Levi 501's

I don't know if I've told you this one before and I can't be arsed to go back through the archives to find out, but it's relevant to the Tuesday story this week. I went to the College Arms in Peterborough one night and I was wearing a pair of Levi 501's that I had inherited from my brother. He died in a diving accident. Scuba diving. He died trying to save his best friend, but that's another story. Well in his memory every day I wear an Item of his clothing. Maybe that sounds crazy but it helps me. For instance today I am wearing his socks. Yesterday I wore one of his T-shirts. Never a day goes by when I don't wear something of his. Apart from my memories it's all I've got left. Anyway this night I wore his old Levi 501's, they are the ones with the button flies. So after a while drinking copious amounts of the falling down water, I had to go and recycle. All was going well until it came to button up again. The buttons were really tight. I was struggling. People came and went and I was still wrestling with my fly. All of a sudden I noticed this guy looking at me, while the last guy was finishing off, two shakes and a tuck, he gave me a wink. I continued trying to do up the ridiculously tight buttons. He assumed I was stalling for time to get rid of the last customer. He waited some more over by the cubicles. Then I was alone with this winking guy. He made a comment like "nice bum." And I still had four buttons to do up. I cursed my dead brother for having such bad taste in clothes, and pulling down my jumper I ran out the loos back to my table. Where my friends started asking me what I was fiddling with under the table and that perhaps I should have kept what I was doing private, in a cubicle. If only they knew the circumstance. Perhaps they'd have been more sympathetic. So sorry bro' I'm not wearing those jeans of yours to the pub again. Perhaps you'll come and see me again one day.

That's a bit weird I know. But this is something that happened to me and I can't explain. My bro' died on the Sunday and Father said to me "we've got to go to Scotland to sort everything out. can you look after the business while we're gone?" Well is the pope Catholic? Of course I could. So I ran the family business for three days Monday til Wednesday. Wednesday night came and I couldn't take it anymore and I fell into a black hole of grief and despair. My good friend Steve took me to the pub and filled me full of ale and lisened patiently while I talked absolute rubbish all night and blubbed. Later he took me home and put me to bed. I was incapable of anything by then. I struggled through Thursday, Friday and then Saturday, coping with custoimers and trying to carry on. Then at 10:30am I felt it. It was like a rush. My brother flew through me. That's all I can describe it as. A whoosh. But I knew it was him. Suddenly I felt great. A weight was lifted from my shoulders I started smiling and feeling good about myself. But I'm an athiest so I couldn't rationalise what had happened. I kept quiet for six months for fear of people thinking I was a crazy loon. Then after six months I was in a pub with my darling sister, we were chatting I said "Don't think me crazy but a strange thing happened after bro' died. he came to me."
She said "Was that 10:30 the following Saturday?"
Shit! Hairs standing on the back of your neck or what?
"Yes that's the exact time."
"Same thing happened to me. Did you feel good after?"
"Yes I did."
"That was James, telling us he was OK."
I've never felt him since. My mother has a phone in her house. It's a very old phone. One of those dial phones. It's not even connected. It's just an ornament. But in the middle of the night it rings. Mother knows it's james calling her she picks up the reciever and talks to him. A few times she's been clearing out cupboards and has opened a door and everything falls out. Guess whats on the top of the pile? A photograph of James. Or a letter from him.

I'm still an athiest. But you know, it makes you wonder. I must confess I have now moved on from being an absolute athiest to being a sceptic. For chrissakes how many more clues do I need? Where have you heard that before?

I still have, what I think is, a healthy aversion to religion. I have Christian values but I'm not a Christian I don't believe in God. I hold no truck with Islam or seventh day adventists, Jehovas witnesses, I'm not a methodist or a babtist, I'm not a satanist, mainstream religion leaves me cold. I am not a religious man. But there';s something out there. I don't know what it is. Perhaps one of you guys can tell me what it's all about. I'm a hard target. I don't give in too easily to the supernatural. I have been trained as a scientist, but so many spooky things have happened to me, that I begin to wonder.

My psychic friend told me last week "it's not spooky, it's normal. You only think it's spooky because you don't believe. Once you accept that it's normal everyting will fall into place. You don't have to believe in God or any religion, just accept that this is how it is. Then all your worries about "spooky stuff" happening to you will make sense."

Well that's OK for the rest of you. But for me that's a huge leap. I haven't even scratched the surface of all the "spooky" things that have happened to me. I don't talk about this often, it worries me. So this may be the last time I mention it. So if you've got any ideas.................

Thanks for being there