I have always been a magnet for people who live outside traditional norms of society and can honestly say I've heard some strange stories over the years. One conversation with a total stranger however, will stay with me till the day I die. A few years ago, I was out with some friends on a Saturday night enjoying a couple of shandies and whilst waiting patiently at the bar to be served, the youngish bloke next to me struck up a conversation which very quickly took a bizarre turn. He began to tell me that he thought he was going mad because what had happened to him was so incredibly out there that nobody EVER believed him and he said he'd even begun to doubt his own memories. He then told me that he had been abroad travelling to different countries for many years, diftiifting from casual job to casual job until he met an Australian girl and fell in love. This led him to go back to Oz when she returned home and he moved into her parents home in the isolated, small village where she grew up. Life apparently was good, he found local work as a farm hand and he'd began to make plans to marry and to live there permanently. All was fine and dandy till apparently he had to go to the city for a few days and upon his return his whole life fell apart and a nightmare began. He said that everyone had simply gone from the village, there were no people, no animals, nothing. He said he stayed for days waiting for his girlfriend to come home but she never did. All belongings were still in the house and as he searched the village he realised it looked as though everyone had just literally vanished from the face of the earth. One other thing he said was as he walked round he realised that the graves in the churchyard had been excavated and the remains removed too. He called the police but they weren't interested in what he was telling them. Eventually he decided to get a flight home to the UK as he felt the need to feel connected again.
At this point I noticed that this fella looked traumatised and I fully believe that he'd lived through something horrific, he wasn't pissed (drunk) and as he talked to me he was crying and emotional. I know that I haven't done his story any justice and it probably sounds like a work of fiction and indeed, none of my friends that night believed what I'd told them but in that moment when I was talking with him, I instinctively knew he was telling me the truth. The poor man was heartbroken.
Or he was an actor of such greatness and magnitude and I am totally gullible! Although, i still can't figure out a motive for fabricating such a wild story? He asked me foe nothing and despite looking for him (to tell his story to my disbelieving friends) I never saw him again, he disappeared....
should have claimed to be one of those novelty ring bearers.....
) small hours to take the daily newspapers round to all the little shops in our very rural area. It was divided up into several runs and one of them was known as the 'pussycat run' on account of many reported sightings of big cats over the years. This was fairly remote and a pain to do as it took so long ... well at least this is why the drivers said they didn't like doing it!