I remember my grandparents house in Waco. The only house nestled at the end of a dusty culdesac in a yet undeveloped new neighborhood. There were lush peach trees that somehow always yielded lots of fruit during the season.

My grandparents, mainly my grandmother, had a green thumb and a knack for planting and growing things. Years later when we lived in Kerrville we had great fig tree bushes on the side of the house that did well because of the care and instruction given to my mom by my grandmother. Figs became a fruit I lost an appetite for because I just plain got sick of eating them. That and pecans. Way too many pecans early in my youth spoiled the popular nut for me. But I digress.

Back that lonely house in Waco, where I spent many weekends since my mother and I had just moved there from California.

It was haunted.

Not by lord Satan. Not by ancient Indian spirits dying (cough) to be free of the earthly hold that the land held on them. Not by Slimer, the cute but troublesome lil green glowing scamp. And definitely not by Casper.

No, it was haunted by an apparition that only showed itself to me, late at night, when everyone else was asleep. It was simply a blue dot. A giant, pulsating blue dot that would frighten the ever living shit out of me.

Every night I pleaded with my grandmother not to go to sleep, lest this menacing bastard of an orb come into the room and just shake the fuck out of everything, goading me with its booming voice.

And every night she told me that I watched to much television, and along with too much sugar in my bloodstream and a hyper imagination, was making this all up to avoid sleep.

And so as she would don the sleeping mask and begin to drift off into a hard slumber, my own nightmare would begin.

Blue would shake so violently, books would fall off shelves, vases would shatter on the floor, and all of this activity promised to only get worse if I woke my grandmother up. Sometimes she would get up, and walk off into another room, which only made me fear for her safety. I cannot for the life of me figure out how she never noticed blue, but she never did.

And somehow by morning everything would be in its place, and everyone would be in the kitchen, well rested and talking over breakfast. Except for me.

I would always be tired as fuck.