“My dad, when he was younger, around the same age as us [18] was in his house, and it was an old house that they had. He was on the [third floor] terrace, just sitting or whatever, just looking over the top, just standing there. No one was up there; it wasn’t windy, nothing. Literally, he felt someone push him, like an actual shove, as he was looking over. All there is is just like a little border and then you fall. And so he felt someone push him. He fell over the thing, fell down, and like broke his arm. No one was upstairs, everyone was downstairs. And it was just him and his mom, like his brothers were gone. It was just him upstairs. So yeah, he broke his wrist or whatever. And so, like he, I mean, everyone thinks it was a ghost. I’m pretty sure, like…what else would it be? He didn’t just like, he didn’t trip, he was just standing there and he felt someone push him, and the next thing you know, he’s falling off of the third floor. So yeah, no one really went up there after that.”

A lot of the elements in this ghost story are common to many ghost narratives. For one, this occurrence happened during adolescence, which is a common time for ghostly activity to happen in one’s life. Additionally, the story is set in an “old house,” which is also common in ghost stories, a building with a long history. In this story, the ghost seems to be corporal, though the father does not see or hear the ghost; even still, he undeniably feels it. This story is interesting to me because the father doesn’t just claim he felt a soft touch or a poke; he experiences a hard push that results in him tumbling down three stories and breaking his wrist. It is difficult to imagine why, if his story is false, he would tumble over the edge of the terrace, especially in the absence of wind or other people to accidentally (or purposely) bump him. As my informant asked, “what else would it be?”