Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/26/2016
Primary Language: English
- This is the story of Smokey. So growing up in late elementary school early middle school all the little kids got together and played night games and played capture the flag and whatnot, and um we would start the games at 10 or 11 and play until three or four in the morning. So during the summer time our neighborhood was in a valley between two hills but that caused all the fogs to settle in our neighborhood and every night a man would come and walk around the neighborhood smoking a cigarette staring at his feet. He never looked up or acknowledged us but he’d never say anything and he’d appear out of the fog and so one day Kevin’s dad was out blowing snow at 3 am because he had to leave for work at 430 or something like that and he’s pushing snow out onto the road and all the sudden Smokey comes by and he’s walking towards the auger (metal thing that shoots out snow) and so Kevin’s dad yells at him to move and get out of the way, and Smokey took one side step, then continued walking like nothing happened. So whenever we saw him out playing their night games they ask why the hell wasn’t he afraid why didn’t he move to the other side of the road. The only conclusion was that he lived on the corner of two streets, and he was never seen during the day ever so we think he was dead. We saw his wife during the day all the time but we never saw him.
- He knows this story because it was a confusing childhood experience they couldn’t explain
- He didn’t really learn this because it’s one of those things that he experienced first hand.
- To him and the children of the neighborhood, it was the explanation of how a man could get so close to something so dangerous with little to no reaction
- The context of the performance was that he and a friend and I were all sitting together and exchanging interesting and odd childhood stories
- I think it’s really interesting how the explanation for this man’s lack of presence during the day was explained by him supposedly being a ghost. However, there is a man who walks around my hometown in a zombie-like state, never staring at anything but the ground and nobody that I’m aware of has ventured to call him a ghost. However, it does all seem very spooky with the fog and the mysterious man who would never respond to their calls. It adds an air of mystery and excitement to these kids’ playtime. Furthermore, the fact that the parents could explain this man’s behavior to them either makes me feel inclined to think that perhaps this man was of supernatural existence, even though I don’t much believe in stories such as this one.
