The scar left by the Empress Tree branch this afternoon.

I hate Google searches because they kill creative spontaneity by providing instant references to a term or phrase I want to use in a story. Most of these are trivial and would drag my story down or alter its meaning in the popular consciousness.

Take this morning's search: I was about to write down the story of a ghostly appearance that has haunted me on and off for almost forty years.

I first saw her when I was a grad student and house-sat the department chairman's home while he was off in Europe on a year-long sabbatical. The master bedroom had a separate entrance with access to the back gate. I often entered that way because I kept odd hours, often walking to the department library in the evening and returning in the early morning hours.

One morning, when I was very tired after a night of intense studies, I found a stranger in the room, a women dressed in the fashion of the day, but all in gray. I thought she was a burglar and was about to address her, when she brushed past me and vanished--not through the open door--but into the closet. 

I thoroughly searched the closet but found no trace of her. 

She came back several more times, appearing usually as I lay down to sleep or had just woken up. But on these occasions she left by way of the [locked] outside door. I was rather frazzled at the time from overwork and did not give her much thought, especially since there was nothing threatening about her.

I did not see her again until two winters ago, when I was alone in the house. She stood at the top of the stairs and looked down at me before she stepped back into the bathroom and vanished. But this time, she appeared to be lavender rather than gray.

Yesterday, I decided to write up the story. As I searched for a title, I decided to check Google to uncover any meanings of lavender and/or gray (copyright or trite) that might be eluding me. I did about a hundred searches, progressing from "ladies in lavender" to "laid up in lavender" and to that grayest of all ladies, The New York Times.

I gave up, when I stumbled on an entry describing spotted suckers, a fish as "heavily tuberculate and had a pink-red lateral band; the area above was tinted with lavender or gray.... "

Maybe these appearances were too trite to be written about, since the woman never spoke, waved, threatened or gave any other indications that she was "alive."

She appeared to me again today, on a very foggy morning. I had walked to the road to pick up an empty beer can a lout had dropped from his car window. I saw her standing inside the garden gate as I turned and straightened up. This time, she seemed to emit a faint golden glow which was heightened by the fog.

I walked back towards the gate. Just as I stepped onto my walkway, a pickup truck came barreling down the road. Had I lingered for another second, it would have hit me. I got its license number and, as I turned back to the gate, noticed that the golden apparition had vanished.

Maybe, I thought, it's too early to write this story. If I give it more time, all sorts of things may yet happen.