Jaci Dawn

Preface: we’re at the tail end of a short heat wave. A heat wave in Portland consists of two to four days of degrees over 85 and over-zealous weather reporters trying to find the hottest spot in town. As a native Nevadan, it’s almost laughable. But I concede: two days of almost triple-digits makes my loft/studio unbearable, even with exhaust fans. The rarity of the occasion precludes owning or installing an air conditioner despite what most native Portlanders believe.

I tell you this because we spent the two hottest days sitting in the yard with two of those nifty yard misters that came out last year. It was cooler in the closed-up house, but I crave the sunshine (and consequently evened up the tan on my legs).

Flash forward to today. I work in an office that has a ridiculous pre-set air conditioner that runs too cold for common sense. It’s a relic of the Portland mindset that all heat is bad heat and we can’t allow a room to get above 68 degrees (F) any time of the year. I wear a sweater 365 days out of the year to appease the electric gods who desire to micromanage our climate indoors. I wore a sweater today whilst the outdoors rose to almost the same temps as over the weekend outside, but with a cooling breeze.

Ridiculous, I tell you. I hate A/C. It’s highly overrated and over-used.

TO THE POINT.

I was working on my computer when I first noticed a mist in the air, not unlike the mist I’d been seeing all weekend – except this mist wasn’t real and it wasn’t there when I lifted my eyes to look. I saw it from different angles. Sometimes, it appeared and disappeared in my peripheral vision. Sometimes, I turned and saw it, blinked, and it was gone. This happened three or four times, and sometimes when there were other people in the room with me. There was no fear associated with the phenomenon.

I knew it for something paranormal. But that logical part of my brain suggested I google it first… Oh.My.

There’s always been something “off” about the office. It’s built where a field and an old farm house used to sit (I knew a woman who rented the farmhouse for awhile). Sometimes, things have been moved just a little. I’m a tad bit OCD, and I notice when things aren’t quite right.

A month ago, I was on my way to the office kitchen when I heard a crash in the foyer. I returned to find the large faux painting there had fallen. Closer inspection told me that someone had to have grabbed both sides of the artwork and yanked down, hard, to pull the wire out of the frame as it did. the wire was still dangling from the hook on the wall. The painting was not heavy, being a fake and all.

And now: the mist-thing.

I’m not afraid to work in the office, even after dark. There are no “heebie-jeebies” to the place, no more than in my own 1930’s home. Whatever drifts there and “haunts” there is benign. I refuse to believe it is not “real”. It’s real. It’s there. It may just be memory of the past, an energy that got lost in time. It may be a spirit stuck between here and there, searching for the way home (but more likely, the energy of that spirit). It’s not an entity.

But it is definitely something of what you would find if you googled “I keep seeing mist <insert white>”.

I work in a haunted office.