“I never thought it could happen to me.”

I’ve read about it, I’ve seen it in movies, but I never thought it was real.  I didn’t think it was possible for one person to place a curse on another.

But it happened to me.

Some time ago, I had a run in with a particularly evil person who lives down the block.  No one likes this woman, and ever since I moved into the neighborhood, I’ve heard about the weird happenings that have occurred inside her house.

One story has it that she has a mentally-challenged son in his forties that she is ashamed of, keeps him inside the house and rarely lets him see the light of day.  I’ve never seen him and I’ve lived on the block for almost twenty-four years.

Anyway, on that fateful day back in December 2007, I was walking my Sheltie when he slid his head from beneath his collar and ran off down the street.  He scampered into the woman’s yard, and I could hardly believe my eyes when she started screaming and throwing large stones at him.

I walked up to the fence and as calmly as I could, I asked her to stop trying to hurt my dog.  After all, this was not a Pit Bull; this was a sweet little dog that wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Well, this woman looked at me with such ferocity that I was quite taken aback.  Then she pointed a finger right at my eyes (we were several feet from one another), and she mumbled something beneath her breath.  But I heard the word “curse,” and that’s when I picked up my dog and walked away as fast as I could.

The next day I developed a severe rash on my leg that came out of nowhere.  It stayed with me for a full week until I happened to walk my dog past the “witch’s” house.  She peered out from the open window and said, “Let that be a lesson to ya.”

The rash disappeared that night.  I will believe to my dying day, that old witch had put a curse on me.

In my wildest dreams, I never thought it could happen to me.  Fortunately, she and I have never crossed swords again, and I am now a believer that certain people have powers the rest of us simply cannot comprehend.

Cassie Purdue
Cincinnati, Ohio

“She knew the thought was coming from me.”

I was on a flight from Los Angeles to Tampa, Florida when I realized I had forgotten to leave the key under the front doormat for my friend Alice who was going to feed and walk the dogs.

Because she’s one of the few people who doesn’t carry a cell phone, there was no way I could call to tell her that I always hid a spare key in the shed beside the garage.  I could visualize my two collies running around the house, desperate to get outside to relieve themselves.  I could also visualize Alice’s look of disappointment and frustration at not being able to get inside the house.

The moment I got off the plane my cell phone beeped and it was Alice.  I started to apologize and explain where the extra key was hidden, and I was taken aback when she said she had found it and everything was OK.

I didn’t understand, as I had never revealed the extra key to her, but she said when she was standing in front of the door, the image of the key on a shelf in the shed kept appearing in her mind.  She said she knew the thought was coming from me, and she wasn’t the least bit surprised when she found the key precisely where she had envisioned it.

I’ve had somewhat similar experiences with my sister Jodi over the years but never with anyone else.  Even to this day, I’ll get an “instant message” from Jodi, and I’ll pick up the phone and tell her exactly what she had relayed telepathically.

Helen Basset
Jackson, Miss.

“She heard guitar music coming from the basement downstairs”

I’ve received your emails for a couple of years now, and I never would have believed I’d be writing to you with my own “out-of-the-ordinary” experience.

It happened a couple of weeks ago when I arrived home from a business trip back east.  The first thing that seemed to be “different” was my dog, Henry, who just sat there instead of jumping up and down and doing his best to bowl me over.

I usually leave him with Jane who stays in my house when I’m away.  It costs about the same as boarding, and this way Henry is not cooped up.  I also feel confident that my house isn’t sitting in the dark each night, making an inviting target for some thief.

For some reason, when Henry first spotted me, he didn’t even bother to get up.  He merely raised his head while remaining lying on his side.  I thought perhaps he was sick but Jane assured me he was fine but a bit scared.

“Scared,” I asked?  “What does he have to be scared about?”  It was such a strange comment.  But not at all strange when Jane told me what had transpired a few days after I had left.

She said that in the middle of the night she had heard guitar music coming from the basement downstairs.  She said she was scared out of her mind, started to call the police, but thought better of it and went downstairs to check it out.

“I took Henry with me for protection,” she said, although she and I both know that Henry runs for cover at the first sign of trouble.

Jane went on to tell me what she saw.  “As I was walking down the stairs leading to the basement, I saw the figure of a young man out of the corner of my eye.  Normally, I would have run back upstairs and out the house, but I didn’t feel the least bit threatened.  It was as if he wanted to say something to me.

“Then when I walked down the final step, I saw that he was holding a guitar, and although he was moving his hand up and down as if he were playing it, I heard no sound.

“And then he vanished right in front of my eyes.  I glanced down at Henry whose tail was between his legs.  He was slowly creeping behind my legs, the brave protector dog that he is.”

When I asked Jane what the young man looked like, I knew at once he was the son of the people who rent out the house to me.  I met him once, just weeks before he passed away from a long-term illness a year ago on Christmas day.

Georgina Lassiter
Montreal, Canada

“I had this awful premonition that something was wrong”

It was the sixteenth of October and I was getting ready to celebrate my 29nd birthday with my fiancée, Lawrence.

We had been dating for over a year, and he had asked me to marry him the previous weekend.  I was surprised because he had expressed so many times that marriage was not for him.  My parents were ecstatic and they were dropping hints that it was now or never for me, that if I didn’t accept his proposal, I might never get another opportunity.

