The Angry Ghost and Other Stories

by Peter Spokes

I looked up at the darkening sky and – despite the uncertain corporeality of my status – I could feel my pulse racing.

  On top of the horror that so many lives were about to be extinguished – again – I now found that my apparent daughter, grandchild and seriously disagreeable son-in-law were also to perish – as I was mysteriously shown in the earlier vision – and no one was listening.

  Maybe their drowned remains are to be buried in Nova Scotia or – if April heard and believed me – in sixty years or so hence.

  That made sense. She mentioned that she might be here to visit ‘Mother’ so my wife is clearly no longer alive – or is that another uncertainty within the variable time I’m being subjected to?

  I wondered about my wife. I felt certain I had loved her but my mind seemed to have no memory but for an anomalous image of a dark-haired woman smiling as much with her eyes as her mouth. I was surprised how it was that something so vague can hurt so painfully.

  It was clear to me that Linus was no help in rational support. He would not listen to his wife; but then, who would listen to someone claiming her invisible father was warning them on such an unlikely outcome to the maiden voyage of a vessel described as ‘unsinkable’?

  Then I had a terrible thought; maybe Linus was right and April was simply confused or suffering from some mental affliction and had no connection to me at all. Perhaps she was only a lost soul looking for attention and care and I, someone desperately looking – and hanging on to – anything that might give some lucidity to my existence.

  No; this was something I so needed to hang on to.

  I looked down disheartened. We were connected by blood; is that how it is I’m here? But there must be others ‘connected by blood’ but I’m here and no one else is – or at least – I cannot see them. Maybe other confused quasi-ghosts are following their own spurious paths hoping for enlightenment. And why wasn’t my wife’s ghost here? She must have as much connection to April as myself…

  How is it I – we – are playing out this pursuance?

  I walked over to the oak and put my hand against its bark. So this was where my wife was put to rest. Again I briefly saw an image of a woman with smiling eyes.

  I wondered why she had no gravestone. But was that important? Would she be more loved and remembered if she had one? After all, generally after death, conscious thought of the pros and cons of owning a gravestone would… well… not exist.

  To my mind a gravestone gives a focus to a loss whereas scattered ashes seem – at least to me – to give a more unfocussed area of mourning.

  Generally, all that could practically be done that made a difference, should have been done before death… but whatever…

  However, here we are with more data. A lady saying she is my daughter; a drunk – of apparent occult leanings – can see me. Why? Because he’s my father! Maybe the last can be ignored as the nonsense it sounds.

  What had brought me here? It has to be to warn my offspring but why is there no one else of an ‘incorporeal persuasion’ in the graveyard. Maybe no one buried here has relatives boarding the ship tomorrow; but considering the number of people from Queenstown leaving tomorrow and that the Old Church Cemetery is the main – and biggest – cemetery, I cannot believe that to be the case and that I’m the only one.

  I wondered again if perhaps other ‘entities’ were indeed haunting the graveyard but perhaps I was unaware of them due to a different time domain, time continuum or other such parallel paradox.

  I took a deep breath and sighed.

  I was a ghost with a serious headache.

  Chapter 4: Despair

  Scene 1: Boarding

  The following day was the 11th and I once again viewed the funnels of the Titanic and envisaged my daughter and grandchild boarding, though this time I saw the ship in a different light – more of something monstrous and insidiously wrong and bad. It was also disparately incongruous to hear the distant cheers and applause. The mass shouts of celebration and festivity now seemed darker as if they were the sounds of demons summoning the potential souls to the very gates of Hades.

  I wondered again if there was a finite number of times I can attempt to save them. After all, next April – and with the knowledge that she can see me – I can try again.

  How was it that I might persuade April – and Linus too? I hoped I would see them again in four weeks’ time and at the beginning of another April, but nevertheless, it was still painful to sit here knowing of the disaster and the wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, whose lives were about to be extinguished or affected – so distressingly.

  Scene 2: Despair

  I greeted the following morning’s mediocrity in a progressively mundane manner.

  Looking around, all seemed as usual. I shook my head and looked – not for the first time – at old and worn stones.

