Salesman & The Girl, Adele
Sixteen year old schoolgirl, Adele, was home alone when she answered a knock at the front door and found a strange man standing on her doorstep wearing a tiny pork pie hat and an insanely beaming smile. The visitor, who had an extremely florid complexion, was smartly dressed in a black suit and white shirt, although his trousers and jacket sleeves were both far too short.After grinning madly at me for what seemed like ages, the mans whole body jerked, Adele told investigator Lynn Pickett. Then he said: Have you got insurance? Is it now?
His voice was most odd. Like a robots, jerky and without feeling. The startled girl asked the salesman to call back when her parents were at home. Sweating profusely, he took off his hat and wiped his forehead. A thick layer of carelessly applied stage makeup came off on the back of his hand. He was completely bald, and beneath the smeared makeup his skin looked unnaturally white and dead.
Can I see a glass? Of water? he asked, still grinning fixedly. Afraid that he might faint on the doorstep, Adele invited the stranger in and sat him down in the lounge. He walked with peculiar jerky steps like a puppet, hardly helped by the fact that he had his shoes on the wrong feet. The girl fetched him a glass of water from the kitchen and returned to find him standing by the fireside staring fixedly at a carriage clock on the mantelpiece.
He made me so nervous I started to blather, she recalled. I told him that the clock was my fathers retirement present, which seemed to be some huge revelation to him. He stared at me, still smiling, and said: It is your fathers time? Is it here and now?.
Then he took the glass of water and just looked at it. I realized that he'd asked if he could see a glass, and that's what he was doing. After scrutinizing it in a sort of polite way, he handed it back, having not taken even the smallest sip. The salesman seemed mesmerized by the carriage clock. He stood tapping it repeatedly, musing Your father. Your father. His time. His time. Finally, he spun around, snapped 'Watch the lights!' and, giving the clock an affectionate pat, hobbled out without another word.
Adele had to rush past him to open the front door, as it looked as though he was about to walk straight into it. Once he had left, she ran to the window to see who he visited next, but he appeared to have vanished into thin air. Not long afterwards, a cluster of tiny lights appeared and danced around the living room. The clock that had so delighted the extraordinary salesman stopped working following his visit. Years later it started up again during one of Uri Geller's television appearances and has run perfectly ever since.