The second year of college was largely unremarkable, of course, classes and dorm and late-night studying, but there was one day that day that will remain forever vivid in my memory. I had recently attended a lengthy lecture in the afternoon and was strolling home in a semi-absent minded state wondering what to have as my evening meal. It was at that moment my phone vibrated.
His voice was strangely tight: it was my roommate. “Open your bedroom door! he cried. Puzzled, I said to him I was not at home. His voice altered in a moment, and panicked. I swear I hear some one dribbling a basketball in your room, he said. That brought me to attention. My ball was always in one corner of my room–it was never handled by anybody but myself.
As I was returning to the dorm, my roommate was possibilities white as a ghost. White and wide-eyed and with clenched hands, he persisted that he had heard–he could not mistake–the definite, unmistakable sound of a basketball striking the floor. We crept open my bedroom door. There was nobody inside. But it was different–some of my things had been definitely moved. I could no longer see the basketball at the place I left it. No trace of force, no message, no simple answer. The dorm would have been bolted and we never knew what actually transpired that day. Something did, however.
That case remained at the back of my mind until a few years down the line, a case even more chilling occurred. By this time I had moved into a two level apartment, the upper two stories of a small complex with two personal patios. It was a nice neighborhood, secure, nothing to lose sleep about, until the night when about 3 a.m. my dog woke me up. She does not normally bark during the night unless there is something wrong seriously.
This night she was not merely barking, she was up in my face, trembling with alertness. She dashed directly to the sliding door that opens to the upper patio so I assumed she needed to go outside. I opened the door, and, instead of going out, she sniffed the air, and looked cautiously around the patio, and then darted back inside and rushed up the stairs.
That is when I began to feel uncomfortable. Dogs do not pretend to be scared. I obeyed her, and went up stairs with her, where she stood at the top landing, growling in her throat, and looking down toward the lower level. She definitely wished me to come down after her. I took a bat–just in case–and went down slowly. she sprinted about the room on a sniffing mission, and then froze. Her gaze flew to the glass door opening to the lower patio. She did not bark, this time–merely growled, showing her teeth, and bristling her hackles.
I peered through the glass and my stomach turned upside down. Out on the balcony there stood the shadow of a man. Perfectly still. I could only distinguish the outline–big shoulders, erect–no motion whatever. I thought frantically: nobody could have accessed that patio without entering my apartment, unless they had climbed the building some how. I hesitated but a moment before I switched on the patio light. I looked twice the moment the bulb was lit. The patio was bare.
No sound, no footsteps, no creak of doors, nothing. The surrounding was perfectly quiet. I went out of doors, held on to the railing, looked round. Soul not in sight. and that patio? It has just one entry or exit point, which is in my apartment.
I have yet to this day what I saw that night. It was perhaps an illusion of the light, perhaps some one had discovered how to ascend and descend without leaving a footprint. However what prevents me sometimes to sleep is that my dog also saw it. Whatever, it was not all in my mind. The thought that somebody, or something, might be observing you, and you may never be aware of it until it is at your door steps, is somehow very unnerving.