Is There Anybody There? By Michael Smith

Acacia knew her calling from the age of ten. Noticing all her clothes were labeled ‘MEDIUM’ and, being a highly impressionable girl, she naturally assumed the universe, or possibly a parallel one, was offering a clear hint as to her correct career path.

She was now approaching eighteen. While many teenage girls selected a minimalist approach to clothing, designed mainly to entice the attentions of the opposite sex, Acacia had adopted long flowing skirts accompanied by blouses rich in embroidered sigils of a vaguely eldritch nature, her headscarves and lace gloves went beyond the derision of her classmates, and she considered heavy boots as being entirely practical. But, above all, she had chosen black, a colour, she felt, truly expressive of her calling. She’d even bought a black cat, Sooty.

Employing as a crystal ball the snow globe she’d received as a Christmas present, Acacia spent many hours in the pursuit of contact with what she vaguely termed ‘The Other Side’. Her lack of contact so far had not proven a deterrent, rather it served as motivation to delve deeper, to widen her experience. She convinced herself that only the really persistent would, ultimately, feel the thrill of success.

She was also a keen amateur meteorologist, understanding the significance of optimal atmospheric conditions when attracting the attention of the spiritual world. She would attempt contact only when dark clouds portended violent cracks of lightening accompanied by furniture-moving booms of thunder. The correct lunar phase was vital too. Such juxtapositions of natural elements rarely occurred, but Acacia knew their potential power. Tonight was such a night. She’d locked the door to her bedroom, and dimmed the lights. Drizzled tallow candles abounded.

Gazing deeply into the snowy globe (while trying hard to ignore the jolly red lettering, ‘A Gift from Inverness’), Acacia concentrated. She began her mumbled incantations, sacred words she’d discovered during her extensive research in the village library. She invoked the presence of distant generations, she called upon the spirits of archaic ancestors, and she beseeched the ghosts of the recently departed. As she closed heavily mascaraed eyes, her voice, which had begun as a whisper, reached a desperate crescendo of spiritual imploring, “Spirits, here I am, a portal for you to the world you have departed. Spirits! Contact me!”

The curtain billowed.

“Bugger off!”

Acacia opened one eye, and looked tentatively around her locked room. She was definitely alone. “Er, … what?”

“You ‘eard, missy, bugger off.”

Grappling with her composure, Acacia managed to resume her mind’s unwritten script, “Is there anybody there?”

In the ensuing silence, Acacia thought she heard a faint complaint, made to a third party, to the effect of ‘we’ve got a right one ‘ere.’

“Who are you?” called Acacia to the night in general.

“Listen, missy, it don’t matter who we are, right? And, anyway, it would take too long to mention everyone ‘ere.”

Acacia then heard faint mumblings again, ‘I know, I know, I’m gettin’ to that.’

“Look, missy, we’ve ‘ad enough of all this contactin’ business. All this invokin’ is really gettin’ on our nerves. It’s bad enough as it is, being dead, an’ like. But really, the last thing we want, right, the last thing we want, is to be constantly interrupted by livin’ folk wanting all their questions answered. And before you ask, no, we don’t know where Uncle Frank left the car keys. And, what’s more, we don’t care!”

“What?”

“Look, it’s simple enough, right.” ‘Will you lot keep it down back there, I can hardly heard meself think.’ “Sorry ‘bout that, missy, only … it’s a bit crowded here.”

Acacia had abandoned her previous, expectant pose involving hands raised above the globe, and was now slumped at her table, chin resting on clenched fists. This was not how it was supposed to go.

“Anyway, the thing is, right, the thing is, you people ‘ave got it all wrong. We’re not ‘ere to help the likes o’ you. Being dead ain’t no picnic, even wi’out the constant pesterin’ from folks in the unspiritual world. Just leave us alone, missy.”

“My name’s Acacia,” was whispered through clenched teeth.

“Yeah, whatever. The thing is, now that you’ve made contact, so to speak, we might as well tell you somethin’. Somethin’ important. Ready?”

Acacia nodded, resigned to the fact she was definitely way off script by this point.

“Listen, missy? Most sentences spoken ‘ere begin with the same two little words. Yep, two little words that say so much. D’you know what those two little words are, missy?”

“No!”

“Those two little words are. If. Only. You know, if only I’d done this, if only I’d done that? If only I’d been kinder. If only I’d helped out more. And, of course, everyone’s favourite, if only I’d told so-and-so I loved ‘em. It’s a sad world ‘ere, missy, much sadder than your world.”

‘All right, all right, I’m comin’ to that bit. I’ll tell ‘er.’

“You still there, missy?”

Acacia sighed, “Yes, I’m still here.”

“I’ll tell you now, for nuffin’, when it’s your time here, you’ll be saying if only I hadn’t wasted my life contactin’ the dead. Think about it, missy, you’ve got the whole of eternity to spend with the likes o’ us. You might think those algebra lessons went on a bit but, let me tell you, eternity is much longer, right? So, stop all this necro-thingy, and live your life as best you can. Take it from us what know. Got it?”

Acacia remained motionless, until her bedroom burst into life with the simultaneous explosion of light and sound as the height of the storm passed overhead.

“… You still there, missy?”

The silence continued until Acacia uttered a faint, resigned, “Yes. Oh, and … thank you. I think I have much to consider. And, maybe, change?”

“You do that, missy. It’s been nice chatting with you. Oh, and one last thing, tell Sooty he’s got three left. He’ll know what we mean. Bye!”

Michael Smith

Image: A Crystal Ball on a table casting a rainbow from Pixabay.com