A repost - he just disappeared
I will preface this by saying that I have no belief in the afterlife, be it heaven, hell or anything in-between. To me, this story is so remarkable in that, no matter how I crook my head, I can't make heads or tails of it. We've talked about this since and all involved - all strict non-believers - admit something beyond...this, the here and now...happened that day:

My father, when I was young, was the teacher in charge of school upkeep during the summer holidays. Once a week, we’d stop through to make sure nobody had smeared shit on the walls, then we’d check the meters and go home. For my sister and I, these trips were particularly fun. We could run through the corridors of a school! We could shout in a school! We could do cartwheels in a classroom! Best yet, we could see what the boys’ toilets looked like!

On one nondescript summer day, my dad, my sister and myself made the usual walk to the school. We got up to the usual bumbling about, while my dad got up to his usual duties. Time came to leave.

“C’mon kids! Time to leave!”
“All right, dad!”

We saw him walking towards the front door, then, I swear to Darwin and Tesla, he fucking disappeared. One second, there was a dad. The next, nothing. Right before our bloody eyes. There was no mist, no image dissolving like in the movies. CLICK – he was gone, and the only place he could have gone was through the front door.

My sister and I thought he was playing a joke, a bit of a scary hide-and-seek. We ran through the building, searching every locker and cranny. Nothing. Then we started crying out, scared. Nothing. Surely a father – and my dad was the greatest, at this point would sheepishly emerge to calm us down. Nothing. Three hours passed and we had no sign of our father, we couldn’t go home because we were locked in and we couldn’t get to a phone to call our mother. So we sat in a corridor and waited.

“Are you coming, kids? What are you doing sitting down, I told you to come here!”

And there was dad again, standing in the same spot.

“DAD! WHERE DID YOU GO!! WE WERE SO SCARED!”

“I, well, I didn’t go anywhere, I’ve been standing here the whole time, sillies.”

“NO, DAAAAAAAAAD, you disappeared! We were sad! We cried! We looked everywhere for you!”

“Don’t be stupid, kids. Obviously, I…”

And then he checked his watch. Indeed, three hours has passed. He turned a whiter shade of green, and we walked home in silence.

I had spent the years following assuming that my dad had played a dirty trick on us, that he took it as an opportunity to skip out on his kids so he could go to the bar or something. I brought it up again a few years later.

“I swear on your mother’s life, I didn’t go anywhere. I remember calling out to you kids, then suddenly the two of you were sitting down. Three hours were gone, but not a single second had passed for me.”

“Yeah, sure, dad.”

“I swear on your life, I didn’t hide from you. And in those years since it happened, I lie awake at night wondering what happened to me during those three hours. I – [voice cracking] - don’t know what happened…”

I’m inclined to believe my dad and to believe my own eyes (HE FUCKING DISAPPEARED!!!) But was it a dad playing a particularly devious joke on his kids? Eh, I’m not so certain of that. I certainly can’t explain what happened, and dad’s admitted to all of his other practical jokes by now.

There was only one way he could have run away to hide, and that was through the door. That door was locked. All I know is that he disappeared right before my eyes.
(TheSnark oh, c'mon, like you didn't see me coming, Mon 29 Nov 2010, 11:51, 6 replies)

That's a fantastic story - I remember reading it the first time - think I gazzed you to confirm.
Have you read Kiss Kiss by Rhold Dahl? It's a semi-autobiographical account of his experiences in WWII as a pilot. They had similar - a 'plane going out for a two-hour recce coming back three days later, but would have only had fuel for two hours and there wasn't a fuel site within less than four.

Very interesting.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 29 Nov 2010, 12:19, closed)

I don't believe in ghosts...
... or spooky parallel universes, or grey aliens.

I do believe in Damn Strange Stuff though. There is unquestionably Damn Strange Stuff going on in this world. It's real, and it is Damn Strange.
(gordonjcp, Mon 29 Nov 2010, 13:32, closed)

I call it
Weird Shit Syndrome. There's quite abit of it about it seems.
(womanwhocanonlylivewithdogs, Mon 29 Nov 2010, 15:28, closed)

On the plus side, I'm sure all those 'my dad's stronger than your dad' arguments never went much further after being trumped with 'my dad's not subject to the laws of space and time'.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Mon 29 Nov 2010, 17:18, closed)

I've heard stories like this before.
And the disappeared usually stayed that way. I'd say your Dad was damned lucky.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Mon 29 Nov 2010, 18:19, closed)

I recall this from the first roasting...
Weird very weird, but I love these things... My grandad used to love telling us kids how he was able to levitate, clearly tales for young boys... but I did, and have experienced mundane objects going missing for weeks on end, then miraculously reapearing. Odd...
(feedingtimeatthezoo day 1 of his bikini diet started, Thu 2 Dec 2010, 2:36, closed)