A Ghost In The Cab

Last Tuesday, Bladder needed to go to school early because it was their class retreat. Their bus was supposed to leave at 6.30AM, which meant that he'd arrive at school late if he took the school bus. I had to take him, and I had to get a cab for us at around 5AM.

Our house sits on the end of a short street of around 300 metres— one won't have any trouble making out figures or recognising people who are at the far end, even at night (or in this case, at pre-dawn). When I went out, I felt lucky to see a cab stop at the second-to-last house at the other end. That meant I didn't have to walk all the way to the village gate, which was nearly (or more than, not really sure) two kilometres away. But I was disappointed when I saw that not all of the cab's passengers alighted. Tough luck.

I continued walking and the cab started to move towards me, its driver looking for a wide part of the street where he can turn the cab around. All the while, I was looking at the passenger, making sure it was indeed a passenger and not the light playing tricks on the backseat headrest or one of those stuffed animals that adorn the space under the rear windscreen. But it was a lady. She was a bit stocky, had short and curly hair that didn't reach her shoulders, and wore a light-coloured blouse that had a big collar. I don't know her.

By the time the cab and I met, my attention was already elsewhere. But after the cab was able to turn around using a wide section of our street— just as how you'd expect a character in a horror film to focus his attention on some random space in a scene and finally see the ghost or monster or whatever— I felt compelled to check the cab out as it was overtaking me. The lady was no longer there.

At this point, it's tempting to think, "nah, the passenger must have gone down at some point where the cab was behind you." It's prossible but not likely because during this whole episode, I was never farther than 30 metres from the cab and I would have heard the cab's door being shut. Then there's also the thing about me knowing my neighbours. If three of them knew each other enough to share a cab (two got off the at the house near the end of the street, one was left in the cab), I would have known all of them too, well-enough to wave "good morning" to them.

There is also the simple rationalisation that there really was no third passenger and that I was only imagining things. But I would rather think that there had been a ghost and it warned me not to hail the cab. The driver didn't look right anyway and while I did have to walk all the way to the village gate, I was able to get one of our regulars— who was all to happy to take me and Bladder to school and drive me back to the house with no fuss at all.