I feel that, perhaps, many of us have supernatural encounters that we don’t recognise as supernatural simply because they are not the usual thing you find in a horror movie which, we in the West, are somewhat conditioned to use as a guide as to what is truly spooky and what is not.
In ages past people were reminded to look for “signs and portents”… basically unusual happenings or animals or, basically nature, behaving in uncharacteristic ways and to try and find meanings in these occurrences. Maybe this happened to you or one of your listeners as late as today or this week and because it’s not something you would normally see in a Hollywood horror movie you’ve just shrugged your shoulders and forgotten about it but things happen to me every so often that I can’t explain and I sometimes think back to the first time I was truly aware of it, partly because it was so perplexing perhaps, mainly, I’ve been trying to think about what really happened or what it could ..?
Anyhoo, let me tell you all about it!
I was in my mid teens, maybe a little older & my friends and I had decided to go to the fairground but they never showed up and I was on my own. I was determined not to be left out or made to feel bad so I was determined to just enjoy myself!
I suppose just to sort of spite them or despite them ;-) anyway, amongst the rides I wanted to go on where the Dodgems or “bumper cars“ as we call them here in the UK.
Surrounding the round area where the cars would move like glittering gladiators was a sort of ‘ circular queue’ -by that I mean, basically, people queued up all around the round area the little cars would race around in and safely crash but first you had to purchase a plastic disc and then you waited your turn in this queue that went around the area of play.
in some areas this circular queue was three people deep- some parts were five people deep but when the cars would eventually stop and the current driver’s time was up, desperate folks in the first ring of people would barely wait for drivers to leave their vehicles and would rush onto the dodgem area & and try and get in a car quickly because there would always be a few people left over, like musical chairs, do you remember that game?
Anyone left over would have to rush back and join the circular queue again but slowly and surely, just like everyone else, myself, at the back, would move forward and forward getting closer and closer. By this time I started looking out for a car that might give me an advantage & that might be worth rushing for!
I saw four red cars; four Blue cars; four Green cars; four yellow cars and one purple car. They were all metallic, glittery, multicoloured paint jobs but I suppose the purple one stood out because it was the only one like it. All theses cars had numbers and I think that my favourite, that solitary purple dodgem, had a distinctive number like seven -I’m pretty sure it wasn’t 13!
Of course the numbers meant nothing it was just so they would look like racing cars, y’know?
Anyway, it seemed to me that the purple car was the one to get, I set my heart on it, as it were, maybe it went a little faster but it just looked different and it was the one I ever so badly wanted to get and I urged myself to be ready to get it! Indeed, it got to the point that when I was on the first circle, if you know what I mean, of the queue, I was determined to rush out and if I didn’t get that car I was just gonna rush back again and wait until I could get the Purple one!
It seemed that the bumper cars were a very popular ride as the Joker kept getting sold and The cues kept forming around and around and everyone was desperate to get on and race round and have fun because there was already several people behind me pushing forward as I had been.
I hoped that the car would eventually stop near me when it was my turn but when that time came, unfortunately it stopped quite a way! Certainly it was much Closer, indeed, to the other people in the same circular queue as myself… when, eventually, the Siren sounded, as it did at the beginning & the end of the timed session; the electricity was cut off from the brightly coloured cars and People began to get out. Well, I ran and ran as fast as I could- I doubt anyone could run faster!
I didn’t look about & I didn’t see what was or wasn’t happening around me.
I just didn’t care.
I just wanted to get THAT singular car!
I put the yellow plastic coin that I purchased earlier into the slot like we’d all been told so it MY car would be ready and activated when the electricity was shot through to its motor
I breathed a sigh relief and looked around me… IN DISBELIEF!
Every car was empty!
I mean no one was in them at all and no one was by them either but I wasn’t completely alone.
I could hear the distant sounds of people laughing and joking around and having fun and all the other attractions in the fairground just as I did before AND the circular crew of People and their desperate faces ready and interested & yearning for the turn were still all around and encircling the ‘ play area’ were the bright little cars had been whizzing around and bumping into each other, as before but this time, for the first time, nobody moved.
I looked all around Me in amazement for no one was frozen, so to speak, they all just kept staring at me!
I should point out I’m not particularly handsome nor am I shockingly ugly! I’m just an average Joe, I guess and there was no reason why People were not getting in the cars.
I don’t have a fearful reputation and I wasn’t really from that area anyway. No one could’ve known me or suspected I was someone I was not, surely?
They’d all been happy to jostle a little with me around the Dodgem area and everyone had been happy to run at the cars and get in them as soon as possible before but now they just plain weren’t!
In the years that have gone by I’ve thought about this a lot and yes, it may be the others, too, had wanted that purple car all to themselves as desperately as myself but that hadn’t stopped most other people from being content with getting into a red, blue, green, or yellow car instead as there was, after all, more of them!
But could it really be that everyone in the ring that was up next, the one that I was a part of, had wanted that car at the exclusion of all others and were also willing to wait? If so, how did we all have the same idea at the same time and who had it first?!
But I didn’t have time to worry about this because after awhile of me looking around at People and even looking into the cage where the operator sat who I had bought, as everyone else had, the yellow plastic coin to go in the slot -he too was looking around just as mystified as Me until he eventually shrugged; pulled the handle; sounded the siren and watched with everyone else as dumbfounded I, entirely on my own, was in possession of a moving vehicle!
This bizarre driving session seem to last longer than the others but maybe it just felt like that to me!!
I began to go around around in circuits and for a change, tried weaving in and out between the stationary cars, occasionally bumping them but not really doing anything just feeling mystified more than embarrassed!
I just couldn’t fathom it. Eventually the Siren sounded and the electricity was cut off and immediately everyone in the ring tore towards the cars- yes including mine!
I really didn’t know what to do except for slowly walk off the track and into the crowds and out the other side everything back to normal…
I’d love someone to tell my little story and for someone in the comments section to explain what might’ve happened but it’s been years now, I reckon & I still, occasionally, think about this bizarre little episode and wonder what the explanation was but all I can think of is that it was a modern sign or a portent. That what occurred was something otherworldly & strange! Thank you for reading through this and allow me to ask What do others think, please?