We squeezed round the table eight friends all from school

Four sat on dining chairs, four sat on stools

Our fingers all touching the glass in the middle

Instructions agreed, no one to fiddle

Ouija boards are not to be played

It’s serious stuff where contacts are made

Is anyone there we hear Paul say

The glass edges forwards and stops at the J

We all ask in unison does anyone know

The glass moves sideways and stops at the O

Alan breaks rank and runs for the door

The glass bangs the table, Alan falls to the floor

I’m stuck to the glass I hear someone say

The glass just ignores him and moves to the A

Someone starts crying with fear, it is Ben

Wind whistles past us as the glass stops at N

Ian’s dog starts to bark and gives one monstrous roar

As an old ladies photograph falls from the wall

We manage to escape leaving Ian alone

The last words he screamed – Please no Aunty Joan

- Alan’s death was recorded as death by natural causes.

- Ian remains on the police missing persons list to this day, they have never found his body!

©Julian Race 04/09/2021

Twitter @JulianRace1

It was like being born, I suppose, only with a memory of... something? Like the kraken surfacing after ages in the depths to gulp at the air.

It was like deja vu. Like being in a place you’ve never been, but somehow recalling it with a whimsical fondness that betrays the dread of being back. It was like being the genie in the bottle while greedy hands rubbed, and wonder filled eyes gazed in at your nakedness.

It was like being in a place you don’t want to be, seeing faces you don’t want to see, but one. That one face at once familiar and forgotten and foreign.

Asking how you are, and where you’ve been? Unanswerable questions all, when there is no longer a who? Things of no importance, or consequence, while your untried voice screeches, and moans.

And anger at being drawn into this place and out of the other, with naught but chains to whipsaw rattle and shake, and breath to suck through rotted teeth like cold water.

It was discomfort, and confusion, and angst. It was like dementia multiplied and again, and folded overtop of itself in layers. It was the unleashing of the secrets...

It was the horror and dread of knowing there would be “that” again.

And then they were gone, and I.

Hello, old friend, it’s been awhile,

We haven’t spoken since that day.

I’ve long forgotten your genial smile,

And let’s be honest, it’s better that way.

I made my peace and shed some tears,

Accepted that all things have to end.

But after some distance and several years,

You found me once more as a different friend.

I thought I was wearing sufficient disguise,

Purging mementos to make my life pure.

But ghosts are persistent when artifice dies,

I was so confident; I was so sure.

I thought that it could be different this time,

There was room in my soul, and I left it ajar.

Should there be consequence? Was there a crime?

I think you can’t help it, it’s just who you are.

I thought you were older, so maybe you could

Be a light in the dark and a similar strange.

You said that you promised, and swore that you would,

But ghosts aren’t alive, and so you’ll never change.

Maybe I missed you, invited you here,

Or summoned the person I wished you could be.

I forgot the fangs and forgot the fear,

I forgot that it felt kind of good to be free.

Everyone is an exorcist after the fact.

Once you know it’s a ghost, of course you can see.

They say “cut them off, amputate and extract,”

But I can’t, when you already did that to me.

My postmortem’s course has concluded its run,

It’s not about me, you have ghosts of your own.

Of your countless promises, make and keep one:

Haunt other hearts, and just leave mine alone.