  But I noticed the sign indicating ‘Cobh Cemetery’ instead of ‘Queenstown Cemetery’.

  It looked like I had once again found myself enjoying a moment sometime in the future, I decided, without much interest.

  But when I walked over to the grave of my daughter, I found it missing.

  Where was it?

  I had seen it in Nova Scotia in 1912 and – I assumed – in Cobh Cemetery sometime in the future.

  But now it was gone.

  I stared for a long while.

  Had I saved her or simply once again found myself in another possible future?

  I had a sudden feeling of nausea not unlike vertigo where the brain spirals out of control. Were there endless possibilities? An infinite variation to the lives I was trying to understand? And if so, maybe there was a plethora of ‘me’s’ and if there was, why should I be bothered? One of the others can save them.

  But no. I knew these people – and loved them and could not rely on some possible or spurious entity from an uncertain parallel dimension.

  I had put in too many hours to hand this to someone else.

  With some unaccustomed indifference and irritation, I wandered over to my seat under the oak and sat down.

  I looked around, suspicious; everything looked the same but somehow divergent in no way I could tell from the norm.

  Uncomfortably, I looked around; I felt an unusually strong sense of anxiety.

  All seemed as it had always been and probably always will be. So much had happened but my need to find a palpable reason for it all was beginning to seriously wane and my constant analysing had brought me nothing. All that I had thought important… clearly wasn’t.

  Like a bad memory I was constantly reminded that perhaps it was all I had feared and nothing mattered after all. All that had seemed significant was nothing more than wanton lucidity to a cause that had never existed in the first place.

  I was an aberration with no direction or purpose.

  I felt I had had enough. I had sought reason; looked for meaning and a cause. I could not believe we could exist – in whatever form that might take – for no purpose.

  Can fate tease us in this way?

  I was now so fatigued and wanted so much to rest.

  In recent days, I had experienced an insidious lethargy that I felt throughout my body.

  Despairingly, after all I had done, once more I continued to wonder where I was supposed to go … who I was supposed to be… what I was supposed to do.

  It has got to be said that I was getting seriously fucking tired of trying to follow my preconceived understanding of a destiny that now appeared at best unresolved, and at worst, never there in the first place.

  Despite my time – I say time as opposed to years or months with my moving back and forth in that particular dimension – I have only an uncertain concept of chronology and therefore have no idea as to the facets of time that I have pursued this endeavour.

  I didn’t feel old, but then may
be age was an abstract concept to my kind.

  I’m not physically here and don’t feel anything of myself other than this recent pall of tiredness.

  I wondered if it were a sign that I was running out of time.

  Despondently, I retired to my crypt.

  Scene 3: The Drunk – Again

  The following day I returned to my seat under the old oak. It was still metal and so I knew I was back in the future.

  I stared at the ground trying to piece together something that was possibly too intangible and incoherent, before I saw a pair of scuffed and worn shoes – both stationary and pointing in my direction.

  “Please; not now,” I said wearily shaking my head.

  The shoes remained.

  I looked up to see the drunk standing mute and staring at me.

  I stared back, “How the hell are you here… I mean… in the future…?”

  “I wanted to see something completed but… I failed… and so have you… though the fault is mine,” he said a little sadly.

  Although I didn’t understand him – and probably shouldn’t try – I did feel like a failure.

  “I don’t suppose you know of the kalimat alttaqa?” he said.

  I shook my head and looked down again, trying to focus on my own problems.

  “When April and Alex died back in April 1912,” he started, “I set into motion something that might save them – and me too.

  I had always held a penchant for the occult and with their deaths, I researched and learned.”

  I looked up at him again.

  What the hell was his connection? I wondered.

  “Be careful what you wish for, it might come true…” the man said swaying.

  “That’s not entirely original,” I said slowly.

  “All that has ever been said was original only once, but its repeating makes it no less true,” he said.

  “Prayers and curses…” he continued, “… we plea to anyone who is listening to make something happen… or not make something happen. How do we ever know what is the right thing?”

  “Your brain has soaked up too much brandy,” I said.

  He ignored me.

  “I asked you about the kalimat alttaqa.”

  “Yes, you did,” I answered a little tacitly.

