This is a ghost story and should not be taken for anything else...
An unguarded ghost in the fingers of doom came with a bag of chips pasting rivers of pain and lost thoughts in the ragged, late night with old hands that shook with the effort of it all.
“Am I the only one here?” cried the ghost. “Oh take me home in the wooden box, the knives of sorrow cut too deep, and I would be gone now.”
And then the night swallowed the ghost.
Across this silence, there came a little thought, but it flamed out in a banzai dive into the brilliance it aspired to be.
The rumbling chatter of forgone conclusions was an inkling that grew huge, and hit the ghost on the back of the head as it was exiting the story for the oblivion it desired.
“Ow,” it said, and turned around to see who had hit it.
Two tears of poetry fell out of the pocket of the kamikaze thought just before it disappeared, and floated down to knock on the door of the ghost.
“Who’s there?” cried the ghost.
“John Lennon,” came the reply from the other side of the door.
“What do you want?” asked the ghost.
“I’ve come for the party,” said John.
“What party?” said the ghost, perking up a bit under the weight of all the doom that was swirling about.
“The party that’s waiting to be let in,” said John, impatiently.
“Come in, the door’s open,” said the ghost.
“Ta,” said John as he came in and looked around.
On the peripheral of the boundaries of this story there was a machine that generated dark thoughts and was sending them out into the ether for all to absorb and feel as their own. It was a government controlled machine and was very efficient and knew all the passwords to Facebook and other sites like that.
He-he, went the machine and threw out a dark thought faster than the eye could see that blew a hole in this story so that all the words had to flow around it.
Kelek and George who were from another story, were rowing their boat with all the boys. A map of where to find the treasure fell into the boat. It came from another story which hasn’t been told yet and may never be told, but at least we have a map from it.
On the map there was an X which marked the spot to find the treasure. Kelek picked up the map and looked at it as the boys rowed. “Turn north boys, we’re going treasure hunting.” And with that they began to row north. As they rowed north the story continued.
Just then, CQ the mermaid put the telescope up through all the blarney and said: “CQ calling, CQ calling, anyone there?” But the story had moved on and no one answered. “CQ, over and out.”
The author of the story took this page and tore it out of the pad and screwed it up and threw it in the waste paper bin, turned out the light and got into bed hoping to go to sleep.
But it was not to be, the story called and called to him as he tossed and turned in his bed, until he just had to turn the light on and get back to the story.
The kamikaze thought only had one leg left and was hopping along, mumbling: “if only, if only.”
And in the bedroom of dreams from a past life regression there was a spare leg lying around looking all forlorn and lonely, waiting for something to happen.
By now, the audience were wondering what was going on, and who could blame them as all the words floated down around them on parachutes trying to make friends.
John Lennon was drinking spirits with the ghost around about here and telling each other things that only they could hear.
Another knock came at the door.
“Who is it?” said the ghost.
“Rodgers and Hammerstein,” came the reply.
“Are there any girls with you?” asked the ghost.
“No.” said Rodgers and Hammerstein. “We’ve got a new music manuscript.”
“Come back later,” said the ghost, “I’m pre-disposed right now.”
And then a silence came that went on for a long time, as John and the ghost listened. And outside the door, Rodgers and Hammerstein listened too. There was a whole lot of listening going on with not much being said.
The dust of minor sundry details crept into the story and hung around the edges waiting to be noticed.
John and the ghost ignored them and carried on sitting at the small round table in the centre of the room where a single 60 watt light bulb overhead illuminated them to cast shadows with huge grins wanting to hear more.
One of them was stuck underneath the door from when John entered earlier, half inside and half outside. It was passing messages of impending information back and fore.
A note came under the door dressed up as: okay, sorry, see you later. Then Rodgers and Hammerstein’s footsteps receded into the stairwell of the story, taking with them the music manuscript and all hopes of making a comeback.
In the room, John had gone to sleep, his head on his arms on the small round table. The ghost was fluttering in and out of existence like the flickering, flashing of a used neon light.
In the ether, the machine and CQ were battling it out. Lightning whips of anger came from the machine and beat CQ back and back towards the industrial sector where all the secret weapons were stored.
CQ sent out a distress message: “CQ calling, CQ calling: mayday, mayday, mayday; CQ, over and out.
“All you need is love,” said John Lennon in his dream.
A new element crept into the story: the song of the Earth, rising up at last to re-dress the balance and put right the inequality and destruction that has been going on for too long.
The extra-terrestrials were waiting to see if the Earthlings would rise up and re-claim their power.
The author sat in the park with the pigeons and the autumn leaves and ate a Cornish pasty. Afterwards, went for a coffee to help carry on the story.
Looking out from the empty café of a thousand deaths at the crowded streets, the author’s mind drifted far above to the rooftops where the doom-rays pulsed their evil into the hearts and minds of all the people passing underneath.
Then the coffee came and all had to wait for the coffee moment to pass.
The boys in the boat were all rowed out and so went to sleep; Kelek too, the treasure map clutched in his hand.
George Badbone, who had been locked in a trunk at one end of the boat was sleeping too, so there was not much going on there.
A small wind came along and blew them right out of the story into another one, and so you will have to read that one to know if they find the treasure or not.
“Always have an escape plan,” said John Lennon suddenly waking up.
“Yeah,” said the ghost, materialising as George Harrison.
“Bout time,” said John. “Let’s get out of here.”
There was more to this than met the eye as John and George left the room.
Outside, they found themselves, wading through the folds of doom, as you do when wading through the folds of doom.
So they went to find guitars so they could go busking to make some money.
“We’re rich you know,” said John to George.
“Yeah,” said George, “but who would believe we’re for real?”
“Maybe we could get the gang back together,” said John.
“They wouldn’t want anything to do with two old dead-beats like us,” said George.
“Yeah, probably not,” said John. “That’s all in the past.
Hildegard Brainchild came from a long line of bakers with two warm buns and when she saw the two poor, shivering buskers she offered to share her buns with them. They both agreed immediately.
“You would make more money if you had guitars,” she said.
Her warm buns were overpowering. They hadn’t had warm buns in a very long time and so they didn’t say anything.
The dregs of the Frenchmen’s oaths were straining at the seams for a rapid conclusion to all this, but where they came from to get here is beyond the knowing at this point; suffice to say their smiles were out for a pleasant exchange of nods to say all is well.
CQ merged with the dark side. The machine hiccupped and changed to playing old Beatle songs.
Hildegard Brainchild adopted the two old dead-beats and took them home with her and gave them a room in the loft where they could remember old times to their heart’s content.
Image from Pixabay
