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Quarantining With a Ghost? It's Scary
居家隔离闹鬼？好恐怖！
It started with the front door.
一开始是在前门。
Adrian Gomez lives with his partner in Los Angeles,
艾德里安·戈麦斯和同伴两人住在洛杉矶，
where their first few days of sheltering in place for the coronavirus pandemic proved uneventful.
两人正在那里隔离，头几天的日子还较平淡。
They worked remotely, baked, took a two-mile walk each morning and refinished their porcelain kitchen sink.
远程办公，做做烘焙，每天早晨散步两英里，还维修了厨房里的陶瓷水槽。
But then, one night, the doorknob began to rattle "vigorously," so loud he could hear it from across the apartment.
然而，接下来的一天晚上，前门的门把手开始“剧烈地”摇晃，声音大到他从房子的另一头都能听到。
Yet no one was there.
问题是，屋外并没有人。
In mid-April, Mr. Gomez was in bed when a nearby window shade began shaking against the window frame so intensely —
后来，4月中旬的一天夜里，已经睡下的戈麦斯突然又听到旁边一扇窗户的百叶窗在猛烈地敲打窗框——
despite the fact that the window was closed,
尽管窗户当时明明是关着的，
an adjacent window shade remained perfectly still, the cats were all accounted for,
而且旁边另一扇窗户的百叶窗没有任何动静，猫也确认过了，
and no bug nor bird nor any other small creature had gotten stuck there —
也没有虫子或鸟或是其他任何小生命被困在那里——
that Mr. Gomez thought it was an earthquake.
敲打之厉害，戈麦斯甚至误以为是发生了地震。
"I very seriously hid myself under the comforter, like you see in horror movies, because it really did freak me out," he said.
“我立马躲到了被子里，就跟看了恐怖片一样，因为真的把我给吓坏了，”他说。
Now, though neither he nor his partner noticed any unexplained activity at home before this,
尽管在此之前，他和同伴都没有注意到家里有任何无法莫名其妙的事情发生，
the couple can "distinctly" make out footsteps above their heads.
现在两人却能“清楚地”听到头顶有脚步声。
No one lives above them.
问题是，他们上面根本就没人住。
"I'm a fairly rational person," said Mr. Gomez, who is 26 and works in I.T. support.
“我这个人还算比较理性的，”在IT支持部门工作现年26岁的戈麦斯说。
"I try to think, 'What are the reasonable, tangible things that could be causing this?'
“我就想，‘如果是合理的，有形的东西引起的，那会是什么呢？’
But when I don't have those answers, I start to think, 'Maybe something else is going on.'"
但我实在想不出会是什么，于是我又开始想，‘说不定还真是别的什么东西在搞鬼。’”
They're not alone …possibly in more ways than one.
不光他们是这样……可能还不止是这样。
For those whose experience of self-isolation involves what they believe to be a ghost,
对那些自认为在家隔离的时候撞鬼了的人来说，
their days are punctuated not just by Zoom meetings or home schooling,
隔离这段时间，闯进他们生活的不仅是视频会议和网课，
but by disembodied voices, shadowy figures, misbehaving electronics, invisible cats cozying up on couches,
还有鬼魅般的响声，模糊的影子，表现怪异的电子产品，瘫在沙发上却看不见的猫，
caresses from hands that aren't there and even, in some cases — to borrow the technical parlance of "Ghostbusters" —
来自根本就不存在的手的抚摸，有时甚至还有——借用《捉鬼敢死队》里的说法就是——
free-floating, full-torso vaporous apparitions.
自由漂浮，全身呈蒸气状的幽灵。
Some of these people are frightened, of course.
有些人自然是被吓坏了。
Others say they just appreciate the company.
其他人反而表示很高兴有它们陪伴。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
