It  was about two in the morning and I had just snuck into bed as not  to awaken my wife. It didn't work, however, as she rolled over and asked,   "Are you just coming to bed now?"  "Yes," I said as I pulled the covers over me.  I had stayed up late visiting Franc D'Ambrosio's website and reading the latest posts on the message board, and time just got away from me.  What a great talent Franc is,  and I visit his site often.

A short while later we heard a strange noise which seemed to come from in the house.  "Go see what that was," she said as she jabbed me in the ribs. When I caught my breath, I got up and felt my way down the darkened hallway into the kitchen, I could now see a soft glow of light coming from the family room.   "What light had I left on," I asked myself as I tiptoed down to  take a look.

I peered around the corner into the family room.    "O my God, O my God!"  I  screamed  in silent horror,  "The phantom ghost was sitting in my Lazy Boy!"    I quickly ducked back behind the wall which I now seemed glued to.  "I must be dreaming I thought,"  not really believing what I had just seen. I stood there for a moment, and  in spite of my fear, I had to look again.  I once again peered around the corner,  this time a little more deliberately, hoping this time he or it would not be there. He was still sitting there motionless and I again ducked behind the wall.

Now it was as if my body had turned to stone,  as only the thoughts within me were in motion.  I feared  this time he had seen me.  I was completely at loss of what to do.  Just then I heard the most serene, calming  voice that I have ever heard.  "Come in,  come in,"  the voice said with an almost captivating request.

Just then I felt a release within me,  and my body became as limp as a curtain hanging from a window.   The song  "Music of the Night'  from the Phantom musical began screaming through my ears.  After a moment of silence which seemed like a lifetime,  I once again peered around the corner with tears beginning to form in  my eyes. The warm glow was from the lowly burning fireplace and two beautiful candelabra on the mantle above it,  which I had never seen before.    "Come in,  come in,"  he said again,  with both arms extended towards me.

As I inched further into the room,  my anxiety and fear returned, as I was able to focus a little more on what he looked like. I have  never experienced true horror in my life,  but now I had,  and then knew I wasn't dealing with Franc D'Ambrosio or Michael Crawford. " Could It be the real opera ghost," I asked myself,  " the one who terrorized an opera house so many years ago.  Suddenly, the music in my head was replaced with graphic images from Gaston Leroux's account of what happened in that Paris Opera House.

It was Christine who said   "Show me your face without fear! ........if ever again I shiver when I look at you, it will be because I am thinking of the splendor of your genius!"   At that point, I was neither going to ask him to show me his face or think of his genius.  He was wearing a black, worn  wide-rimmed hat that was pulled down covering his forehead. The right side of his face was covered with a black mask which exposed his left  eye, left  protruding cheekbone, and part of his mouth and chin. His eye was sunken as if in a socket, and yellow skin draped down the left side of his face.
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His exposed face looked so horrid,  that I shuttered to think what the covered side of his face looked liked.  He was wearing a worn off-white shirt shaped up so as not  to expose his neck and a  worn black-tailed  jacket.  and pants that looked as if it was just covering a skeleton.  His arms were resting on the arms of the chair with his yellow skeleton hands hanging loose. If my details seem a little sparse,  I wasn't planning on staying in the room long enough to extract any more.

Then my thoughts were interrupted.  "Come closer,  come closer, "  he said in a tender manor. I did not move.  "Why,  Why,  why are you in my dream,"  I cried out as I was trying to wipe the tears from my eyes using the back of my hand.  "I am not in your dream, and I have not come to hurt you, but to help you."  I  was not convinced that I was not dreaming or that he was not here to hurt me. "If this is not a dream,"  I thought,  "why has the ghost come to see me and how could he help me, and why would he even want to?"

For some reason I began to regain my composure,  but I was still frightened and still doubted that his reason for being here was to help me.  After all, how could he help me, as anytime now I would awaken.    I closed my eyes hoping that when I opened them it would be morning and this nightmare would be over.  "I told you, I am not here to hurt you," he said abruptly and forcefully. His outburst startled me and I immediately opened my eyes and stumbled backward to the point of almost falling.  "Please sit here and don't be afraid,"  he said,  with a calmer voice.

He motioned me to sit down,  pointing to the couch beside him.  "That's it,  that's it,"   he said, as I sat only on the edge of the seat,  giving me a better chance of escape if I had to. The silence then between us was louder than the raging thoughts within me. I lifted my head and looked at his face,  or what's left of it.  He still did not speak,  and I soon became  victim of his ugly penetrating eye,  putting me in an almost  trance-like state.

As we sat there in silence,   I detected a foul odor, an odor like one would smell in a funeral parlor.  The silence, the odor, and his penetrating eye suddenly became unbearable.  I bolted off the couch and moved towards the doorway.  I was not  fast enough as I was stopped in my tracks feeling  his bony hand and fingers clutched around  my forearm.  I wanted to cry out but it was as if my mouth and jaw were frozen, and tears of horror again began to flow.   After a few seconds,  he gently but forcefully pulled me back onto  the couch.  I sat there looking down  with my  tears now dropping onto my red pajamas.

