Jake and Natie, sleep will never come

He left me in the closet with a pen and piece of paper. It was an exercise, he said. It was a way that she might choose to come through for me. All I had to do was close the door and be silent. It was dark and I could not see the pen nor the paper, and this was how Jake wanted it. I was to place the pen against the paper and wait for her to write for me.

“How long does this take, Jake.”

“Be quiet, Natie. I don’t know but I’m sure it’s not going to work if you are talking.”

I waited. I tried not to will my hand to move or not to move and it was weird. It was no different than the Quiji board, no different than holding that little plastic thing together with everyone else’s shaking fingers. In the closet, all I could do was listen to my breath and forget that my fingers even existed.

“Jake, I don’t like this.”

Jake ignored me. He refused to carry on a conversation during the serious exercise, well, he thought it was serious. I was growing weary of all the tricks and exercises and I wanted something real. I wanted to get out of the dark closet and sit in the living room. I just wanted to use the recorder or take pictures. This phantom writing stuff was crap.

“Jake please….”

He opened the door. It was obvious that he was peeved at me from the look on his face. His dark hair was disheveled and his forehead was creased. Jake reached in and took the piece of paper from my hands. He froze.

“Did you do this? Did you write this?”

Jake held the paper in front of me as I climbed from the closet. There was a word scribbled at the top of the page. I looked at him and then back to the page.

“I didn’t write anything, Jake.”

Jake pushed the paper into my face.

“What’s this then?”

At the top of the page was the name ‘Franklin’.

“Whose Franklin, Natie?”

“I…I don’t know, Jake. I didn’t write that.”

Jake’s eyes grew wide and he smiled. “Natie, do you know what this means? If you didn’t write this, then someone else did and you were in that closet alone…but you weren’t really alone. Do you see?”

I realized that I was never alone in that closet and so I jumped away from the closet door immediately. I looked back inside only seeing my clothes and shoes. There was nothing or no one else.

“Jake, I was alone.”

“No Natie, you were in there with a ghost, babe. It was her! I just don’t understand who Franklin is. She never talked about anyone named Franklin.”

“How do you know it was her, Jake?”

Jake was silent. We both walked back into the living room and sat down. He picked up his phone, which was set on the Halloween ghost meter app.

“Jake”

The ghost meter spoke Jake’s name and immediately got his attention. Jake stared at the screen watching the radar needle spin around and around. He looked at me and smiled.

“How’d you like that, Natie. It said my name.”

The ghost detector spoke again. “Franklin”. And again, “secret”.

Jake put his phone on the couch and turned to me. His eyes traveled from my eyes to my hands. He noticed how I wrung my hands and scratched at my jeans because I did. He looked back into my face and silently wondered who Franklin was, silent until he asked me again. And he should ask me because I do know a Franklin, a few of them actually. What he wanted to know was why did my aunt want to talk about a guy named Franklin. I don’t even know if this was her or not. It could be a demon, they say that demons masquerade as loved ones to draw us into their trickery. This could be a demon, yes, a demon. But I did know a Franklin and he was going to ask me, I just know it and ….

“Whose Franklin?”

What I'm thinking- July 7, 2016

The aftermath is never filled with writing fodder. Honestly, I don’t know why I came here at all. I guess this is the last frontier. I saw the beauty of Jupiter and I wanted to go. It’s creamy milk clouds swirled with dark brown storms and winds making its moon stand out in detailed glory. Lo and behold the splendor of the artist’s rendition of the Great Red Spot. Excuse me while I capitalize whatever I please.

So I sit there, growing fatter by the hour because of some strange sleep hormone and all the posted signs. I hate this torture, this caged bird mentality that my sleep holds me sway. Tomorrow, I shall try again to put one foot in front of the other in a neighborhood safari, but the forest still calls-oh God! The agony is too great and call me ungrateful if you wish. Say that I am spoiled because I have everything that I want! Say it!

So the aftermath of all this death is still not affording me something to talk about. I do feel another one coming on, another premonition of some great legend dying and some injustice waiting in the wings. But it’s just like always, from the time of my birth until now and it will never change. It’s like the calm face of the woman whose husband was gunned down in front of her, it’s life and life to me is this.

I will take two steps to your one but I will never know where I am going.

Do you understand?

