The Story of Bud and Rat

This week I’m going to relate a story told to me by a very old and close friend of mine named Morna. She tells the story about a couple that were old school roommates of hers in university. The couple are Bud and Rat -- both silly nicknames that I suppose Morna made up for them. At the time Bud and Rat weren’t a couple, but were just friends sharing an apartment along with Morna and a couple of other students.

The story is going to be a bit of an experiment. I actually wrote it down about a month ago. Since then I had an opportunity to visit Morna for a weekend and while there I asked her to retell the story to make sure I had all of my facts correct. She gladly did so, but I was horrified when I listened to her tell a completely different story. How could I have gotten so many facts wrong to a story that has always fascinated me so much? I then told Morna the story as I remembered it. At first she completely discounted it, but then as she went through each fact she then changed her mind and agreed that my account was closer to the mark. However there were some points she just couldn’t recall. In the end she had to admit she couldn’t remember the facts for sure. So I asked Morna if I could e-mail Bud and Rat in Calgary and get the story directly from them. She agreed but decided to e-mail them herself. As yet I haven’t received a reply.

At first I thought I should wait for the reply first before posting the story to this blog, but then I thought maybe I should tell the story as I remember it and then later we can compare it with Rat and Bud’s version. It should be interesting to see how much a story changes over time and as it is passed from one person to another.

If you have ever been to Kingston you might actually be familiar with the apartment building that Morna, Bud and Rat lived in. At the time it was called Elrond College – I don’t know why ‘College’ as it was a cooperative student high-rise. The design of it is totally insane and worth mentioning. As I recall the elevator only stopped on the ground, 3rd, 6th, and 9th floors. The reason for this is that to get to your apartment – called houses – from the hallway you have to take a half a flight of stairs either up or down. Once in your house, to get to your bedroom you then have to take another half-flight of stairs up or down again. If you lived in an 8 person house there would be even another half-flight of stairs to further bedrooms. I remember a student once left the bath running in an upper house and the water overflowed 1 ½ of flights of stairs down and out of the house and into the corridor and then into another house going down another 1 ½ flights. Elrond was, and still is, all hallways. It has long winding and useless halls that connect houses on one side of the building with another on the other side. It has finished rooms with no windows or doors, just trap doors in the floor for entry. On top of this the contractor that built it made a measuring error causing one bedroom in each house to be too small for use and another super sized. The building is at the corner of Princess and Division. Go Google Satellite it. Heck, her it is: http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=44.233443,-76.492567&spn=0.002233,0.003782&t=h&z=18 .

Okay, so I digress. Back to the story.

At the time Rat had just broken up with her boyfriend, Terry. He was a trucker that lived, I believe, in Barrie, Ontario. He had just been up for a visit, trying desperately to patch up his relationship with Rat. However, Rat had decided that was it and the relationship would not continue, although she still liked the guy and wanted to remain friends.

Well it got late and Terry had to return to Barrie so he left in a saddened mood. Rat promptly went to bed and fell asleep. In the middle of the night she was awoken by the sound of church bells. She looked out her window down Princess Street and all was calm. There were no people or cars moving, just the eerie sound of the bells at night. For reasons that Rat couldn’t explain she then put on her housecoat and left the apartment into the hallway. When she looked down the hallway she saw Terry ‘standing’ there looking at her. Completely surprised, Rat said “Terry, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Barrie.” Then Rat noticed that Terry didn’t have any legs. His upper torso was just floating there in the air. Terry said nothing. Rat then turned around and ran back to the apartment.

When Rat got to the apartment door she discovered that it had locked behind her and that she couldn’t get in. With no other choice she began pounding on the door trying to wake up someone to let her in. In time the door opened up and there stood Bud. He asked Rat “what are you doing outside?” but before giving her a chance to reply then interjected “you saw Terry, didn’t you?” Bud could never explain why he had said that.

Rat didn’t answer but just ran to her room and got dressed. She then ran out of the apartment, went to her car, and drove all the way to her home back in Barrie. She arrived home in the wee hours of the morning. When she got to her parent’s house her mother told her that she had just received word that Terry had died that night in a crash. The time of the crash was the same time that his ghost had appeared to Rat.

Comments:
This is another story in which the affected person is woken up in their sleep. I also like the story because it was partially verified by Bud, who as well had a slightly surprising response when he discovered Rat out in the hall. There was also no way in which Rat could have known about Terry’s death before she had arrived home. Morna had also lived in the apartment at the time and so verified the disappearance of Rat to Barrie and the death of Terry, although admittedly not a very reliable verification.

This event happened approximately 30 years ago, so clearly too much time has gone by without properly documenting the event. Even if Bud and Rat reply to my request there is no knowing how reliable their account will be. Over that many years much can get distorted and go fuzzy.