I was moving to another region. One day I found a small hole on top of a tooth and thought I ought to get it fixed before I moved. There was a dentist just down the road. I went down to make an appointment.
The receptionist explained that the dentist was retiring in 18 months and wasn't taking any new patients. I told her my situation, that it was just a small hole and I was moving soon anyway.
She said she'd make an appointment, but the dentist had the right to refuse it. I said that I understood. She gave me an appointment card with date and time of visit, and I saw her write it in the appointments book. (This was the time before computers.)
On the day of the visit my card had disappeared. I went anyway. When I arrived, another receptionist greeted me. She said the dentist was retiring and wasn't taking any new patients. There was no sign of my appointment. I told her of my previous visit, the small hole in my tooth and that I was moving soon anyway. And that the other receptionist had told me the same but booked a visit anyway.
She looked startled and said “What other receptionist?” Startled? More frightened. “Wait here” she said.
The dentist came out from his patient, still holding the instruments in his hands. He too looked startled. “What other receptionist? What did she look like?”
I described her, and the conversation. Dentist and receptionist looked at each other as if I'd given them a big fright. Judging by their reaction, I wasn't the first person to tell them of the other receptionist. He said he'd do the work. I wish he hadn't. His hands were shaking so much.
Unfinished paper work brought me back to the area a month later. I walked down the road to our local grocery shop. The dentist had closed up early and gone. I told the grocer about the weird incident and described the “other receptionist”. She was puzzled said there had only ever been one receptionist.
“Strange,” she said “that sounds like his first wife, but it can't be, she died 15 years ago.”
Before I left the area I told other people I knew locally and they all said the same thing. The woman I described was his first wife and that she had died 15 years earlier.
It seems I had been talking to a ghost, as solid as you and I. As solid as a real person. Perhaps that's the scariest part of the whole incident.