Tag Archives: haunting

Nobody cares about your dumb séance

I have this really weird friend, and she’d been talking about doing a séance for months. “Come on guys!” she’d say after nobody responded to any of her suggestions. Nobody ever responded. Because nobody wants to do a séance. Nobody but crazy people. “It’ll be so much fun!” and we’d just do our best to ignore her, to hope that after a while she’d burn herself out, maybe take a hint that nobody felt like standing around and holding hands like a bunch of wackos.

And yeah, I guess she took the hint, because one day she decided to take charge, to force us all into participating. We arrived at our friend Jeff’s place at eight, and even Jeff looked kind of shocked as we entered the darkened living room, the long candles set up around the perimeter of a folding poker table set up in the middle.

“What the hell Jeff?” we all asked without actually saying anything. And Jeff just shrugged, communicating, “I don’t know guys, she just showed up and started setting everything up.” Which, sorry Jeff, you’re not off the hook. I mean, talk about being a pushover. That’s your place. It’s your responsibility to put the foot down when someone comes over and tries to take over the direction of a get-together at your apartment. It’s like when I have people over, and Carl tries to hijack the music. “Come on guys, there’s this really cool Gypsy punk band that I found out about online. We should listen to the whole album!” Yeah, it’s a little mean, taking the computer out of his hands, password protecting the playlist. But what’s the alternative?

The alternative is shit like this, sitting around some ridiculous table getting ready to play make-believe with all of your adult friends, when all you really want to be doing is smoking pot and playing video games. “Guys, come on, hold hands! Be quiet!” that was our friend. We were all past the point of looking visibly pissed off, and half of us were muttering obscenities under our breath. She didn’t care, “Guys! Quiet!”

She turned off the lights and lit all of the candles. “For real guys, just hold hands, just come on.” And we did, probably because we realized that this was never going to stop being a thing unless we just got through it. So, begrudgingly, I joined hands with the two guys to my side, hoping that this wouldn’t take too much longer.

“Spirits from beyond,” she started her séance speech. It was too much to take. Like were these prepared words that she had written down ahead of time? Or was she just winging it, going for the whole otherworldly ghost feel? It was way over the top, the way she pronounced everything, “from beyo – ooo – oond.”

But after like a minute of this nonsense the candles all blew out at the same time. That got everybody’s attention. “Hey, how’d you do that?” one of my friends said, and someone else said, “Shhh.”

“Ghost of the departed, why do you come? What do you need to tell us?”

And then a voice started speaking. It sounded like it was coming from the middle of the table, but there wasn’t any echo or anything, nothing like the disembodied characteristics that you hear in ghost movies. With the lights out, our eyes didn’t have a chance to adjust, and so we couldn’t see anything, the source of the voice, if it was just one of our friends playing the part of the deceased.

“What do you mean?” the voice said.

“Why do you come from bey – ooo –oond?”

“I don’t know. You summoned me. What do you want?”

“Deliver unto us your otherworldly message!”

“For real? This is like something out of a bad horror movie. Come on, aren’t you guys bored? How’d you let her talk you into to any of this? I mean, I’m fine. I’m beyond the whole concept of time and space, so this isn’t really a big deal for me. Yeah, I’m bored, but it’s not like I have anywhere better to be. What about you guys? You’re just going to waste the rest of your twenties sitting around and playing video games? I’m not judging, it’s just that when I was alive …”

“OK! All right! Thank you. We get it. Thank you for visiting us. Guys, does anybody see the lighter? Can someone turn the lights on?”

And Jeff was right by the door. He hit the switch and the lights went on and there was nobody else with us. It was just a bunch of people sitting around a table, still kind of awkwardly holding hands.

Nobody wanted to talk about it anymore. Everyone felt a little ridiculous, that even if it were a real ghost that we somehow conjured into this plane of existence, that even the disembodied voices of the dead think that a stupid séance is a dumb waste of time. I wanted to rub this fact in my friend’s face, but nobody was saying anything. I think she felt bad about it. We all just quietly opened our beers and packed our bowls while Jeff blew in the cartridges of his old N64 games, trying to get Super Smash Brothers to work. Carl and Bill started fighting over who got to play as Captain Falcon. I need to get some new friends.

I’m scared of ghosts that are indifferent to my existence

Sometimes I’ll want a good scare, and so I’ll try to find some cool ghost stories to read on the Internet. But even the good ones aren’t that scary. The ghosts are always trying way too hard. At first you barely notice that they’re there, but then slowly they start moving stuff around the apartment, running right behind you when you’re in the bathroom brushing your teeth, spelling out really creepy sentences on the fridge out of the magnetic word poetry set that you bought at Urban Outfitters. And then after the fun and games are over, they reveal themselves, it turns out to be a really evil ghost, and that’s it.

image credit: www.i-am-bored.com

The scariest parts of ghost stories are the parts where the ghost isn’t even doing anything yet. The main character moves into a spooky new house, and nothing out of the ordinary has happened at all. But I’m reading a ghost story, and so I know that something scary is about to go down eventually, and so I’m shaking, totally freaked out. And then as soon as that candle knocks itself off the fireplace, I’m like, OK, there it is, that’s the ghost, and everything gets progressively less scary.

So I’m not into scary ghosts, not in fiction, certainly not in real life. And I’m not too fond of happy ghosts either. As a little kid, I always thought that Casper the Friendly Ghost was one of the dumbest shows on TV. It wasn’t scary, and it wasn’t funny. It was just weird, and kind of sad. I remember thinking to myself as a little kid, so wait, if Casper’s a ghost, then he’s dead, right? So why is he dead? Isn’t he just a little kid? Mom, if I die right now, am I going to have to come back as some bald floating cartoon character without any legs?

