Do you believe in spirits or ghosts? I don't really. My sister always said she saw a ghost in our old house, but I just thought she was crazy and seeing things. I've known a few people who claimed to have seen things, but I always attributed it to hallucinations or made up stories for attention.

Until last night. I was tossing and turning in bed for hours. I was thinking about so many different things and different people. All of a sudden, my heart dropped into my stomach. Something was creeping all under my skin. I felt a strange presence. It felt a bit eerie, like someone was walking over my grave. But you know when you're thinking of someone, and they think of you at the same time, you're supposed to get that kind of feeling. Or a chill when someone says your name. This was kind of like that, and I attributed it to maybe that cute guy I was thinking about having just read the email I sent him. So albeit feeling a bit melancholy, I dismissed the feeling and continued my tossing and turning and trying to sleep.

At one point in the night, I opened my eyes and saw a figure by my bed, right next to me, staring at me straight in the face. It was whitish grey, with a texture like swirls of ashes, and faceless. I freaked. I shut my eyes immediately and tried to calm my nerves and my beating heart. Part of me was terrified for my life. But I locked the doors, so how could someone have come into my apartment? I would have heard something. I tried to rationalize. Tried to make myself believe it wasn't there. I turned away anxiously, and tried to convince myself that I never even opened my eyes in the first place.

Maybe I didn't open my eyes at all. Maybe it was a figment of my imagination. But it felt so real. Those two experiences from last night were still in my mind this morning, and I remembered today was the second anniversary of my friend Mark's death.

Could it have been him? I was devastated when he died. I still grieve, and feel the pain of my loss quite frequently. I try to imagine what life would have been like if he hadn't died, we were supposed to move in together. He was a great guy, he would have been able to help me through all of my issues with the stupid boy and he would've been a great friend. He was taken away from me prematurely and for that I feel a bit of pain every day. Even after two years. And I've been thinking about him more lately, with his anniversary coming up.

So am I crazy? Did I dream this up in my subconscious or is it possible that people can transcend the boundary between the living and dead and revisit the ones that still need them? I'll never know.