Everoux, France. Sometime in the early 6o's around the age of four or five, I found myself in an extraordinary circumstance. With 5 children, my parents had acquired a set of three storied apartments during one of my fathers tours of duty overseas. These apartments were built of stone, with a very small area in the front by the narrow street. An alley ran round the apartments circumscribing the stone wall that surrounded the spacious back yards. Each set of apartments had it's own rear yard, again divided by stone walls.

For some reason, I was allowed to stay awake, sitting comfortably on a couch, draped in a warm blanket while the rest of the children had been put to bed. My parents and I watched the television, a cranky black and white set of dubious origin. The television was placed against a back wall that opened on a set of glass french doors that led into the walled back yard. Some light spilled out of the doors and illuminated a portion of the stonework that I could clearly see from my vantage on the couch.

The light flickered on the walls from the changing scenes displayed on the television, and I lost interest in the television and more interested in how the light played on the stone wall. I recall being more curious than frightened when I realized that three wispy figures had emerged from the outside wall of stone. They appeared to be engaged in some conversation, neither heated, nor particularly animated, merely deeply engrossed in some discussion. They did not seem to be walking, but merely drifting along as a breeze might gently curl smoke or a fog along a dark landscape.

I was not frightened. Being of such a young age, most everything was new to me, and one more new experience was not such an alarming event. Perhaps my parents noticed that I was intent on perceiving something just outside their view outside the glass separating the cold and dark from the warm light inside. I noticed that they were now trying to discern what had captured my attention, and I pointed outside the glass doors to show my parents what I was seeing.

Within moments it had become perfectly clear to me that my parents either could not see the three figures drifting towards the french doors, or were unconcerned about the matter. In any case, I found myself again watching the approaching figures. I could now see clearly there were two men and a woman who without any notice of the glass doors drifted into the small room that my parents and I were in. They were behaving as if they were totally unaware of the man, woman and child who were living, breathing and solidly existing within the space they had so nonchalantly invaded.

Even with the apparitions so near, I felt no real concern or fear. However I was intent with curiosity and wonder. I was curious that these figures could behave so much different than everything and everyone else I had ever experienced. My wonder stemmed from the fact that my parents seemed to be as perfectly unaware of them, as they seemed to be of us.

At that moment in time, I was on the edge of the most perfectly remarkable event of my life to this day. Never after have I experienced fear as intense and as soul shattering as when the woman noticed my intentness on them.

You must realize, that up until that moment, I could have been merely watching a television program, entertained without involvement, feeling perfectly safe in a home with my parents. At the moment when that woman figure looked at me, and I realized that I was no longer uninvolved as a spectator, I felt fear.

I had thought just before that moment, that she was beautiful, with an even expression, and languid gestures. Now her features were animated, and she gestured quite clearly, indicating me to the two men that accompanied her. I had clearly been hearing their voices, and they spoke french. I could not understand the words, but their speech immediately became focused on me, and the intent of their converse was clear. They were quite astonished that I was aware of them.

I could feel the tense consternation of my parents, that I was clearly frightened of something they could not sense in the slightest. At that time I was in a state of fearful confusion, but that slight emotion was as nothing compared to what happened next.

At once two things happened, one event was internal to my understanding. I now fully understood that my parents, the godlike beings that could protect me from anything that my small universe could possibly hold, were totally unable to even as much as slightly detect the three figures which had drifted in from the night.
The other event was that the three figures were no longer drifting along as a waft of mist, but were instead rushing towards me with faces animated by the realization that I could in fact see them. Their faces were not horrible to look at, nor did they express any desire in their features that they intended me any harm. However they were talking to me. In French and were quite excitedly telling me things, and asking me things that I could not possibly understand.

At that moment I felt terror the like of which has never touched my soul since. I literally screamed and could not close my eyes. I screamed and pushed myself back into the couch as far as my small frame could possibly go, as the three figures surrounded me in noise and gestures ranging from demanding questions from one of the men, a string of explanations from the other man, and some confusing words from the woman, clearly indicating that I should not be frightened, mothering noises that are universal.

My parents reacted with their own flavor of fearful responses as they desperately searched the surroundings for the source of my terror. I could not look away from the three figures, nor could I stop screaming. My parents could not even begin to help or comfort me, and their futile attempts to protect me from some terrible circumstance they could not understand made my own recognition of the situation even more terrifying.

At some point in time, which must have been mere seconds since they had rushed at me, but which seemed like centuries to me, the woman seemed to understand that there was no possible way that they could converse with me in the state that I was in, nor could they improve my state by remaining near me. I could see sadness in her eyes that she had been a terror to a child. Guilt, sorrow, and resignation poured from her gaze into my soul.

She quickly spoke to her companions, gaining their attention and obviously managed to convey to them that their continued presence could only cause further damage to me.

My screams ceased, turning into racking sobs as my mother gathered me into her arms, interposing her flesh between my eyes and the figures that were clearly beginning to come to a consensus that they could not stay. I could no longer see them, but I could still quite clearly hear them. They began to withdraw from me and I could tell that by the voices that began to fade into murmurs.

With my mother now holding me tightly and even further compressing the couch under and behind me, I could begin to feel less terror. At the age I was, the experience I had endured began to fade as the physical reality of my mothers embrace comforted me.

She lay on top of me, wrapping me in her arms protectively until my sobs lessened and I was able to squirm against her imprisoning posture. My mother gathered me up and picked me off of the couch like a rag doll holding me with my chin above her shoulder. She quickly stood up and moved to where my father was searching still for some clue as to what had caused my sudden outbreak. I could tell that he was not at all happy at his lack of success. I am certain his mood was not improved by the glare that my mother must have been impaling him with.

My eyes were closed, tears streaming down my face. Sobs had become mere whimpers as my tiny mind tried to come to terms with what my eyes and ears had forced into it. I could hear the television. I could hear my own noises. I could hear my father noisily breathing and my mothers crooning sounds of comfort. I could no longer hear the three figures.

My parents began making noises of shock and disbelief about my behavior. My father must have backed towards the television, and my mother stood facing him. This position left me facing the French doors. My eyes opened.

They were still there, but I had known that they had not actually left. Though I was still feeling shock from the experience, I was no longer feeling terror. I could look at them from my vantage within my mothers embrace and they could see that I was no longer terrified.

I was still fearful, that was obvious, and had they spoken to me or approached me again, I likely would be totally insane now, instead of merely warped. They did neither, they gazed at me, wonder in their faces, cautious wonder. I focused on the woman and I saw a faint smile, sad as if knowing that she could not breach the distance between us, not with words.

I watched in silence as the three drifted back through the French doors into the night. Each of them glanced back at me several times as they traversed the lawn before vanishing back into the stone wall near where I had first noticed them. The woman was the last to be gone. I will never again forget her expression just before she bowed her head and at last was gone from my sight.

I say that I will never again forget, because for quite some years I did in fact forget this experience. I buried it deeply and not until my mid twenties did my occasional nightmares finally bring the entire incident to my full memory.