As a young child, from the age of five, I was very interested in the idea of invisibility. I remember when my parents had company over, I would hide before they arrived, behind one of the big easy chairs. All evening I would sit there undetected, listening to wonderful adult conversation. When my parent’s would escort their guest out to their vehicle’s, I would quickly scamper back into my room, and into my bed, where I ‘belonged’. I enjoyed this privilege, until one fateful evening, when I was finally caught.

Right below our house was an awesome and very large pepper tree, with plenty of room for me to camp up in it’s large branches. Right below me was a neighbor’s house. I would often play invisibility games, and see if I could get away with being undetected when the neighbors were about.. What a wonderful thing invisibility was!

Time passes, and into my teenage years I continued with my fascination. One night when I was about 15, I attended a party with some of my friends, being held in a backyard. Little did I know at the time, as I drank my Jack Daniels, was that the house was occupied with unconsenting residents. Yes, if you can imagine, my idiot friends had decided to party in someone’s backyard!

Suddenly everyone was running out of the yard, and by the time my companion and I had figured out what was going on, we saw the flash of police lights. We looked at one another, and dropped straight to the ground. A hedge of bushes lay between us and the alley that the police car pulled up into. The hedge unfortunately did not provide complete cover, and they were very well trimmed at the base, leaving about eight inches of exposed area.

I whispered to my companion to be ‘invisible’. We lay there, flat as pancakes, and imagined we were invisible. Bright police flashlights flooded us, and we could see the legs of the police, as clear as day. They spoke between one another, decided there was no one there, got in there car, and drove off. We had seen the light directly shining on us, but we had not been seen.

A few years later, I was to meet an interesting person in my hitch hiking escapades. This gentleman was a veteran of the Vietnam war, and told me that invisibility had saved his life more than once during his tour. He explained to me that it was a matter of just ‘not being’, not thinking, and just being completely invisible.

A few years passed, and I was married with a young baby. I went out into the yard of where we were staying, and climbed into a decent climbing tree, sitting on it’s largest branch. The tree was very sparse when it came to cover, and the branch was not up very high, probably no more than 5′ . My then husband’s car pulled up, and some of my in-laws came out of the house to talk to him.

I imagined myself completely invisible, and sat there for twenty minutes, while they chatted literally a few feet away from me. I could see them clear as day, and I knew that I was equally exposed. After awhile, my husband began to ask where I was, and the in-laws reported they had no clue. A search began, and they looked through the house, the back yard, and the front yard, in which I occupied.

They stood out in the front yard, talking about what they were going to do next. I finally decided I had probably taken this a little too far, and loudly announced myself. The expressions on their faces were worth all of my effort! They all were equally stunned, as I sat there, in clear sight.

Another experience was to happen a few years later. I was at this time living with my two children and husband, in I believe it was Colorado. I needed to run an errand, and got in my car to drive off. About two blocks down the road, I began to notice an odd phenomena. The cars that surrounded me, did not see me, and several of them almost drove me off the road. I could see the faces of the drivers, and they were looking straight through me.

I was rather mortified and confused, and pulled over, turning around to drive straight home. Upon arriving in one piece, I explained to my husband, what had happened. He then deeply apologized, and explained to me that due to our not being able to afford auto insurance, he had put up invisibility shields over the vehicle. He had though unfortunately not been specific enough, and instead of putting them up only for the benefit of the police, created a general spell, that made it so that no one could see me! He fixed the spell, and I was able to proceed to the store without incident.

I have had many experiences with invisibility, but I think my favorite, is the one where I wasn’t invisible! It was in my 19^th year(gads a lot happened that year), and I had been in the middle of a mental breakdown. I had gone down to the Bay area for a strange adventure, and was returning via a Greyhound bus. We had stopped along the way at a little convenience mart, and I was without money, and quite hungry.

We disembarked from the bus, and almost everyone piled inside the little place. I looked about at all the food I could not partake in, and decided that I was going to eat anyway. I imagined myself as completely invisible, and began to walk about taking whatever I desired, and throwing it into my open purse.

The funniest part is that everyone in the entire store stood there staring at me as I did so, openly and with slacked jaw. I was totally aware that something had gone wrong, and my spell was not working, but I did not falter in my actions. I piled a few things in my bag as I walked for the door, and smiled as I walked past the cashier who was halted in his motions along with the rest of the customers staring in my direction.

I exited the store, and sat on the steps, awaiting the bus driver to announce it was time to get back on the bus. One of my fellow passengers came out and sat down next to me. I opened up my purse and offered him a candy bar, but he politely declined. We returned to the bus without incident, and I finally had some food to fill my belly. I find this story much more amazing than if I had succeed in my invisibility!

Yes, invisibility is possible, and with practice one can develop a very useful skill. Try it out on your friends sometime, you might be very surprised!

Image found here.