Jave

hen I was a little girl back in the early 1980s, I lived in a town where one could ride their bicycle all over the place and no one would bother you. The whole town actually watched over the kidswhen they played outside.

I lived on a street where part of it cut off into a dirt road, and there were old houses down it, and a horse farm. I used to ride my bicycle up and down the dirt road everyday after school. There was one particular house that I really liked, it was abandoned for years. I would stop in the road and push my bicycle down in the field across from the house. I used to liketo sit at the edge of the field and stare at that little house.

One spring day, I rode my bicycle to this house and did what I always did. Except I didn't push my bike into the field this time. Isat astride on it and looked at the house. I felt kind of dizzy and shook my head. When I did that, this old black car came driving up and parked in the driveway. I thought it was kind of funny, but Ithought maybe someone had finally bought that house and was moving in. The house didn't look the same, however. It looked as though it had just received a brand new paint job and there were actuallyflowers growing where there had once been weeds.

A lady and her baby appeared on the porch from nowhere, and they seemed to be welcoming the person in the car. The door opened and a man got out andwas waving back at them. Both people were wearing old-fashioned clothes, like from the 40s or 50s. I knew something wasn't right about what I was seeing, but I kept watching.

I got really dizzyagain and lost my balance and fell off my bike. I looked to the house to see if these people saw me fall, but they were gone. The car was gone, the house looked dilapidated and the flowers were gone.I couldn't understand what had just happened. I got on my bike and pedalled as fast as I could back home. I never told a soul about what I had seen until years later.

I always wondered if I...