Your True Tales
November 2004 – Page 13

The Hand from the Wall
by Robert

I was about six or seven (in 1957 or 1958) when I had this most unusual and terrifying experience. I was living in an orphanage at the time. The name of that orphanage was "York Cottage" in Toronto, Canada. (Incidentally, York is another name for Toronto.) It must have been fall or winter, around 6 p.m. or just after supper and dark outside when I was playing some game with other children. Whatever game it was I can't remember. But it was a game that required a lot of running and hiding.

Here is a description of the dormatory: It was one of several dormatories. It was on the third floor of a big, old, mansion-like, building. Its only doorway led to a hallway. Its only window was at the opposite end of the doorway or it faced the doorway. It had six beds and a closet. Facing the window from the doorway, it had four beds, side-by-side, along the right wall, and two beds, end-to-end, against the left wall. The closet was at the foot of each of the two beds against the left wall. Four of those beds were against two walls in one of the four corners of the dormatory. Mine was in the corner that was close to the window and on the left side of the dormatory, where the closet was.

Anyway, running in and out of the brightly lit dormatory made me exhausted. So, I decided to take a little rest. But first I wanted to check under my bed, just in case one of the kids was hiding under there and wanted to push my bed up while I was on it. When I was satisfied that no one was under my bed, I lay down on my back and started to cuddle and talk to my stuffed monkey. Suddenly! Without warning! I felt a hand gliding onto my shoulder and grasping that part between my right shoulder and my neck. I could see it out of the corner of my right eye.

This incident took me completely by surprise. The first hint that it was not just a figment of my imagination or something that would have taken tiime to make up. Always or without exception, the only times I have ever been taken by surprise is when real things have happened to me, never have imagined or made up things ever taken me by surprise. Furthermore, this incident was not just a dream, because I always wake up from my dreams, my dreams never consist of the many obvious realities that this incident presented to me and my dreams never leave this kind of lasting, realistic impression upon my mind.

At the time, this incident overwhelmed me with the feeling, "Because I checked under my bed before I lay down, this is not supposed to be happening, but it is happening" or "this is real but it is not supposed to be real, because I am the only one in this area at this time."

I instantly arose to my feet to get away from it. As I looked behind me and down at it, my eyes told me that a solid, hairless, smooth-skinned, white, and unimagined (i.e., real) hand that was attached to a solid, hairless, smooth-skinned, white, and unimagined (i.e., real) arm that was attached to the solid, unimagined (i.e., real) wall that was at the head of my unimagined (i.e., real) bed was continually advancing, in a smooth, gliding fashion, toward me.

Because it attempted to grab me and because my eyes were telling me that it would not stop advancing from the wall toward me I could not be certain of its true length nor could I be certain that the controlling entity behind it had no intentions of pulling me into some unknown dimension of reality within the wall.

I instinctively felt that it was necessary for me to move quickly toward the end of my bed (where the wooden closet was and where I thought the hand might not be able to reach), rather than to the left side of my bed (the only other way off of my bed, since there was a wall on the right side of my bed). The reason I felt this way is because I thought that I couldn't afford to stop and move to the left to get off of my bed and onto the floor, for doing so might give the hand a split-second advantage over me. I was terrified and wanted to run for my life. I was not about to let anything like that hand take me into any dimension of reality that I was unfamiliar with.

Struck with horror and terror, I immediately arose to my feet, and looked down at the hand or kept my eye on it while quickly moving forward, being extremely careful not to give it a chance to touch me again. But it kept reaching for my ankle and gave me the impression that there was no end to the arm that was attached to it.

I jumped over the wooden closet, onto the other bed, and ran into the hallway, screeming to the top of my lungs and into the arms of Mrs. Bomanto (one of the orphanages house-mothers).

Mrs. Bomanto tried to make me feel better by telling me that I was just imagining things. "She doesn't believe me" is the immediate impression I felt. Needless to say, I found little comfort in her well-intentioned words, because I knew she was wrong and didn't understand.

In any event, Mrs. Bomanto certainly had no valid explanation for me to take comfort in. In fact, her reaction to my experience convinced me, beyond a shadow doubt, that the very people I was hoping could protect me from such incidents were just as helpless as I was.

Please keep the following in mind when you consider my story:

At the time of my unusual experience, all the lights were on in the bedroom; there was one potential witness, but he was on the other side of the room and he could not see my bed from his location; I knew what it was like to imagine things because I used to have a vivid imagination, but I knew the difference between that and reality, even at six or seven all children know that difference; I was startled by something that I was not expecting or even imagining, because I was not imagining anything but love for my stuffed monkey before the attack, because I had never ever felt anything that I had imagined before actually seeing it, and because the only times I had ever seen a solid object before and after this incident were the times when I was not imagining things; I had not so much as heard of a disembodied hand before it attacked me; and at the time of the attack and for many years later I felt that the hand was going to take me into some strange world in the wall or another dimension of reality that I was not familiar with.

That is the shortest version of my unusual experience that I could come up with. Also, I believe I have given you, my audience, the best reasons I could think of to help you to believe something that you may never have experienced yet. Nevertheless, I don't blame you for not believing what you have never experienced. I only ask that you never judge people like me before you have learned all there is to know about what is and isn't real.

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