supernatural salem
it was just an ordinary night. i was nearing the end of my set at Salem College in Winston-Salem, NC. i was enjoying leaning into the contours of the melody of one of my favorite covers, “The Scientist” by Coldplay. i closed my eyes as i strummed, like i have done thousands of times before. i was peacefully unaware of my surroundings, lost in the moment of the music…until…i felt a strange weight on the end of my guitar, as if someone had grabbed on to the headstock and was holding on. i thought maybe someone was playing a trick on me so i opened my eyes, but all i saw was a sea of attentive faces and no one near the stage. this struck me as very strange as i could have sworn i felt something.
after i finished the song i mentioned it to the audience thinking i’d make a joke out of it but no one laughed and no one seemed surprised. the girls of Salem College unanimously pronounced “our campus is haunted.” what??!!! apparently the college dates back to 1772 and has seen several wars and had a Civil War hospital on campus. every student i talked to had had a ghost experience of some sort and all were pretty matter of fact about it. not me, i was completely unnerved, especially when i had to go down a long hallway to the little singer-songwriter’s room all by myself. as soon as i was done washing my hands i high-tailed it outta there and ran down the hall back to safety, the way i used to do as a little girl when i felt like a ghost was chasing me.
in the end i’ve decided that there are really only two options here. either 1) i imagined the whole thing and am at the beginning stages of going completely mad, or 2) i had an encounter with a ghost. if you pressed me to make a choice, i think i’m more comfortable with option 2. in fact, i feel a little special that a ghost was listening to me sing. hmm, or maybe it was trying to tell me to stop by grabbing my guitar…guess i’ll never know for sure.
that’s my little ghost story and i’m sticking to it,
kyler 
epilogue
the following night when i got to “The Scientist” in my set, i told the story of the night before and the audience was pretty impressed. i was a little nervous i was going to conjure up the spirit again while i was singing the song so i was definitely on edge but when i got to the 3rd line of the second verse i stopped dead in my tracks. my breath caught as i found myself singing “tell me you love me, come back and *haunt* me.” it seems my ghost has a sense of humor…