Between the Glass and the Ghost: Encounters Tied to One Man

I am, first and foremost, a wine person. My world is built on things I can see, smell, taste, and reason about — terroir, vintage variation, the slow logic of a wine finding its moment. The supernatural has no place in that world. And yet, over the past twenty years, I have had a series of encounters I cannot explain, all circling the same person.

His name is Francis, and he too loves wine — perhaps the most ordinary thing about him. Every one of these encounters involves him, and I often wonder what it is about Francis, and what may have become of him.

The Beijing Encounter

The earliest incident occurred in Beijing, where Francis was working as a manager for a Canadian company. We stayed at the Old Beijing Hotel (then called Beijing Fan Dian), which he used as a room and office—a grand establishment that still exists. We had spent the evening over a bottle of red, the kind of wine-warmed night that makes the world feel entirely rational. I went to bed relaxed, comfortable, without a single thought of anything unusual. Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.

Then, in the dead of night, I felt it. A weight — enormous, suffocating — pressing down on my entire body. The shape of a woman, large and heavy. I could feel her mass and yet see nothing in the darkness. I tried to move. I could not. I tried to push her off. Nothing. I could barely breathe. In desperation, I cried out: “Francis! There is something on me!”

He switched on the lights and crossed the room. The moment he did, it was gone. Instantly. Completely. As if it had never been there at all.

I lay there, heart pounding, staring at the ceiling. Nothing to see. Nothing to point to. I am a rational person — I deal in things I can taste, touch, and reason about. But in that moment, every certainty dissolved. I had felt her weight. Her presence. And I had been utterly helpless.

That was my first encounter with something I could not explain — the first in my life. Decades later, it remains as vivid as the night it happened.

Queen’s Road West

Another incident occurred in Hong Kong. We had shared a quiet dinner earlier — a glass each, nothing more, the kind of drinking that leaves the mind clear and the senses intact. Francis was driving along Queen’s Road West at under 50 kilometres per hour when, approaching a turn before the junction with Lu Koo Road, he suddenly veered and struck the left side of the road. He had never had an accident before. When I asked why, he told me he had seen someone standing in the road. His hands were shaking, knuckles pale, eyes still fixed on the windshield as if the figure might reappear. We ended up at Queen Mary Hospital for a couple of stitches.

Manhattan Heights

After retiring early, Francis bought a flat in Manhattan Heights, near Mei Foo. The view was lovely, overlooking the water. That evening we had opened a decent bottle together, something white and crisp — the kind of wine that belongs to calm, ordinary nights.

One cold night, all the windows were shut tight. There was no way any wind could have slipped through — and even if it had, it would not have been strong enough to do what happened next. I felt a cool breath of air brush the back of my neck, and something gently stroke my hair.

I said nothing to Francis. He was still living there at the time, and I did not want to alarm him. But I knew what I had felt.

Francis eventually settled in Shenzhen for good. I never got the chance to discuss any of these encounters with him. The questions remain — what draws the supernatural to him, what he may have seen or felt and never shared. I wonder whether the answers would bring comfort, or only deepen the mystery.

A Personal Footnote

I should add that I have had one other experience worth noting — though it belongs to an entirely different category. When my father passed away at Prince of Wales Hospital, the doctors asked me to push his trolley to the mortuary as a final tribute. I did.

Along the corridor to the mortuary, there were three turns. Each time I rounded a corner, I felt faint. The first time, I told myself it was the effort — the weight of the trolley, the weight of grief. But it happened at the second corner, and again at the third.

I have spent many years learning to trust what is in the glass — its colour, its weight, its honesty. A wine is either what it claims to be or it is not. The encounters with Francis were nothing like that. They offered no such clarity, no finish I could name. And perhaps that is what haunts me most: a man who loved wine as I do, standing at the centre of things no glass of reason could ever explain.