Scary ghosts, no. Happy ghosts, also no. What really gets me are the ghosts that are totally indifferent to my existence. And since by their nature they’d want nothing to do with me, I can never rule out the possibility that my house might be super haunted right now, like totally overflowing with ghosts that don’t care about me. I just can’t see them, because they don’t find my presence worth haunting. And so they’re sitting around enjoying my couch or whatever it is that ghosts do, and then they hear me coming and, poof, they’re gone.

What the hell, ghosts? Couldn’t you at least do me a solid? If I were a ghost, resigned to take up space in my house for some undetermined amount of time, sure, I can see how I’d maybe feel a little apathy toward whoever takes residence here next. Maybe I wouldn’t want to give them the time of day. If I had the ability to poof myself out of any situation, that’s probably what I’d wind up doing most, if not all of the time.

But do me a favor, just come and say hi. That would be huge for me. I’d finally find out once and for all that an afterlife does exist, that death isn’t the end. Sure, maybe the idea of floating around, disappearing, still trying to avoid weird social interactions with people that I’m not close with, maybe that’s not the idea of heaven that I was expecting. But it’s better than nothing.

Come on, if I were a ghost, I’d leave you alone, but I’d at least give you a little heads up. “Hey,” I’d manifest myself right in between you and the TV. “Look, I’m not going to scare you or anything, and this doesn’t have to be a thing where I’m all up in your business, but I just wanted to let you know that I’m here, and that I’ll be out of your way. When I was alive, I put a lot of thought into this, and I just feel like, at some level anyway, you’d probably want to know.”

You call this a haunting?

Yes, I’m having trouble putting a lot of what’s happening out of my head, but I can’t let them know that they’re on to me. I figure, just chill out, pretend like nothing’s happening, as long as they can’t get a reaction out of me, maybe they’ll leave me alone.

Maybe they’ll go away. It was like, when I moved in, yes, I was pretty freaked out. It wasn’t anything in particular, it was just a general sense of dread, that same feeling I’d get when I was a little kid, I’d have to go get something in the basement and, regardless of the time of day or who else was in the house, I’d hit the lights and take those first few steps, I could feel it, that tingling on my back, like something was behind me, something grabbing out for me, just an inch or so away.

And so I used to run, sprint up the steps, but that didn’t do anything. Regardless of how quick I made that trip, it always felt so close, right behind me. Whatever was down there, it probably wasn’t anywhere, it had to have been in my head. So as I got older, I forced myself to stop running. No, the feeling of panic, like I was right about to be dragged backward, it never went away, but it never actually came true either. And so I told myself, whatever that feeling is, I’ve just got to go about doing what I’m doing as if it isn’t there.

That’s exactly what it was like the first time I was alone by myself in this new place, always right behind me, like a breath hitting the back of my neck, but not really, almost imperceptibly. Almost immediately things started to happen, my toothbrush wouldn’t be where I’d left it, maybe it was like two inches to the left, or on the other side of the sink.

Just pick it up and brush your teeth, I told myself, don’t let whatever’s in here get the best of you. That was the idea anyway, if there was some sort of a presence or spirit, and jeez, it sounds ridiculous when I write it out, but just don’t acknowledge it. Is it watching me? Why else would it move the toothbrush if not to get a rise out of me.

Like I could pick it up, I wanted to scratch my head curiously, maybe even look around suspiciously. I could call out, “Hello? Is someone in here? Did somebody move my toothbrush?” But that’s just validating whatever’s going on, it’s saying, out loud, hi, my name is Rob, and I’m acknowledging that I’m starting to get really scared of what’s going on here. I hope this is as spooky as things are going to get.

But it’s persistent. I ignored the toothbrush. I started picking it up off the floor, one day it was missing completely, I opened up the toilet seat and there it was, floating in the water. I didn’t bat an eye. I got out a pair of rubber gloves, threw it out, and opened up a new one.

You think I’m going to lose my shit over a disposable toothbrush? I don’t care, I’ll use a new toothbrush every day. And yes, toothpaste all over the mirror, that’s a little bit more aggressive, definitely harder to ignore. But what are my options, really? Do I want to directly engage this thing? No, I just clean it off, yeah, tiptoeing around it is starting to take up more and more of my day.

So it’s like, I don’t have to clean up the toothpaste, no, it’s almost better if I don’t, right? I’m giving it less stuff to throw in my way every day. I can kind of see my reflection, and it’s not gross, I mean, it’s minty, it smells nice. And yeah, if I’m watching TV and the channel changes abruptly while I’m watching it, or if my alarm clock always goes off at three in the morning, yes, I have to deal with that, but you’re crazy if you think you’ll get any more of a reaction than me hitting the channel down button or shutting off the late-night beep, beep, beep.

I’ll keep this up as long as you want, all right, because I’m not afraid of this, whatever it is. It’s nothing. There’s nothing there. And that’s why I’m not afraid, OK, it’s not going to kill me, right? I mean, those bruises on my legs when I wake up, that’s not a huge deal. People get bruises. And that shadow behind the door, go ahead, keep looking this way buddy. I’m not getting up to investigate. I can’t fall asleep, no, but I can pretend to be asleep. I can’t not be afraid, but I can pretend to not be afraid. And eventually it’s got to move on, because isn’t this a little boring? Huh? You’re going to spend every day haunting me when it’s clearly not messing with me at all? Doesn’t that get a little old? Don’t you want to maybe find someone who will at least visibly be bothered by such cliché tricks? Because I’m not going anywhere, all right, I almost feel bad for you, because it’s just so lame, just go do something else, OK, as far as spirits or ghosts go, you’re a total loser.