Page 33 - WTP Vol. VIII#2

frames. When a storm blew in from the sea, which happened often enough in the winter months, the most mournful whistles and moans swirled around the little house, and Ian would stoke the fireplace to keep back the damp cold that seeped in. One doesn’t think of Africa as cold and damp, but one would have to spend July in Cape Town to understand just how wet, windy, and miserable it can get.
Ian described how twice, during particularly intense storms, he’d seen apparitions marching through his bedroom. They were soldiers, dressed in dark, long coats with a double row of brass buttons running down the front. They carried long guns with bayo- nets. On each occasion, they had entered through the bedroom wall on the right of the bed, and disap- peared through the left wall. It was as if neither wall were there; as if he were not there—he, the house, nor any of it.
At first, he seemed to want my reassurance that he wasn’t going mad. He knew I wasn’t the type to dismiss such experiences, having had enough of them myself. He wondered if the sightings were just a symptom of the disorientation of returning home after so long in New York. But why that particular apparition? After some online research and more emailing back and forth, we found a rough match between the uniforms he’d seen and those of the Royal British Navy during the early 1800’s. But that was as far as we’d gotten. He got busy on a film shoot after that. Besides, spring was coming, and the storm season was past.
“Any more sightings of your soldiers?”
“No—they appear to have left off. They only seem to show up during winter storms. What was it you called them? Derivative?”
“No,” I laughed. “Residual. An image that keeps appear- ing, but the original event is long gone in the past.”
“That’s right. Exactly the same from one time to the next, right?”
“Pretty much.”
“I did have an interesting conversation with a pub owner in Simon’s Town. It’s only just the next town over—he mentioned that while the Brits had a navy base there in the 1800’s, this whole coastline was no- torious for shipwrecks. Especially in the wintertime.”
“So...maybe your soldiers were looking for survivors?”
“Iinhaled deeply, intoxicated by
the foreign vegetal fragrances, the lush, salt kelpiness of the sea, the softest sand
I had ever felt folding up over my bare feet.”
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