When I was a kid, I used to see the magic in everything. I guess that’s kind of what happens to everyone, right? You start off with one heck of an over imaginative imagination and then, slowly, over time, without even realising it, that propensity to see the mystery in even the most mundane of things slips away. Well, not to sound like I’m boasting or anything, but I was always particularly creative. And, over the summer we spent in Melbourne with our aunt and uncle, I became convinced that the Melbourne steel fabrication site near my house was haunted.
I’m not really sure what made me think that. Actually, no that isn’t true. I used to hear strange noises in the night, see a light flickering in the supposedly abandoned warehouse. I used to wake my brother Charlie up so we could fantasise about what sort of ghost or spirit may be wondering that cursed earth. We told ourselves the high pitched screeches were other worldly, and the stories we made up to make sense of it all were legendary.
One day, nearing the end of our trip away, Charlie and I decided to make our first and final stand. We were going to scramble under a whole in the fence and confront the monster. I’d seen enough tv to know to bring salt, and like the adventurers we were, we trailed it behind us as we made our crusade. As it turned out, one of the metal suppliers in Melbourne made their deliveries late at night, and so the man who ran the workshop would stay into the night to work on the pieces. I’ll never forget the moment we snuck in and saw him, standing tall and wearing a mask to keep the sparks off his face. The site may not have been haunted, but it certainly gave us an adventure and a half.