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Up and Apple before/after When I was a small boy, my father used to wake me up in the morning. It was something he enjoyed immensely. He would walk into my room, and with great enthusiasm, say, "Up and apple, Argentum!" Meanwhile, I had already been awake for an hour, looking for ghosts. Ghosts around the foot of the bed. Tickling my toes. I would look down, around my feet, glancing real quick-like, hoping to catch them in the act. I remember what I saw. It was like a head ducking out of the way. A gossamyr phantasm. I was sure there was something there. I would sit up, and look down, to see the floor. Disappointed, I would lay back and close my eyes, waiting for the call to begin the day. ( I got in trouble if I just got up and started blithely wandering around.) Again, I would open my eyes, and jerk my head to see what was tickling my feet. Again the slimmest look of a head ducking out of the way. A disappearance. A phantasm. Nothing. I told my parents and they laughed, I think. Likely my mother worried, and my dad encouraged my budding weirdness. At least he admitted he didn't have an answer. Later, I went to parochial school, and brought it up there. It was drummed out of me, and my parents were called in for what I am sure was a long line of parental head-scratchers. ("Our teachers think your child is a heretical creep. And he keeps crying all the time. What is it with him?") Now, years later, I'm almost certain that there were ghosts at the foot of my bed. And I wonder where they all have gone. Up and apple, Argentum.
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