The Enigmatic Return: A Tale of the Silent Reappearance
Unveiling the Mysterious Encounter with an Elective Mute Who Returned After a Decade
I worked as a psychiatric nurse during the early days of my career, stationed at a residential mental health facility. Among our residents was an individual who had chosen to be mute, without any apparent medical cause for it. This resident had once been quite vocal in his earlier years and had seemed perfectly ordinary, apart from his towering height of nearly seven feet. Originally hailing from the Southern states, he had joined the military at the age of 19. However, he vanished suddenly one night, leading to his classification as AWOL. Eventually, he was presumed missing and deceased.
A full decade later, a man of remarkable height entered the emergency room of a VA Hospital in my Midwest location. He approached the receptionist and introduced himself as Charles Everett , stating, “I have been absent from this world for ten years.”
Those were the final words he ever uttered.
The man was coated in a layer of dust, and he wore the same attire that had been described on the night he disappeared. No traces of his social security number or identification were found on his person, though his identity was eventually established through his fingerprints. His family was informed of his reappearance, but they insisted that their beloved one was already lost to them, and the man claiming to be him was a mistaken identity. They implored not to be contacted again.
Throughout the day, Charles would continually pace around, his lips moving in a manner suggesting speech or murmuring, yet no sound emanated from him. He possessed a disconcerting habit of tilting his head back with his mouth agape, mimicking hearty laughter, but the absence of any audible sound made it eerie. When I engaged with him in conversation, he seemed to listen, intermittently throwing back his head in that peculiar imitation of laughter.
A range of medications were administered, but they had no discernible impact, either positive or negative. Occupational therapy attempts proved futile as well, as Charles would simply grin and, unless instructed otherwise, resume his ceaseless pacing.
On my final day at the facility, my last glimpse was of Charles pacing in the parking lot, his head thrown back in imitation of laughter. In the subsequent years, I’ve often pondered if I had been interacting with a specter all along. To this day, the mystery remains unresolved in my mind.