I lost my sight at the age of four. I’m not one to let my disability define me, but it’s important to note that I am blind, given the story I’m about to share. It’s been three years since this chilling incident happened, and I haven’t had the courage to tell anyone until now.
To keep it brief, I work as an editor for e-books and occasionally as a programmer when my office mates need my help. My wife also works in an office, and while I’ve been working from home due to the pandemic, she has shifts, so she’s in the office two days one week, three days the next.
One night, I was up late, and it must have been around 3 a.m. when I finally got into bed. My wife had already been asleep for a while. I was exhausted and fell asleep almost instantly, knowing I’d have to be up early the next day.
Waking up to the alarm on my iPhone (the one thing Siri does well is set alarms!), I hurried to turn it off so as not to wake my wife who, miraculously, was still sleeping beside me, cocooned in the bed sheets. I could hear her breathing and was surprised by her soft snoring as she usually doesn’t snore.
I grabbed my clothes and headed to the kitchen to dress, as I often did on days when she didn’t have to go to work, in order to let her sleep a little longer. I started the coffee maker and prepared some coffee, then my phone rang.
My initial thought was that my wife had woken up and was jokingly calling me from the bedroom to make her a coffee too. But, when I answered the call, I was speaking to my wife – who was not in the bedroom. I had miscalculated, and she had gone into work that day. She was just calling to remind me that an Amazon package was due to be delivered.
I froze. I was in the middle of lacing my shoes when a chill ran down my spine. Minutes ago, I had been lying next to someone who couldn’t possibly be my wife as she was across the city.
What would have happened if I’d leaned over and kissed whatever was lying next to me in the bed? If I could see, what would I have seen beside me in bed?
I’m not proud of my next move, but fear overcame me. I left my freshly brewed coffee on the table, pocketed my phone, grabbed my white cane, and left the house. I swear, as I closed the door, I heard the usual sounds of my wife waking up: the bedside drawer opening, bare feet on the carpet.
With the door closed behind me, I practically flew down the steps, spending the rest of the morning outside, terrified and confused, not daring to share my experience with anyone.
Sometimes, I console myself by thinking it was my imagination playing tricks due to lack of sleep, but the reality is, someone or something was lying next to me, breathing, enveloped in the sheets.
When my wife returned that afternoon, everything seemed normal. She wanted to change the sheets because she said she had sweated a lot the night before. Indeed, the sheets were drenched, but not with sweat. It didn’t smell unpleasant, but there was no way I was getting back under those sheets.
I managed to “accidentally” bleach them so we could throw them out and never use them again.
If anyone has heard of or had a similar experience, I hope you can provide some insight. Perhaps your answers will help me make sense of this terrifying event.