A GHOSTLY TALE

There's no campfire, at least not yet, but I am going to tell you a ghost story, just the same.

I have lived in the same neighborhood for nearly twenty-five years.  My children and I used to live a couple of houses over (I can still look into the old apartment windows from here), right next door to one of the most haunted houses around.  My daughter refused to sleep in the neighbor's haunted house (she came home crying at 3:00 a.m.), renters wouldn't stay longer than six months, and a state police officer once witnessed the form of a woman cross the street and disappear right into the side of the house.

Other than constantly losing silverware and occasionally feeling like we were being watched, the rest of us on the short street accepted strange noises and strange occurrences and strange sensations of being watched.  It's just part of our daily (and nightly) routine.  Nothing (except the damn silverware) bothered me as this isn't my first rodeo with spirits in an old house in which I was residing.

Those are stories for another day, though.  Today it's all about the missing camera.

I own a camera, a really fine digital camera, a Canon Powershot S5IS.  I've had it for a decade, and I've taken no less than 50,000 photos with it.  I used to shoot soccer games and lacrosse games all through my youngest's high school and club sports experiences and right through his college career.  This did not happen on purpose.  I showed up to the freshman soccer pre-season with a camera, and the head parent volunteer said, "You.  Camera.  Team photographer.  GO!"

That was how it all started.  That camera went everywhere with me, and I never misplaced it nor lost it nor left it behind anywhere.  Never.

Fast forward to the Great and Terrible Merrimack Valley Gas Fiasco of 2018.

During the time the gas company was in my neighborhood, which was many months as my street intersected with the town's Ground Zero gas connection, the workers left my house wide open twice.  I don't mean just unlocked -- that happened routinely.  They left my front door gaping open for everyone to see, anyone and all who passed through the very busy five-way intersection that peers directly into my front door.  Then, there was a huge fight between the gas company supervisor and my landlord, resulting in the workers dumping a pile of metal, wires, piping, materials, insulation, a new furnace, and two new hot water heaters (they brought the wrong one the first time) in my basement as they were ordered to vacate the premises.

It was during this time, pre and post altercation and subsequent gathering of "all the tools," that my camera case, a black bag that looks very much like something electricians or plumbers might carry, went missing.

Now, if I know me, and I do, I was reasonably certain that I hid the camera and bag somewhere after coming home to find my door agape.  However, I couldn't remember doing so.  I had it in September, that I know, because I downloaded pictures from it.  However, the photos from the altercation mess -- those pictures were all from my phone.  I didn't have the camera for Thanksgiving nor for Christmas.  At first, I figured (because I know me) that I hid it really well.

But then ... I started searching for it.

I began with the small, relatively shallow closet where I hide most things I want out of the way but to remember that those things are there.  I use this closet daily, so there would be zero chance of me misplacing the camera and case.  However, I was shocked to find it wasn't there.  I looked again.  And again, and again, and again, as if I could not believe my eyes.

After that, I took the house apart from top to bottom.  I searched every drawer, under furniture, in the basement, at work, in my car, at my sister's house.  There was nowhere ... NOWHERE ... that I did not search.  I tore the closet apart.  Then, a few days later, still not believing the camera could be gone, I tore the closet apart again, taking every single thing out that was not on a hanger, and pushing each item on a hanger to the side, one by one, as if perhaps I had strung the case to the closet pole.

Finally, I tried to file a claim with the gas company.  Did anyone, any of the workers at all, accidentally pick up a camera case before departing back home to Indiana, California, Florida, South Carolina, or Kentucky ...  In other words, the camera was gone.  I did not file an insurance claim because in my crazy mind, I hoped the camera might one day return, but it seemed unlikely as I searched the house yet again.

In the months since then, I have cleaned out the basement, broken down the bedrooms, and gone through every inch of this house as I rearrange it following my final child's exodus.  I need to pare down if I intend to move to smaller quarters either by choice or by force (the landlord is redoing the townhouse connected to mine; this one will be next).  My mind is blank about the camera, knowing it will never turn up, but I feel nostalgic melancholy when the time comes to move the small shelf of audio-video equipment, complete with its missing space for the camera case.

A few days later I am driving around doing errands when the camera suddenly pops into my mind.  Well, I tell myself, it's probably time to start seriously thinking about replacing it ... or not.  I have a cell phone with a camera.  To Hell with it all.

I arrive home, go to put away my sneakers, open the closet door, the same closet that I use EVERY DAY, and there is the camera case, sitting right in the middle of the closet in a place so obvious that I actually would step on it if this were a normal work day and I were reaching for a pair of pants to wear.  Not only is the camera case completely in the open, but my other shoes and boots, the few pairs not in a shoe holder, have been moved away very carefully and with intention.  There is an oddly shaped circle of boots and shoes surrounding the camera case like it's a bulls-eye.

There.  Is.  No.  Way.  I.  Missed.  That.  Camera.  No way, no how.  I emptied the closet multiple times.  No way, no how, no dice.

I take a deep breath and open the case.  Yes, the camera is there.  I check the last picture taken.  This is where it gets strange (if you're not already creeped out): The camera has no new pictures, but it is in a mode I never use, not ever, and the date and time have both been reset to zero, as if time and space do not exist anymore to the camera now or in whatever dimension in which it has been.

It has taken me a few days to adjust.  I still open the closet daily, but I am now looking for a hole to another dimension.  Hopefully it's not a window to Hell.  I decide to take the camera with me on a hike, just to test it out.  It keeps returning to zero time on zero date.  I let it be for a few hours then carefully reprogram it to be this time and this day.  So far this is holding.

I don't know where the camera has been, but I sure as shit wish when it reappeared in my closet that it had also returned the missing silverware.  Maybe next time.