Sitting there for a awhile,  and I cannot explain it, somehow I began to feel less frightened and could feel the tension drain from my body like water draining from a faucet.  Whether this sudden change came from within me or some sort of power in him,  I do not know.  After a few moments I looked at him,  though not directly into his eye,  and asked timidly, "You said you are here to help me.......how can you help me?  He leaned slightly towards me and said, "I know that many times you have feelings of rejection from others and just feel like you are unworthy."  I do not know how he knew how I sometime feel..

He leaned back in his chair and dropped his arms into his lap looking down at his bony hands that were now clutched together.  It was almost like he was feeling his rejection and pain all over again.  "I'm here to tell you that it is alright to look and feel different,"  he continued,  looking over in my direction.   "But you do not have to react to these feelings by pulling back and hiding in darkness as I did, and committing so many crimes against so many, so many years ago,"

Still sitting there,  now with my head down,  I could hear the words he was speaking  but they just did not register in my mind for some reason.  Perhaps it was because I still thought  this was all a dream and still felt apprehensive.  Putting what he said aside and beginning to feel a little more anxious, I looked back in his direction and said,  "So you are the ghost from the opera."  He did not answer.  "Are you the ghost from the opera,  " I asked again fearing that he did not hear me the first time.  When he still did not answer the second time,  I was afraid to question him further.

Because of his silence once again,  my feeling of fright  returned and I could again smell his odor of death.   "When I was in the house as a man,  they thought of me as a ghost,"  he suddenly said almost angrily.  "And now that I am in the house as a ghost  they think I do not exist."  His voice became a little louder,  "All I ever wanted was to be like everybody else!"

"All I ever wanted was to be like everybody else!"   How many times did I say that to myself in my lifetime?.  Suddenly everything he was trying to convey to me hit me like a light going on in a dark closet.   But then, I thought, this is still all a bad dream, and when I awake it would not matter.

Silence, silence, silence, it had  returned.   He looked at me as if something was about to happen.  I again became a captive of his ugly piercing eye.  He again broke the silence having regained his composure. " Just remember what I have said to you............just remember,"   he said.

Now there was a feeling in me that something was about to happen.  I arose from where I was seated and started backing up away from him so as not to lose sight of him.  And then,  to my  amazement,  a white cloud started to form around him,  and I was mystified as to what was happening.  This was strange, even for a dream.  Not knowing what was happening, my fear and anxiety began to intensify.  "If this is a dream," I thought,  "now would be a good time to wake up."

I was about to run for the hills,  but then the cloud around him slowly began to fade.  As it faded, I could see more and more of him with each passing second.  I was now beginning to see that his appearance had completely changed.  I could hardly believe what I was witnessing.  With the cloud almost gone,  I could now see,  to my utter astonishment,  his black suit with tails became white as snow, his shirt black as night, and the wide-rimmed hat shaped as if new.  But even more astonishing was that his face,  his now exposed neck,  his hands and fingers, and all parts of his exposed body looked that of a strong handsome man.  And, alas, his black mask became dazzling white, still covering the right side of his face.

I stood there motionless with tears still streaming down my face.  I did not know if I was more afraid now or before is amazing transformation.  He looked at me, this time with a sparkle in his eye and a wide grin of which I could see part of.   Holding his arms towards me, with his soft soothing voice,   he said  "Just remember what I have told you, do not hide yourself in darkness as I did,  it can only lead to loneliness and some times disaster. "

At that point, my fear should have left me but it did not.  I do not  know if I was so much afraid of him or afraid of the situation and what was coming next.  Just at that moment, I heard what sounded like a loud thunder from outside.  I rushed to the window to see what it was, but could see nothing,  and before I could turn around I heard the opera ghost call out in a longing cry,   "Christine!   Christine!..........",   and the room became  engulfed in darkness.   I frantically  fumbled around searching for the light switch and turned it on.    My heart sunk as there was no fire in the fireplace, there were no candelabra, and the opera ghost had vanished.

"It was only a dream after all,"  I said dejectedly as I flopped myself onto the couch where I had been before.   After trying to relive in my mind  what I thought just had happened,  I arose, turned the off the lights and stared out at the black cold night.  I began to shiver and tremble, and my tears of fright were replaced with tears of loneliness.  It was ironic, during the dream I had hoped I would wake up, but  now I hoped that the dream had been real.

I stood by the window a long time trying in my mind to make some sense of what  the dream had meant.  When I could not,  I started walking slowly down the blackened hallway towards the bedroom.  I was met abruptly by my wife coming from the other way.  "How come you are not coming to bed,"  she asked rubbing the sleep from her eyes.  After being startled for a moment,  I answered,  "Yes,  yes,  I'm coming now,"  and  went past her.

When I was about to turn the corner,  " What about  the light and the Phantom music in the family room," she asked.  I stopped dead in my tracks,  as I knew I left the room in total darkness  and had not been playing any music.  I dashed towards the family  room and she behind me.

Eentering the room, the fire in the fireplace was again burning.   "What's with the mask,"  she asked with a puzzled sound in her voice.  I gasped for air, as the ghost's dazzling white mask was resting in the chair that he had been in.  When the shock left me, I stood  there with a huge smile on my face, as I knew it had not been a dream after all.   "Don't even ask,"  I answered, " you would never believe me."

At that very moment, the Phantom music on the stereo,  which I had not turned on,  was just ending, and I could hear, "......ITS OVER NOW, THE MUSIC OF THE NIGHT."
 

                                                                     The End

                                                       Copyright © 1998 Arnie Kuhn