When I was a wee lad, say 6 years old, my favorite place to be was in the sandbox at the park down the street from where I lived. Given the opportunity, I’d be there all day everyday. While there, I met a lot of the regular kids, though most of them I’ve forgotten about. One I don’t think I’ll ever forget though was this odd little girl.

I was playing in the lower of the two sandboxes, and was having a grand ol’ time digging a big hole. This girl comes up to me, sits down next to me, and begins talking with me. Almost immediately I notice that she has very little of a short-term memory. Every minute we’d essentially start the conversation over with her asking questions she’d already asked.

Now, this wasn’t so bad, but then there was the muttering between topics. Whenever there was a silent moment, she’d start muttering about how her parents had left her there. They left her there and she hated them. They left her there so long ago and she hadn’t seen them in so long and she hated them.

And then she’d reintroduce herself, and the whole encounter would start over.

Eventually she left me alone and wandered off, and I never saw her again.

Of course I’m aware now that kids are just weird like that sometimes. Kids say weird things, and can be quite imaginitive. Nonetheless, it was such a weird encounter that it was easier to just tell myself she was a ghost.