I would like to reflect on a time when I was a child. At this particular time, I was about 7 years old. Now, my parents weren't very strict and didn't have a set bedtime for us and I remember playing late outside this night. My younger brother, Ernest, was playing with me. He was 5.
After chasing each other and digging through the dirt, etc (doing things kids do) we noticed a boy at the end of our block outside, as well. My brother began taunting him about being so close to the street without his parents. I was embarrassed and tried convincing Ernest not to pick on him. My brother was relentless, though, and continued to make statements about the boy playing next to the road alone.
The boy didn't pay any mind to Ernest and, in fact, started jumping into the air as if to catch an insect flying. He started following this insect and while jumping, ended up where he was about to cross the street. At this point Ernest went inside, but I decided to stay and watch. There was something about this boy that looked and felt out of the ordinary.
For one, why was he about to cross the street without a parent? He looked to be somewhere around my age. It wasn't just that, something about him was strangely off. I stood there to examine him. He was skinny, African American and he wore an orange shirt. I couldn't help but to notice how bright the shirt appeared. He never turned his head my direction. Something about his shirt just didn't match with what I would expect to see in everyday appearances. I don't know how to explain it because I hadn't questioned about the brightness of it at first glance.
He looked both ways and crossed the road. I remembered thinking, "I can't believe a little boy just crossed the road." He began running towards our way, but across the street, never paying attention once to me. My gut feeling told me that it wasn't right, so I stood out there watching him and observing.
There was a beautiful big white house in front of us. I started to wonder where this boy was running to. He reached the left side of the house in front of us and then, suddenly he disappeared! It was something I would never forget. I've never seen an actual ghost, before or after that. I've only heard stories. I remember exactly how it happened. It was like, as soon as he was lifting his leg to take another step, the outer part of his body began to diminish, as if it were small particles. Then, just like that, it's as if he was never there.
I went inside to go tell my mom and brother what happened. Of course, neither of them believed me. A few moments later after all the excitement had gone, I explained to her that I was telling the truth. It was the ghost story for years to come.
We live in a small town and the strange thing is that we cannot recall any story of a boy passing that would match the description of the boy we saw. As an adult, I even skimmed through the old newspapers at the library to see if I could find any answers, but have come up with nothing. Nonetheless, it is still a good ghost story that I tell to my children at night when they ask to hear them.
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