When I left my first husband, Joe Brown, I moved into a house at 236 Laurel St. in Richmond's Oregon Hill. He followed me to the hill and took a house a few blocks away at 806 China St. He lived there for a while with a mutual friend of ours, Talbott. After he left the state, I moved in with Talbott, as much of my old stuff, including animals, was there.

There were two bedrooms on the second floor with two flights of stairs between them. One day, as I was going downstairs from my room, I was startled by a large black column that was suddenly in my way as I was taking the turn towards the second flight of stairs. It was around 2 feet in diameter and seemed to go from below the first floor and up through the ceiling of the stairwell. It was between the two flights of stairs, almost where the center post of the handrails was.

I jumped back from it because it was there so suddenly. It had a physical sense to it, as if I was going to run into it. And then, just as suddenly, it was just gone.

Written on 10/10/00.