58. All In The Family
Back when we were living in South Africa we had moved into an apartment which we had bought. The moving in was actually quite eventful because a mother and her son were renting the place before and, although they had been notified, they decided to stay past the date that was given to them. Long story short, we moved in and started settling.
After putting us to bed, my mother decided to stay up and watch TV. As she was watching whatever show was on at the time, she glanced at our only plant in the house, which is a 1.5 m tall plant, and saw a man roughly the same height as the plant standing under one of its leaves. She was terrified and she got up and flicked the lights on. He wasn’t there.
Calling it a night, she goes to bed. The next day—or maybe two days later, I’m not sure on that detail—at breakfast, my brother, who was around 16 at the time, picked up a piece of bread, turned around to the plant, and said “Hey Michael! Want some?” laughing. My mother asks him who Michael is and he says Michael’s “the guy standing under the plant at night.”
Mind you my mother didn’t say anything to anyone about ‘Michael,’ to not freak us out. My brother’s best friend was also over that morning—we had basically unofficially adopted him—and my mother asks him if he sees Michael too, and he says yes. She then asks him to describe Michael and he gives a perfect description down to the whites of his eyes.
Michael apparently was a black young man around 1.4/1.5 m in height wearing plain black trousers, a white button down shirt, and a green vest. His skin tone was quite dark with a faint sheen to it. His eyes were also dark in color and the whites were tinted a bit yellow. He had a permanent smiling expression on his face that didn’t reach his eyes.
Michael always stayed put where he was, never moving but following you with his eyes. One morning my mom woke up to my dad coming home. He’d bought this indoor circulating water thing and he moved the plant exactly opposite where it was and put that water thing there instead. My mother didn’t say anything and that night Michael also moved with the plant.
Of course, after hearing this, I asked the next logical question that any sane person would ask. Why didn’t she just throw away the plant? She said it never occurred to her. So yeah, that is the story of Michael, the benign smiling spirit that was a part of our family for some time.