A Haunting Issue.

It might have been noted that I’m becoming increasingly interested in the possibility of being a ghost after I die and engaging in a bit of haunting here and there. But, as with all high minded ideals, I foresee a problem: I’m basically a well-meaning and sentimental old soul who would be most reluctant to frighten or otherwise distress the kind of person I would be likely to want to haunt. So how do I get over the objection?

The problem is, you see, that you don’t have to appear at the foot of somebody’s bed looking wan, waxy and wasted in the darkness of the early hours, intoning in a wavering or gravelly voice: ‘I’m so, so cold; may I stand beside you for a moment to feel again the warmth of a living body?’ to be frightening. You could sit in the corner of the garden in the sunshine, waving and smiling in a friendly manner, and you’d still be frightening. It’s a sad, and maybe even irrational, fact that the evident presence – whether visual, aural or even olfactory – of someone you know to be deceased is frightening by default.

The Lady B once said to me, a very long time ago before she acquired a husband and children and stopped acknowledging my earthly presence (except with a wave or a smile if circumstances happened to be favourable): ‘Please don’t haunt me, Jeff. That would creep me out.’ I did attempt to reassure her that I would do so in a friendly and non-frightening way, to which she might have replied: ‘There’s no such thing as a friendly and non-frightening way, Jeff. The evident presence of someone I know to be deceased is frightening by default.’ (Only Lady Bs don’t say that kind of thing. They say ‘Please don’t haunt me anyway. That would creep me out.’) But, whatever… In the event, I never got a reply so I can only assume that her objection remained intact. I suppose I could sit unseen in the kitchen, tapping my fingers silently on the table while observing such domestic pleasantries as happened to be available, but it wouldn’t do. There would be something unsatisfactorily unilateral about it and I think I would find it most frustrating. There’s really no point in haunting somebody unless you can be sure they know they’re being haunted. So back we go to square one.

This remains an unresolved problem, and I suspect that so it will always remain as long as I continue to wake up in the morning to drag my corporeal form through yet another day. I can only hope that somebody with more experience in that kind of thing will be around to give me a few tips when the time comes, but how can I know? Is anybody listening? Is there anybody there? One knock for yes and two for no.

This brain of mine is in a wandering mood. Soon be time for bed.