LEJ, I'm not really comfortable with Penn...

You asked for the story about the ghost in my house.

It was some years ago, on a night when I had been finding it hard to sleep. The room was not blacked out well, and the street lights made it possible to see. Each time I started to drop off, there would be some small sound, a beam creaking in the loft (roof space) perhaps, that woke me again. It's not an old house, but what we call a maisonette, built in the sixties, two floors, but with a flat belonging to someone else underneath. There is only one entrance door, at ground level, and it would be noisy if anyone entered it by force. It was built on the site of a Victorian house, and maybe my bedroom occupies the space of its attic. Not that I think that had anything to do with what happened next. At about 1.30, I saw the door of the room open, and a man came in and walked towards me. I was able to see him clearly while a part of me was very rationally trying to work out what to do. He was tall, with longish, lank dark hair, and a worn face with smoker's creases. Not unpleasant, though. He was wearing an old dark greatcoat, with his hands in the pockets. I could not see down below pocket level. He resembled one of my brothers-in-law, or perhaps the actor Jimmy Nail, without being completely like either. There was no doubt in my that a real person was in my room. As he walked towards me, I was thinking that he was between me and the phone, wondering how he had got in without my hearing, and trying hard to think how to defend myself, deciding in the end to sit up, and turn on the bedside light, and try talking. Strangely, in spite of anticipating the worst, I was not afraid. I suppose that it could have been a dream, except that, after I turned on the light, it took a moment for him to fade and disappear. And I was fully awake, awake enough to get out of bed and move the phone. The door, by the way, was shut.

Some time later, I found that he also resembled the character played by Alan Rickman in the film "Truly, Madly, Deeply," which existed at the time, but which I had not seen, not even a small clip or publicity photo. I had the feeling that he was a stranger, passing through, who was, for some reason, coming to look at me. Someone familiar with the layout of the house. Just an ordinary fella who happened to be dead. Not malign in any sense. He has never been back. I am not, however, typing this on the usual computer, which is plugged into the extension in my bedroom. This is going on to the Mudcat without being re-read there.

Penny