What confidence they had in me.  And what a wonderful time it was for me; or, rather, what a wonderful time it should have been for me.  Let me explain.

There was something about Lawrence that never seemed to be “exactly” right.  I mean, he had a wonderful personality, an excellent physique, good looking in a rough sort of way, and a very sharp sense of humor.  What’s wrong with that?

Well, there was always something a bit secretive about him.  It was as if he was holding something back, but I could never put my finger on it.  So here I was awaiting Lawrence to come over on my birthday, and I had this awful premonition that something was wrong, that today of all days, I was going to learn something about my fiancée that could possibly ruin it all.

And for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why I felt this way.  Lawrence had never given any indication at all that something was wrong.  But as I was about to learn, unfortunately my premonition was right on target.

Lawrence walked in and I could see in his face something was askew.  I had never seen that look before and asked if he was OK.  He nodded he was fine, but he looked very, very serious.  My folks were in the room, and I asked if he wanted to go somewhere and have some privacy.

We went in the den.  I held his hand and told him I had this feeling from the moment I had awakened that something was terribly wrong with our relationship.  He simply looked at me and asked how I knew.  I just said I did and to please tell me with your words.  You see, at that moment I wasn’t at all sure what he was going to tell me, and I was kind of bluffing that I knew precisely what was wrong, when, in fact, I didn’t have a clue.

But he took the bait, sat on the edge of the loveseat and looked at me for a very, very long time before speaking.  Finally, he blurted out,  “I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you.  I’m leaving for New York in the morning.”

It was at that moment that I read his mind.  “It’s Marsha,” I said.  He nodded and asked how I knew since he had never mentioned her before.  “Honestly,” I replied, “I didn’t know until this very moment and I think I plucked her name out of your head.”

Well, our relationship ended right there.  I was devastated as were my folks.  So I’m out in the “singles world” again and surviving.  I don’t like it and would rather be settled down with a husband and kids, but at least I didn’t marry someone who was waiting for his old love to ask him to return.  Which is exactly what happened.

T. Wellison
London, England

His Leading Lady Could Read the Thoughts of the Famous Filmmaker

In a 1990 radio interview, Francois Truffaut, an icon of the French film industry, recalled this incident.  “I was not getting a very sound night’s sleep because we were going to film a very complex scene in the morning.  I knew my leading lady was fragile, and the actor opposite her was temperamental, to say the least.

“Although it is my responsibility as director to maintain total control of the set, it is always my intention to have happy actors.  My failure to accomplish that will not optimize their talents, and the finished product will certainly suffer the consequences.

“Sure enough, when I walked on the set, I was alerted by my assistant that my feminine lead was in her trailer — in tears and not at all ready to participate in the demanding scene we were about to film.

“When I entered her trailer she explained that she ‘knew’ what I was thinking about her fragility and that I had spent a restless night worrying about it.

I nodded that she was correct and inquired how she could have possibly known that.  She replied that from the first day of shooting she had been able to pick up on my thoughts.  I’m sure she picked up on my horror at that notion because although she was very, very gifted, she was, indeed, a challenge to work with.

“Well, from that moment on until we wrapped the movie, I was careful not to think negative thoughts about her — or anyone else for that matter.  She also made me promise I would never reveal our little secret to anyone because she didn’t want anyone else to know I thought she had a fragile personality.”

Coincidence, fate, or magic?

I’m writing to you because I want to give hope to anyone out there that is searching for love and romance.

I am a forty-three year old man who has been fairly successful in business.  I have several friends whom I treasure and a brother who has been happily married for years.

I, on the other hand, never married and really never thought of myself as a father.  I was quite content leading a rather carefree and responsibility-free life.

But about six months ago, I awoke one morning, looked in the mirror at my receding hairline and suddenly found myself depressed with the prospect of living the rest of my life alone.

What a sad awakening.

For the next several weeks, my mind was obsessed with visions of a wife and children.  My friends would call me and invite me to their homes for dinner, and a few of my single friends would invite me out for the evening, but my heart was heavy with sadness and regret.

A close friend of mine, a doctor, recommended I needed to get away.  He handed me a pamphlet listing cruises to Mexico, the Caribbean, even Alaska.  And before I knew it, I was boarding this giant ship that looked to me like a floating hotel.  It was several stories high and I felt like an ant walking up the ramp.

After three days, I was going crazy.  All I could see were couples holding hands or dads carrying their kids.  If anything, my depression was growing more intense.  I was not impressed with my friend’s recommendation.  After all he was a medical doctor, not a shrink.

Then on the fourth day, I was sitting in the lounge nursing a Diet Coke.  I had given up drinking a year earlier.  Years of carousing had taken its toll.  I was in my usual funk when I noticed an attractive woman seated with two other women.  I couldn’t help but stare at her, and then something happened that I will never forget.

She looked at me out of the corner of her eye and I saw her lips kind of curl upward.  It was the most innocent and beautiful smile I had ever seen.  It was then that I regained that spark.  I drummed up the courage to walk over to them, introduced myself, and soon I found myself looking into the eyes of someone I knew I would know a long, long time.

Her name is Charlene and the next day she told me that she had a premonition the previous morning that she would meet the man she had been searching for.  We are making plans so we can be that couple I referred to earlier, and I can be that man holding his kids.

Darren Markowitz
Cleveland, Ohio