Fantôme Friday #8 - The Harlequin

In today’s episode, The Harlequin, we hear about a series of eerie premonitions that seem to indicate that a death has just occurred.

Music: Nightbridge and Kaleidoscope by Cannelle (www.cannellemusic.com)

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Things with Wings Productions, with the support of Whimsical Productions and Collected Sounds presents: The Skylark Bell, Fantome Friday. I am your host, Melissa Oliveri.

Fantôme Friday episodes are bonus episodes that feature a real-life supernatural, or at the very least unusual and unexplained experience.

In today’s episode, The Harlequin, we hear about a series of eerie premonitions that seem to indicate that a death has just occurred.

Now, it’s time to get settled in. Grab a blanket, a warm drink, and let’s get started...

The minute my hand touched the door handle of The Harlequin nightclub I knew something was wrong. “Someone died”. The thought popped into my mind, unbidden. I have no idea where it came from, but it was clear as day. I pulled on the handle only to find the door to be locked tight. It was a Tuesday night in January, typically not a busy time for the bar to be open, but it was always open none-the-less. I was standing outside in the frigid Quebec City winter with a handful of friends now wondering what we should do. After a brief discussion we decided to trek through the snow to a different nearby bar.

We enjoyed a few drinks on the main floor, chatting and laughing, but the heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach stayed with me the entire night. As we were about to leave, I decided to head to the lower level where a friend of mine was DJing. He was between songs, so I went to say hello and asked if he knew why the Harlequin club was closed. He got a sad look on his face and told me one of our mutual friends who worked there had passed away suddenly the night before.

I can still recall the ringing in my ears. A swirl of thoughts entered my mind... then a specific memory came back to haunt me. Two nights prior I had been at the bar, it was very busy, and he was racing to keep up with orders. I had just gotten a new job and was excited to share the good news because he knew I was struggling at my previous job. I shouted to him over the sound of music and loud chatter, and he grinned at me and congratulated me – he then held up a finger and said “give me a minute!”. I waited a brief moment, but he was so busy, and it was so loud, and I needed to get home... so I left. I distinctly remember thinking “I’ll see him tomorrow.” But for him, there was no tomorrow.

My next thoughts flew to two events that had occurred within a week of each other about two years before when I was still living at home with my parents. We lived out in the country, and one night we were driving home from town down the long, dark country road. It was about a 30 minute drive and I was sitting quietly in the back seat. We were going to stop at a family friend’s house to grab my house key which I had left there after going on a horse ride with her the day before. As we were nearing the turn to go to her house I had a sudden thought of “Someone has died”. Out of nowhere. I sat up in the back seat and looked out the window at the pitch black fields and forests all around. Where had that thought come from?

I shook off the eerie feeling the thought had brought on as we pulled up to our friend’s house. My parents told me to run to the back door and grab the key while they waited in the car, since it was so late and we all wanted to get home. I knocked on the door and the tearful woman opened it and handed me my key. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me her husband had just died. His body was still out in the field and she was waiting for the authorities to come.

Of course, I was shaken, not only by the news (her husband was a lovely man) but by the fact that I had a premonition about it just a few minutes prior.

About one week later as I was riding the bus to school I suddenly had the same thought. I remember the sinking feeling in my stomach and hoping against hope that it was a coincidence, that I was imagining things. The rest of the bus ride felt interminable. Finally I got to school and went to my first class of the day, theatre. The teacher was a funny, expressive, kind man and I always looked forward to his class. On this day, however, I walked in to his room to find him very somber and quiet. Once all the students had arrived he sat us in a circle and informed us that the father of one of our classmates had passed away suddenly the night before.

Three premonitions about three sudden deaths.

There was only one other somewhat similar instance, where I was sitting in the passenger seat of a car going through a busy intersection, a...