What I'm thinking--June 25, 2016

I came across my anger, as if I had never seen it before. It was alien and unstoppable. All around the room, their faces made me mad. It was the inconsistencies, the lies and the ignorance which set my mood aflame. I wanted to say “I will not suffer fools”, but that would be too cruel. I love them, all of them, I do. It’s just that sometimes I have to be hard to stand my ground. They tell me to express my inconveniences and my issues, but do it in a civil manner. Whenever I try to be civil, I am met with this arrogant threat. It is hypocrisy

It’s all a myth. When you disagree, you cannot be civil. No matter how calm you are, to some, they will never be able to accept that you disagree with them and that you wish to tell them no. I wish to tell them no, all the time, just for the fun of it and just to make it even with my decades of yes’s. I want to say no and with that no, stand straight and tall in my convictions.

Some of them want to instill fear as a means of control and then say that you are trying to control them. IT’s a form of manipulation, old really, and when first introduced with this manipulation, it can be startling to the senses. Once you encounter this trick, you can conquer the symptoms of fear. Fear, fear fear, they love to use the tool of fright to deny they have an allegiance with fear at all.

I came across my anger and at first I was ashamed by it. I prayed against it and I held it down with all my might and 200 stacks of books that I read week to week.

“Be kind”, “Don’t make assumptions” and “Control your temper.”

These are supposed to be sage words. These words are supposed to remind you that you are not a slave of fear and anger any more.

So, why, when I finally get angry, do I feel like I’m finding my worth? It’s confusing at times, it’s hard to not get angry at ignorance and evil. And yes, there is pure evil out there, it’s the pride of mankind.

I came across my anger and I was reminded of my savior in the temple, driving out the vile. To anger is not to sin.

There is a time and palace and my anger is mine. I am not a slave to my anger, nor anyone else.

The only name I remember

To know a name is to command power. I wonder about this sometimes and the wondering leads me back to sleep. How can a name entrap a human being and force this human being to bend?

“I call your name and you must do as I say.”

This doesn’t always work, you know, so how shall this work on demons? You’ve seen the movies, the exorcism flicks and horror based movies. In the story, the name of these spirits holds dominion. Once you know the demon’s name, you can cast it back to hell.

“In the name of Jesus, I bind you and cast you out!”

Yes, that works in the movies. It works in reality as well, as long as one condition is met.

Faith.

This is where my wondering stops, right before I fall from the cusp of sleep. I drift into another place, filled with impossibilities and communions with the dead. I follow a path to a land where names mean nothing and faith is like the blood in my veins. Here I have faith but no name and there I had names with no faith. My quest, within the dream, was to fuse the two together so that I could fight my demons.

The darkness said no, but I kept trying to remember names when I awoke.

One morning I remember a solitary name and with it, faith of a mustard seed. I called to the father with the name on the tip of my tongue. My faith was burning like a grain of hot sand.

“In the name of Jesus, I bind you and cast you out!”

I spoke sternly, with one name on my tongue. It was a name I could never misplace.

It was my own.

“I cast you back to hell.”

Jake and Natie....I cannot sleep

“I know you want to see her, hear her or whatever, but it takes time.”

“Do you think we will get something tonight?”

“Maybe”

Jake had new equipment. He explained it to me but I have already forgotten what it was. Seems like he called it a spectrovolumizer or something like that. These devices are special made to detect things like cold spots and electromagnetic fields or whatnot. I guess I’m mutilating the names and processes of this equipment, but I wish to learn more. I want to do what Jake does. Jake talks to the dead.

“Jake, did you say that was a voice extramologer?”

Jake laughed way down in his belly. His smile was huge. He would have been cute if he wasn’t making fun of me.

He could barely speak through his guffawing. “It could be a prestidigitator working through the flabnoid erupter.”

I wasn’t impressed. Our neighbor had already said those ludicrous words while banging on his alternator with a screwdriver. I wasn’t the only one who was clueless. Heck, the world was infested with ignorance.

“Jake, I’m sorry. I can’t pronounce those words and I forget all the time. I just want to talk to her.”

He took my hand and lead me over to the couch. There, lined up against the edge of the rug was three devices. One was large and the other two no smaller than a cellphone. He was making a list of what he needed for the trip. Apparently, these were his ‘prime babies’ as he called them.

“You see this?” Jake picked up something that looked like a calculator. “This is my portable ‘spirit box’. You wouldn’t believe how important this thing is.”

Jake took the little electronic and sat down on the couch, pulling me down with him.

“So, how does this work? Is it complicated?”

“Okay, when we get there, we will first use the infrared thermometer to detect cold spots. You see, where there’s a ghost, the air will turn icy. The temperature will drop so suddenly that chill bumps will appear on your skin. It’s true. Then, we use the other devices in unison-EMF meters, ion detectors and cameras. You know you want the good old fashion photos as well, huh…”

“Wait, slow down, Jake. What is an ion detector?”

“Natie, you wouldn’t understand if I told you.”

