The Ouija Board Shuffle
The next story where YOU pick the ending!
What’s up you Bad Bugs? In this week’s Bugtime Story, we learn why grandparents should never do witchcraft unsupervised!
Phillip Barlow stood at the window of his small room looking wistfully outside as the rain pattered against it.
Just the way Jane had loved. He rubbed his sore hands together and sighed. On days like today, he missed her something terrible. Behind him, his electric kettle—the one appliance they trusted an old coot like him to use unsupervised—whined to let him know the water was at temp. Using his walker, Phil shuffled over to the kettle and poured the boiling water over the teabag in his mug. His doctor had told him he shouldn’t have caffeine in his condition, so he was drinking an herbal tea this morning.
Tea in hand, Phil slowly walked to a chair and sat down, leaving his walker at the counter. He wasn’t a complete invalid yet, goddamn it. The parcel sat on the table in front of him, silently calling his name, but he ignored it to focus on his tea. In his mind’s eye, the steam that rose from the mug showed the two of them dancing at their wedding. He smiled as he took a tepid sip and leaned back, closing his eyes…
Thankfully, by the time the tea poured all over his lap, it had cooled to room temperature.
“Jesus Martha!” he exclaimed.
He had dozed off again. It was dark outside now, and small bits of hail pelted the window. In his youth, this would have been the perfect weather to curl up with a novel and some brandy. Now it meant that he would struggle to sleep—what little of that he had gotten since Jane passed. Phil stood and shuffled back to his walker, using it to get across the room to his small closet. He would need to change now before he began.
After an inordinate amount of time getting dressed, he looked at himself in the mirror. His rheumy eyes didn’t focus like they once did, but he could see himself well enough to know what she would see tonight. His face seemed the same as it had been when they had gotten married, save for the extra wrinkles. His eyes were a startling blue, and his wisp of thinning white hair was tousled in a way that defied gravity. He was wearing his funeral best, a solemn black suit and a crisp white shirt that he often had to wear in a facility such as this.
Phil returned to the small table and lit a candle. Once he was settled back into his chair, he clapped his hands and the lights went out. And the care assistants had laughed when his son had installed a clapper light for him—bah! He stared at the parcel in the flickering of the candlelight for several minutes before pulling it across the table. It was heavy in his hands. He hadn’t remembered them being this heavy.
“It’s just this damned arthritis,” he thought.
With a methodical slowness that stood in stark contrast to his giddy excitement, he peeled the simple brown paper from the box. When that was cast to the floor, he worked at the clear tape to open the box. Once the flaps were up, he paused again.
“Was this what she would have wanted?” he thought.
Jane had always been a devout Catholic, though Phil had been more of an “Easter and Christmas” type. Since her death, he hadn’t gone once. The thought of her scolding him for resorting to something “Satanic” made him chuckle. He’d take an ass-chewing over silence any day of the week.
Shakily, Phil pulled the heavy wooden board from the box. It has a pale wood, likely birch if he remembered correctly. The alphabet had been engraved on it, as well as the numbers 0-9, the words “yes” and “no”, and at the bottom: goodbye. It was a Ouija Board, the kind he used to play with in his youth before meeting Jane. Witchcraft to some, a silly game to others, a lifeline to his wife for Phil. After setting the board flat on the table, Phil returned to the box for the planchette. His hands had started to shake, causing him to drop the heart-shaped indicator to the floor.
“Goddamn it,” he cursed quietly.
Phil slowly bent over and wrapped his fingers around the planchette. He quickly recoiled in pain and sucked on the sliced fingertip. The bastard had a sharp edge. That wasn’t normal. More carefully this time, he retrieved it and set it on the board. A drop of crimson stained the bone-white planchette. Phil glared at the device while trying to ignore the throbbing in his finger.
When the bleeding finally subsided and the pain was a distant ache, Phil took a deep breath and placed the fingers of each hand on the planchette. His arthritic hands had become more claw-like in recent years, and in the flickering light of the candle, he felt that they looked monstrous on the board.
“Jane,” he whispered. “Janey, can you hear me?”
His hands had begun to shake from the stress of holding them still, but the planchette didn’t move. Despair threatened to overwhelm him for a moment, but he swallowed hard and focused on the image of dancing with his wife at their wedding some fifty-odd years ago.
“Is anyone able to speak with me on this night?” he said, firmer this time.
Another beat of silence. Then the candle flickered and the planchette moved, pulling his arms with it. The marker slid to the top left of the board over the word “yes”. Phil could feel his heart fluttering in his chest, and for a moment he feared he would give himself a heart attack.
“Calm down, you old coot,” he thought. “This is what you wanted.”
“What is my name?” he asked.
The planchette moved again tracing out the letters P-H-I-L-L-I-P-B-A-R-L-O-W in rapid succession. This was a good start. She remembered him. He smiled a faint smile and prepared to ask another question.
“Do you miss me?”
Again, the board answered “yes”.
“Oh, my dear,” Phil said, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. “I miss you so goddamn much.” He chuckled softly. “Forgive the blasphemy.”
What to ask next? What to ask? He wracked his brain for his next question. He couldn’t remember the list he had come up with when he had ordered the board. He knew that he should have written them down. Scrambling, he asked the first thing that came to mind, silly as it was.
“What is your favorite memory of us?”
D-A-N-C-I-N-G the board replied. It was her! Sweet Jesus, it was her! He had called across the veil and found his love again.
“Your grandbabies are getting big,” he said, crying. “They miss you something terrible, but they come to visit me every few weeks. Jacob is gonna be a father soon. Can you believe that? Me, a great-grandpa? Oh, I wish you could see how they’ve grown.”
He swallowed again, the tears threatening to overcome him. He needed to control himself or he might lose her. In the center of the table, the candle continued to flicker as if someone was breathing behind it. In the window, a flash of lightning lit the night momentarily.
“Do you have anything you’d like to ask me, dear?” Phil asked.
The planchette moved to the “yes”.
“What is it?”
Pulled by the invisible fingers of his wife, Phil’s hands traced the letters A-R-E-Y-O-U-R-E-A-D-Y. Confusion overcame Phil. What was she talking about?
“Ready for what?” he asked.
D-E-A-T-H.
“What do you mean, dear? I know I don’t have much time left, but…”
Before he could finish, the board was speaking again. I-W-I-L-L-K-I-L-L-Y-O-U.
“W-what?” Phil stammered.
I-W-I-L-L-K-I-L-L-Y-O-U-A-L-L.
Panicked, Phil tried to pull his hands from the planchette but they wouldn’t listen. He could feel the sharp edges cutting into all of his fingertips this time. Sticky red blood covered the board as he began to panic.
“Are you Jane?” he whimpered.
“No” the board answered.
Phil swallowed.
“Who are you?”
C-O-M-E-A-N-D-S-E-E.
Then the candle was snuffed out. Another flash of lightning illuminated the dark room, showing a dark figure with yellow eyes crouched in front of the mirror. Phil fell backward out of his chair and slammed into the floor, just as a crack of thunder sounded. Dazed, he groped about for his walker. He knew that he needed to get out of here, whether he had imagined that dark figure or not. Finally, his slick fingers felt the metallic leg of his walker. Only then did he remember the emergency button hanging from his neck. Phil clicked the button alerting the aides that there was an emergency in his room. Moments later the door swung inward—help had arrived.
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That’s it for this week! Come back next week to see how Phil’s tragic story ends!
Bugs and Kisses,
Kris and the Bad Bug Team