By a man who still isn’t sure if he met a ghost or just inhaled too much pollen
It’s been said—quite confidently, and probably over a pint—that England, for all its history of wars, plagues, and questionable cuisine, is the most haunted country on earth. Now, I’m not sure who’s keeping score here, because if we’re talking about misery, turmoil, and premature deaths, there are plenty of contenders. The French had their revolutions, the Romans had their gladiators, and the Americans had disco. But perhaps it’s because the English are simply more active in their afterlife. As the saying goes, “Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.” In the tropics, or the desert. So maybe that extends to death as well — “Only English ghosts still bother to haunt people after tea.”
Anyway, I mention this because Halloween had just passed, and I remembered an odd little story — one of those moments that makes you wonder whether you’re mad, mystical, or just short on breakfast.
It was early spring, 2004. The kind of morning when the air still nips at your fingers like an annoyed chihuahua, but the sun’s making a half-hearted attempt to be warm. England in spring is a bit of a show-off, truth be told. The tulips stand upright and smug like they’re expecting the King to personally inspect them. The daffodils, those yellow lunatics, bounce around as if someone’s spiked the soil with gin. Bluebells stare at everything in mild confusion, and snowdrops bow politely as if apologizing for existing. Everywhere, the land looks like a paint factory exploded and nobody bothered to clean it up.
On that unnecessarily poetic morning, my friend — the sort who can tell from your silence whether you’re angry or just in dire need of a sandwich — asked me to drive her to an eye exam in Farnham. That’s a market town in Surrey that seems to have negotiated with Time itself to stay stuck somewhere between 1580 and 1983. It’s all narrow lanes, crooked cottages, and doorways designed for hobbits. Even the castle on the hill looks like it’s had enough of the modern world and refuses to come down. It’s a good 50 miles east of Stonehenge — or “Druid Central,” as I prefer to call it — and the whole region still carries a faint whiff of ancient mysteries and questionable rituals involving Oak trees.
We parked in the usual spot, started our walk through town, and passed the church. Nothing strange about that — until there was. The moment I looked at the graveyard, something tugged at me. Not physically, of course. More like a whisper in the stomach. A sense that I’d been there before. Not before in the “we’ve been to this shop dozens of times” sense, but before in a way that felt… older. Centuries older.
I stopped dead. My friend turned back and yelled, “Come on! We’re going to be late!”
But I couldn’t shake it. I told her the place felt familiar. Not deja vu — more like returning, familiar but like long before her, long before me. I pointed to a house and said, “That one. The beams used to be lighter. The road was mud. There were carts and faces I knew, but didn’t.”
I said it like someone remembering a story they’d once been part of. “I don’t even know if these memories are mine,” I told her. She just rolled her eyes and said, “You probably saw it in a book or a movie, or something.”.
Maybe I did. Maybe.
Anyway, we shook it off and walked on, chatting about the market instead — fresh vegetables, the butcher who sold bacon thick enough to block arteries on sight, all that earthly comfort.
Then it happened.
An older woman — white hair, kind eyes, hands steady as truth — reached out as we passed. She took my hand. Firmly. Looked up at me like she’d been waiting there for years and said, “You have an old soul.”
And then, she called me by my middle name.
Now, here’s the thing: I never use my middle name. Not ever. Not in introductions, not on forms, not even when the IRS comes knocking. But she knew it. She said it softly, smiled, hugged me — warmly, sincerely, as if we’d known each other through several lifetimes — and then… she walked away.
Gone.
My friend and I just stood there like shop mannequins, blinking at the empty street. “What just happened?” she whispered.
I didn’t know. Still don’t.
Now, I was raised Roman Catholic. We’re not big on reincarnation. You die, you’re judged, and that’s that — no second chances, except maybe purgatory but no return tickets. But that day? That woman? That eerie familiarity in the surroundings and the air? I began to wonder.
Because the universe is a strange old place. Time, space, black holes swallowing light like it’s last call at the pub, quasars having temper tantrums billions of light-years away… and us, standing there, trying to make sense of it all.
There are things we know we don’t know, and then there are things we don’t even know we don’t know — the real unsettling stuff. The things that make you sit quietly afterward, stare at your cup of coffee, and wonder if your memories are really yours.
Maybe there’s a grand design. Or maybe it’s all just random chaos, endlessly spinning in the dark. Maybe we’ve been here before — in different ages, under different names, wearing different faces.
Or maybe we’re all just ghosts ourselves, not yet realizing it.
Either way, I hope one day I’ll find out. Maybe not in this life. Maybe in another. But hopefully not before breakfast.
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A Kings 
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