Activity over a Weekend (October 24-28, 2019, Greenwich NY)

Thursday October 24^th, 2019:

Friends of Elizabeth and I have traveled from Austin, TX to Saratoga, NY. We decide to take the three hour trip from our home in Burlington, VT to stay at Elizabeth’s parent’s house in Greenwich, NY while her parents are out of town for the weekend so we can visit the traveling friends.

We arrive at roughly 10pm.

As we pull into the driveway I see the light on in the loft above the garage where we will be sleeping. I also believe I see the shape of a tall and thin person walk in front of the window but before I can make out any features we are turning toward the main house and when I look again the light is off.

Elizabeth’s mother meets us outside. It is possible that she was the one I saw, but for that to be the case she would have had to run quickly across the long loft and down the stairs in the span of a few seconds. She greets us and offers to show us the loft.

The lights are all off. She turns them on and shows us around.

We visit in the main house with her parents and eventually go to bed in the loft.

Friday October 25^th, 2019:

We both sleep off and on. Elizabeth often gets up frequently in the night so this is not a surprise but we both tell each other about dreams that felt uneasy. I feel as though I have forgotten something, but brush it off.

Elizabeth’s parents and brother have left for a wedding for the weekend near dawn.

We spend the day quietly. Elizabeth works, though barely as the internet keeps either becoming to slow to be useful or cutting out entirely. I quickly write a short story, the first I have in months, and in a tone and of a subject both unfamiliar to me.

We spend the evening going to meet our traveling friends (Jordan, Emma, and Devon) at an art show in Troy, NY.

When we return to the loft near 11pm we find the door to the loft has been locked. Neither of us remember locking it. The logical possibility is that a family friend who agreed to feed the chickens (on the other side of the property) noticed the loft door was unlocked and locked it, though why they would notice it, or why the main house doors remain unlocked, is a mystery.

We watch “Midsommar” and go to sleep.

Saturday October 26^th, 2019:

Again we sleep and dream uneasily, though we chalk it up to sleeping in a new place and being in the midst of a hectic weekend, and watching the film before bed. Again, I feel vaguely as if I have forgotten something, and only then do I remember that I felt this way the morning before.

We drive to Saratoga to pick up our traveling friends. We decide to hike a familiar mountain with them and afterward we all return to the house to watch “the Exorcist”.

We return to the house around 9pm and gather in the basement den of the main house to watch the film. On the couch sit Myself, Elizabeth, Emma, then Devon. Jordan sits on the adjacent easy chair.

During the film Emma falls asleep, waking up periodically.

After the film we decide sleeping arrangements. Devon and Jordan share a room in the upstairs bedroom, Emma sleeps on the couch in the downstairs den. Elizabeth and I will sleep in the loft.

Emma relays to Elizabeth that during the film she woke to see a sixth person in the room with us, watching the film. When Elizabeth tells me this I assume Emma was groggy and saw shadows.

We go to sleep.

Sunday October 27^th, 2019:

We wake and over the course of the morning I find out that in the night Devon and Jordan decided to move downstairs to the piano room futon, due to feeling “too uncomfortable to sleep” in the upstairs bedroom, an area of the house that both Elizabeth and her mother have also noted feeling too uncomfortable to sleep in.

After the two of them moved and fallen asleep, Jordan tells me that he and devon were woken up and found Emma standing over them. Emma had no memory of walking into the room or of standing there, but remembers waking up finding herself there. Devon, though awake at the time, had no memory of the event at all.

I noted to everyone about how I felt as though I had been forgetting things that were happening in the night, consistently.

Emma then described to me what she saw as we watched the Exorcist. A person, with clearly defined clothing and features. She didn’t remember much, but far more detail than shadows would account for, in my opinion. A sixth person.

A small synchronicity: A popular blog I follow posts their daily article, this one about “the Exorcist”. It is Halloween weekend, so I note it but don’t think much of it.

We drive the friends back to Saratoga and Elizabeth and I spend the evening out and eventually return to the loft.

We discuss the strangeness, but try to move past it. The idea that I am forgetting something sits with me and I decide to download an app that records your sleep noises. Talking, snoring, etc. I hit record, and we go to sleep.

Monday October 28^th, 2019:

When we wake up I notice the recorder has stopped sometime after 5am. There are 11 instances of noises recorded. The first handful are of Elizabeth and I getting ready for bed. After that a couple of just the bed creaking through the night. At roughly 130am, I say something unintelligible. At roughly 4:45, 4:50, and 5:00 am, a groan/gurgling noise can be heard. The creaking of the bed can be ruled out as the bed creaking can be heard in earlier recordings and sounds distinctively different.

We begin to clean up to get ready to head back to Vermont. As we do I decide to upload the audio files to my laptop to listen closer and possibly clean up the sound. When I upload them, only 9 instances are then present. Missing now is the 130am-ish recording of me speaking and the clearest of the three groan noises. It is possible I accidentally deleted them, though highly unlikely.

At this same time, Elizabeth is listening to the radio in the house as she cleans. The DJ then introduces a piece as being written by a woman not named Dolly whom was referred to as Dolly by her friends. Elizabeth tells me she thinks this is her Grandmother saying hello, as this was also the case with her grandmother.

Later, as we are about to leave Elizabeth is finishing up and the DJ announces another composer, this time hailing from Austin, TX.

When Elizabeth is out at the car, I am near the radio and the DJ exclaims that this block of music is sponsored by a business that I am about to start work for, 2 and half hours away, in Burlington Vermont.

A handful of synchronicities to say goodbye.