My Ghostly Apparition
Lit Up — June’s Prompt: Stranger Things
Family day out in a warm sunlit park,
A happy time with my brothers. What a lark!
Horseplay and laughing, then tasty picnic food
Afterwards — the old manor house to be viewed.
When everyone was content, and all replete,
We were roused, and finally, pulled to our feet.
Verdant and vivid, we admired, on our round,
These grounds designed by ‘Capability’ Brown.
We entered Coombe Abbey — a gothic place,
Its medieval history — ours to face.
Inside the building, so shadowy and dark,
We drift off singly — our viewing to embark.
I wandered, aimlessly around the grand house,
Meet no other being, not even a mouse.
Murky nooks and crannies, and too many stairs,
Passed faded art, and dilapidated chairs.
After a while, I began to feel confused,
Panicking slightly, and not at all amused.
Which way to take, via rooms, or gloomy halls?
I was being smothered by these ancient walls.
Just then, I heard a voice, my mum, I presumed,
Dashed towards the sound, no longer feeling doomed.
Along a constricted, darkened passageway,
Quickly turned a corner, but … to my dismay!
A ghostly reflection was in front of me.
Glancing again in the mirror — I now see …
It’s metamorphosing in front of my eyes …
My own ashen image — now — I recognise.
Paralysed with confusion, and panic, too
Only to be stirred by a voice that I knew.
With mum and brothers — I was reunited,
Gladly, from the old abbey — we alighted.
Back outside, in the radiance of the day
The spectral mirage began to fade away.
I told no-one, as it seemed so surreal,
But, the imprint on my mind — I couldn’t conceal.
Even years on, when that encounter, I muse.
My echo, or strange spirit? I cannot choose.
Unsettling remembrances — still in my head,
Ever to be haunted — and suffused with dread.
