That Which Ought Not Be

I bet you think you're looking at a very red-tinted photo of Droolie up there. Not exactly. You're looking at a very red-tinted photo of something that ought not be.

Look down near the left-hand corner of the pic. There's a dark, solid-looking round thing on top of the covers, which — given the position in which I was lying in the bed — would have been resting on my stomach. And clearly visible to me, as my head was propped up on the pillow, just out of view of the camera lens. It looks like a hockey puck. Or perhaps a lid to an insulated coffee mug. Its left edge is reflecting the lamp light from the nightstand. It casts a shadow.

I took this photo of Droolie the other night and was just going to delete it because the lighting was so funky. But then I noticed that object in the corner. And it's no use, I've got to post this: at the time, there was nothing there. Nothing like that rested on the covers, in the bed, in my bedroom, in my house. In that bed, there was Droolie, and there was me. That dark object, whatever it is, was not there.

I was on the phone with Ms. Brugger at the time, and I immediately remarked to her, "What the hell is that thing?" In no way does it appear to be an optical illusion — no gap in the covers, given some sense of dimension by the lighting. There's no weird trick of perspective, evidenced by the fact that the focus is consistent across the frame.

There was nothing there. Given where my head was in relation to that object, there's no way I could not have seen it, if something was actually there. There wasn't. Subsequent photos revealed nothing on the covers, so I didn't save them. I tore apart the bed — the whole room, basically — to see if some object, something which might explain that, might reveal itself. Nope.

So I'm left with a photo of something I can't explain, and while you may have no reason to even believe it, I'm telling you God's honest truth: there's something in that photo, and I cannot account for it. No doubt there's some prosaic explanation, but I don't know what it could be.

Mainly, I have this fear that some ghostly hockey player, somewhere, is missing his puck, and may be in foul humor over it. I'm pretty sure I don't want to meet him.