On Sunday he comes to your door with a dead bat and marigolds in an old violin case. You groan inwardly (hasn’t he found a place to haunt yet?), but you can’t just leave him on the steps, can you? Smiling tightly, you invite him in, arrange the flowers, and pour the tea. He sits in your most uncomfortable chair, legs primly crossed and hands fiddling with the bat.
You wait for him to speak. His creepy ringed eyes stare silently instead, his fluttering hands releasing tiny otherworldly vortices into your living room. God, you hope they don’t get into your hair.
The marigolds wilt.
“How’s your mother?” you ask dispassionately while thinking nice flowers, asshole.
“Dead,” he whispers, empty tones lying hollow in his words.
You know he’ll devour any platitudes of sympathy, so you don’t bother. He keeps staring, flicking his invisible cigarette ash into your ficus tree until he finally asks for a little ectoplasm. “Just enough for my left ear,” he murmurs “I’ll pay you back, I promise.”
Right. You drain your elbow and he snatches what was once your ectoplasm. Then he bows and glides away, leaving the bat moldering on your coffee table.
Advice: when next he knocks, hide between dimensions until he goes away.
***
Musical Inspiration: The Cure – Other Voices. The Cure was the morbid “look how gloomy I am” soundtrack to my horrible high school existence. But for every dirge, the Cure also had some goofy song about cats dancing and kissing random things until your head falls off. I appreciate the Cure, even now.
