The first one was in 2000, at the end of May. It was then that my grandfather died, and forty days had not yet passed since his passing, but exactly how many days had passed - I can't remember now, alas. My grandmother and I went to bed. We slept in the bedroom, which had access to the loggia. There was always a key sticking out of the door on the loggia, locking it from the bedroom side. The key was never taken out (physically impossible to pull out, I do not know why), and when you turn it issued a very characteristic and unpleasant grinding - with nothing can not be confused.
And here we are lying, the light is off, but we both can not sleep. We lie quiet and listen to some youthful company in the yard. Oh, and it is worth mentioning that we were sleeping on the beds next to each other, with their footstools against the wall, and with their heads facing the window and the loggia door. That is, what happens in the bedroom behind his head is not visible to the person lying there, he is contemplating the wall and the carpet on it.
We are lying there in silence, and then I hear the very same key in the loggia door start turning. There was a characteristic grinding, back and forth, back and forth, as if someone was turning it and couldn't figure out which way the door was opening. I am numb, and I listen - maybe it's my imagination? No, it doesn't, the sound is absolutely clear, someone is really turning the key. I listened for a few seconds, then I asked my grandmother in a whisper:
- Ba, can you hear it?
- Yeah...
And in a second we were on our feet. We turned on the light, checked all the corners, the loggia door, even looked into the closet. Grandma tentatively suggested that maybe there were mice? But what mice, when this key is at the level of an adult's thigh, and the sound of its turn can not be confused with anything. So we came to the conclusion that it was grandfather who came to say goodbye. When he was alive, the loggia was his favorite place to rest - he could sit there and read in the sun for days, but in the last nine months of his life, he was permanently confined to bed and there was nothing else to do. Apparently, the first thing he did when he was freed from his illness-ravaged body was to return to his favorite spot in the apartment.
The second story happened in the same apartment, but a few years later. My grandmother had me and my dad (her son) over for a visit. I was sitting in the living room, commonly referred to as the "hall", watching television. I don't remember what time it was, but it was definitely nighttime, because I kept thinking it was time to turn off the TV and go to sleep. I don't remember where my grandmother was, but for some reason I thought she was in the kitchen. And the structure of that apartment was such that the "hall" was in the center, and the bedroom was behind it, and from the bedroom there was an exit to the loggia. And in front of the "hall" is a corridor, long enough, and behind it is the kitchen. The rooms are not isolated, but passageways.
And here I sit, feeling that well, it's time to sleep, tired, and finally turn off the TV. And I don't want to get out of the warm chair. And I sit in semi-darkness - only in the light that comes from the kitchen. And I hear my grandmother coming out of the kitchen. Her step was heavy, slow, and distinctive, and the floor of the corridor also creaked very characteristically. She reached the threshold of the "hall" and stopped. It must be said that my grandmother had this habit of coming up and standing on the threshold of the room and watching what was on TV, because I could perfectly see it from the door (unlike the person sitting in the chair next to the wall, in front of the TV set). And I am sitting there wondering why she froze there, because she can see that the TV is off. It must have been a minute. My bewilderment increased considerably, and at the end I called out to her:
- "Bah?
- What?" came from the bedroom at the opposite end of the apartment from the corridor.
- Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah," I said. - Where's Daddy?
- On the loggia, asleep for a long time. Why?
That's when my nerves gave out. I ran out into the corridor, and there, of course, no one there. But I could have sworn I heard that step, heard the floor creaking. And I know for a fact that I didn't doze off, and I wasn't dreaming. I am still perplexed as to what (or who) it was. If in the first case, with the key, I had no doubt that it was the grandfather, here - all perplexing. Especially since I can't even write it off as a warning - everything was fine with us then, and my grandmother didn't leave until many years later.
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