I hated it when he assumed that I was an idiot. A good hard frog on the arm would fix that. I punched him and punched him hard.

“Ouch! Okay, look. An Ion detector is another way to detect a form of energy. Except this one detects radiation or static electricity.”

“Oh, so why does a ghost make static electricity.”

“It doesn’t. Let me explain something to you. When a person dies, they do not go away. Nope, never, they simply transform. I know you’ve heard bunches of people talk about this before. It’s not new. Anyway, we are energy, plain and simple and when we die, our energy persists. It weakens but it does not cease to exist. We no longer have a body and therefore, we cannot speak, see, hear or anything of that nature. Are you following me so far?”

“Yes Jake. Clear as mud…I mean a bell.”

I take this opportunity to roll my eyes because I grow weary of waiting.

“Okay, so imagine your loved ones who have passed into this different state of being. They may be trapped here or simple have no interest in going somewhere else. Don’t ask me about God or anything because I want to approach this from a secular viewpoint for now. So, you’re dead, bear with me and pretend a moment, Natie. You’re dead and you wish to talk to someone who is alive. What can you do? If you cannot talk because of lack of vocal cords, then how do you get the message across?”

“I don’t know. I would have to do something or just wither away in desperation-if withering of anything was even possible.”

Jake smiled. “If you were dead, you would take that energy you had left, which was you, and you would push that energy toward the object of your communication. That is what you would do.”

“But you said the energy was weakened by death, right?”

“Right, but think of all the electronic devices! This is what they do. I have no idea how these entities learned to do this, but they did. Whatever is left of you could have a consciousness, somehow, maybe an electric powered soul or some sort which was so thin that it was vapor. I have to stop before I get to a place I am unfamiliar with and get lost trying to show you the way. Listen Natie, all this stuff serves an important role in what we are going to do. If you want to talk to her, just you wait.

“Do you think it will happen, Jake? Do you think she can come through to us?”

Jake brushed my hair from my eyes and kissed my forehead.

“I hope so. I cannot stand to see you suffer so.”

Ghosts down by the Volcano

I visit here often. It’s a barren flat land riddled with zig zagging cracks. The sky is dark, of course it is, because only in the dark do secret things congregate.

There is fire, lava and dark rock at the bottom of a pit. I sit by the edge and think about those who’s love I cannot shake. I sit there watching fire blaze up over the boiling lava, and I close my eyes to see it more clearly. Sight, as I have learned is only partial to being able to see. Sight, in honesty, works its magic from somewhere deeper within as well.

I’m not always alone here. I call them to me. Most of the time I remember how many there are. Let’s see, I will have to think a minute…Maybe there are 12 or 13 of them. I watch the ones that I can remember as they shuffle from behind a large outcrop of black rock. They are bewildered because they do not know how they got here or why. They cannot understand the possibility of this place. Then they see me. A wave of recognition makes them whisper questions one to another. I surmise they want to know why they are together and I am there waiting on the edge of the chasm. They are unsure, but they start to gather that they are all connected to me. Some of them know this immediately, while others are strangers which gather the information through exchanged glances.

 I beckon them to come sit with me. So we talk. It’s not laboured or uncomfortable at all. I want them to know that despite the world we live in, they have to fade. There are some that will not go, will not move into the darkness and away. When at last, I feel alone, all that were before me are gone away, I breathe in remorse and content. It is a strange potion.

The night is silent, save for a few crackling sounds from the churning heat below.

“You can come out now.”

I hear the flutter of wings from behind me. I reach back holding out my hand. Talons wrap around my finger and squeeze.

“Non dimenticherò mai l'uccello nero.”

Reclaiming home

Traveling to the west, only a few hundred miles, is akin to traveling to another country, well in a way. I cross the river into the central lands and there are different words, dialects and postures. I knew it would have some variables, but when I find the truth of it, I find it preposterous. Within a finger's joint on the face of my map, I can be completely misread. So be it.

It's lovely to be home again. Although it's changed, I know I prefer it. It's still dark, cold and wet, for the most part, but it's home. You know how home can be hell, but it's your hell? Yes, you see. Even if you return in a mortal coil unknown, you return regardless.

There are too many places to go, you see, because there are too many portions of me. Hundreds more miles south of here, I will visit another home to me. When I close my eyes, I will be there, upon the banks of another river. Music will heighten senses and smells will reignite nostalgia. Bustling crowds and the sound of bells awaken my memories now.

Again, it will be different. Only a few hundred, many three, and the dialect will change, the mood will deepen and I will have to tap into something else. Within a finger's joint, I will travel to another world, a modern world, one that is foreign, in all aspects, to the world from before. Just as in distance, in time...I will be completely misread. So be it.