Beside the kitchen, was the dinner table, which was ready. My older sister just came home and went straight into her bedroom, while my mother was also in her bedroom, folding some laundry. And my bedroom was right on the other side of the kitchen. So when my sister looked into the refrigerator, she saw just me, how "I" went into my bedroom, without giving a tone. And the funny part: "I" was completely in black.

My sister just greeted "me" and "I" just told her to "Shut the fu** up". My sister was annoyed and told everyone, that I was home, so we could start eating. My mother, whose bedroom was beside the entrance door, said that she did not hear me coming. (In summertime, our entrance door is widely open, since we had a kind of balcony from which we could enter our apartment.) But my sister had insisted that I was home. She even told her, that I was being mean. So my mother thought that she simply did not hear me and called for everyone to come and eat.

When I did not come to the table, my mother thought that my sister imagined me. However, she stood up to check on me. She went straight to my bedroom to see, that I was not there. Normally, when I came home from school, I would throw my bag on my bed. This was not the case this time. And the bed was very "newly made". My mother asked G again, but she insisted that it was me who came home a few minutes prior.

Of course, at that time I was in the bus and I always had about 30 minutes to get home. So, to be at home before 12:25 was not possible, if I did not catch the school bus. And even with that bus, I would be home at about 12:20. But not earlier...

I also thought that she imagined me. But it slightly unsettled me. My room was always a bit darker than the other ones, even though it had the same size of windows, like my mother's and my younger sister's. Even the direction they looked was the same! My room was always cold. But I never thought that there might be something out of the ordinary. Just a stupid room with a bad floor heating.

But after that day things began to happen. Mostly in my room. I would wake up in the middle of the night because I was shaking. Or being shaken? This I do not remember exactly... But it always stopped when I was clear. On some nights I would freeze and wake up, only to find my blanket UNDER my bed! I would try to pull, but it did not move. Only when I stood up and went to switch on the lights. After that, I could take the blanket.

Sometimes I would hear how someone would whisper my name right by my ear or knockings on the wall. I always thought that it was being my younger sister to annoy me. So I knocked back to the wall to keep her quiet. And after a few nights she would ask me why I would knock on the walls. Of course, we discussed it and found it strange. But we thought maybe it was our neighbours. They were sometimes crazy... The whisperings I thought were my imagination or even a dream.

After that, my light bulbs would burst when I switched the lights on. After three months and about 13 bulbs later, my mother called for an electrician. He said everything was alright with the cables but the bulbs continued to burst. My mother just thought that I would push the switch a bit too hard.

And to be honest, I was scared a bit back then. I was tired in school. I was aggressive against everyone, even my family. I would shut myself in my bedroom after school and do nothing. Literally. This went on for a few years. Until I was 20. I finished school, finished my apprenticeship, even though it should have been only 3 years, it took me, because of my very bad luck, 5 years to finish it.

To be Continued...