Lilliputian Visions

It was only very recently that I discovered that my vision, or rather what I actually saw, had a name, a title, it was a thing, something other people have experienced, a sort of phenomena.

I won’t call it a vision, the dog sitting next to me is not a vision and neither is the nose on the face. Although I never touched it for I was far too frightened to try. They do say that children are much more likely to experience hallucinations, as a result of nothing more than the chemicals naturally present in their brains. That's all we are though isn't it, a transient concoction of chemicals, a quantity of matter. Whatever, doesn’t really matter.

My memory is very long. I don’t remember important facts which may turn out to be useful, it’s more arbitrary information like the shape of my nan’s taps, climbing out of my cot to get to an Easter egg on the floor, slamming a cupboard door against my mother’s head as she held my on her hip and searched for something to cook for lunch. Luckily I grew out of that brief period of experimental violence, well mostly.

In December 1976 we moved into a new house. I recall going to view the house a couple of times, my elder brother instantly claiming the larger of the bedrooms leaving me with a small room with a very large cupboard. We were in by Christmas, that’s the time of my birthday so I know I was just coming up to 3 years old.

The house was not the sort of austere Edwardian building with ornate cornices, a long history and much scope for the presence of phantoms. Indeed it was small and rectangular with no frills and metal windows which froze on the inside forming intricate patterns, sticky to the touch. Everything was reassuringly suburban and safe.

There were two strange things that happened to me in the following couple of years. One was that one evening when I was supposed to be in bed and my parents were downstairs watching television I got up. For some reason I needed to go downstairs, it was winter and the landing light was on.

As I began to descend the staircase I was mysteriously lifted up and started to float, my initial reaction to this was to grab the bannister and attempt to pull myself down, this didn’t work. It was as if gravity had reversed and I kept floating up to towards the polystyrene tiles on the ceiling. A small portion of time passed, seconds, maybe a minute at most. I floated all the way down to the hall where I was then able to reach down and grab the door handle of the living room. At this point I dropped back to the floor with a flump and opened the door. I attempted to explain what had happened to my parents but they insisted I had been dreaming and escorted me back to bed at once. Every child dreams of flying, my experience was more like floating and was rather frightening to be honest feeling so out of control.

The other strange thing to happen to me took place about 18 months later. When I was between 4 and 5 years old. I remember it was summertime and I made a routine visit to the lavatory, my short legs dangling above the floor as I began the natural surrender of the contents of my bladder. The house had a single toilet, separate from but next to the bathroom, it was a very small room without even a sink. I had grown accustomed to the ‘view from the loo’; lino on the floor, a varnished wooden door bar, mustard gloss paint coating the door. Some way through the duration of my business a movement caught my eye, something larger than a spider, something with peculiar dimensions yet a familiar form, arms and legs, an accustomed way of moving. A man! A small, perfectly formed man, not minute but very small, no taller than 2 inches and dressed in ordinary clothes, trousers, a top, shoes, short brown hair.

At this point I felt my eyes widen, I was unable to halt the flow of my urination (I am still unable to do so but there was a period in between when I could.) The man was walking fast, swinging his arms, striding across the lino floor towards the wall as if he had some kind of important business to attend to. It appeared that he was completely unaware of being observed and of my presence. Then the most terrifying thing of all happened. Quite casually he turned around and saw me, did a double take, clocked me looking at him, a giant little girl perched on the toilet. He looked into my eyes and his reaction to seeing me was one of absolute terror; his eyes widened as mine had, his tiny mouth dropped open, he increased his paced, broke into a run and disappeared into the skirting board.

I knew I must get down stairs and tell my parents what I had seen, perhaps there would be some explanation, something they were waiting to tell me about, maybe when I was a little older but now I had uncovered it by myself. I was aware that it was important to get down the stairs safely without falling and I remember the sensation of having wet pants where I hadn’t wiped and hadn’t quite finished.

My parents were having a conversation. We had a glass lean-to type building adjoining the kitchen, you had to step down to it and mum and dad were stood either side of the doorway. I remember they ignored me and I stood there a few seconds until my mum noticed that I was looking shocked and upset and asked me what was the matter. I explained, my words sounding odd to me even at that age, that there was a little man in the toilet. ‘In the toilet?’

I continued to explain that he was on the floor, walking across the floor and used my hands to show his size. They looked at each other. My mum rolled her eyes, shook her head, sighed, she brushed me away with her body language, like I was just a little feather tickling her with ridiculous flights of fancy. Now my dad who really was a ridiculous man and could slip as readily into the absurd as a cold, naked lady slips into a warm bath, he nodded his head. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘That’s Benny Compo, he lives on the compost heap.’

It was a charming character which sprung, unseasoned from his mind and it became an entity who remained with us for the duration of my childhood. Benny Compo could be blamed for mysterious sounds, missing objects, all sorts of the standard yet baffling things which happen in a normal, busy household. Cute as he was, Benny Compo’s creation, destroyed and threw water on the paranormal activity which was my experience while sitting on the toilet that day.

If I brought the subject up it drew much laughter, ‘Not Benny again!’ they said and it became clear that the occurrence was something I would have to carry alone, it was a private thing, nobody else understood or even wanted to.

Over the years I have shared my experience with a couple of friends, people I have known for a while. As I relayed the tale I have looked into their eyes and observed them recategorizing me from ‘normal, straight-forward, trustworthy,’ to ‘flaky, weird, possibly an LSD user.’ Looking back now I see it as a unique experience, something money couldn’t buy, the most private of moments which my little man, not Benny Compo, someone else, the strangest of strangers, both of us united in terror.

I wonder is he still around, somewhere, does he remember me, perhaps tell his friends and observe the distrust in their eyes, has he ever been back to the toilet to look for me? Whenever I visit my mother I sit on the toilet and wait for him, of course I am much farther away from the floor now, he would appear smaller, has he aged like me?

I recently did some research using the power of Google, read a bit about other people’s experiences of Lilliputian Visions. It seems there is some variation in the size and appearance of little people, some being a few feet high, others just inches or smaller, some in strange clothing. Generally though, unlike fairies, they tend not to have wings. There is even a condition where people experience these visions regularly. Mine was a one-off, a special moment, we had an interaction of sorts, both as scared as each other, forever bonded by our simultaneous terror.

It's something I will remember always. Rather than being fearful, now it gives me hope, of something else, another dimension, whether he lived inside my head or outside of it there are other layers out there to explore and I wouldn’t be too quick to label them madness.