  “Well, basically, it means ‘words of power’… and I needed them to save April and Alex.”

  I continued to stare at the swaying form wondering if maybe things were better when I was alone.

  “Despite much research and arcane machinations, I don’t know what they are or where to find them. But even if I did, only a living person can speak to them for it to work and neither you nor I are… well… living.”

  I took a deep breath. I so wanted to be somewhere else but I listened; after all, there was nowhere else I needed to be – or indeed could be.

  He continued his ramblings, “… Urgent warnings… words of power needing to have been spoken… of loved ones… will follow…” he said.

  I could see he was becoming quite upset.

  He then looked over my shoulder and he smiled and I watched tears fall from his eyes.

  I looked behind me to see what could possibly have the effect I had witnessed.

  A woman in her mid-thirties approached.

  I didn’t take too much notice but as she drew nearer she looked at me closely though ignored my inebriated companion – not unreasonable considering his state. But she appeared to see me and held her hand to her mouth.

  “Oh my God. I was right!” she said quietly.

  I too was naturally surprised but then I heard the drunk;

  “… And so was I… but the kalimat alttaqa?” I heard him whisper.

  I shook my head.

  Scene 4: Alex

  “Hello?” I ventured to the lady. “You can see me?”

  “I can…” she said staring at me.

  She sat down but her eyes did not leave me.

  I thought her somehow familiar.

  In the absence of understanding I simply waited.

  “… It was a long time ago…” she began, “… that my mother and you spoke under this tree – you may not remember; it was over thirty years ago,” she said staring closely at me, “… though you look no different…”

  I looked up intrigued and excited – I remembered well – as to me it was only a couple of weeks ago.

  She continued, “You became angry and moved towards Linus but… I saw your hand pass through him. He couldn’t see you.”

  I remained silent.

  “I was so sad… and confused… Grandad.”

  I took a breath and then heard from behind me, “Oh my God – you saved them! … We did it! … We did it! … We did it!”

  I looked back at the ecstatic drunk with some irritation and returned to the woman.

  “Alex? What happened? You’re not dead… are you?” I asked trying to find an anchor of cogency.

  She smiled and shook her head, “Oh no.”

  “So how can you see me?”

  Then I realised what she had just said.

  “You saw me all those years ago… how?”

  “I don’t know, but as Mother saw you… maybe that’s why I did too.”

  “Why didn’t you say something… back then?”

  “Mother was upset and so was Linus; he saw and heard nothing… but I did… I’m sorry… but come,” she finished.

  “Come? … Come where?”

  But Alex was already walking away.

  I stood and was about to follow when I looked over and saw the drunk looking on. I felt acutely that he was more involved in this than I had initially thought; indeed, I was beginning to regret my dismissal of him. Somehow his nonsensical incoherency was beginning to coalesce into a rather worrying revelation in my mind.

  Despite my desire to be alone with my granddaughter, his distress was clear so I nodded to him to follow. Maybe share in my odd experience. But all the same I called to Alex; “Do you mind if my… friend accompanies us?”

  Alex stopped and looked back. “Oh my!” she said as her eyes became wet, “He’s here?” she said looking around. “Does he look like you?”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer.

  “I… I don’t know; I don’t know what I look like…”

  The drunk started. “She cannot see me and that is why you are here,” he said with obvious pain and more than a little esotericism.

  I looked back. “You said earlier that you knew why I’m here and ‘what I am’… so why am I here?”

  “Because I cannot be.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” I said wearily.

  He looked over in the direction Alex had taken.

  “I think you should follow her,” he said.

  Scene 5: Time Lost

  “So, what do you want to show me?” I said to Alex.

  The three of us walked along together and Alex told me of her life. She spoke of her family which made my feeling of absence and superficiality all the more – ironically – tangible.

  She spoke to me of a lifetime of experiences, some happy, some not so, which I found incongruous as time had no meaning to me; after all, it had been so recently that I had seen her as a child. I despaired at the limited lifespan we suffer.

  Despite my inhuman façade, I felt some tears in my eyes to the knowledge that I had missed so much; not been party to so many… moments.

  I looked over at Alex. “I’m sorry I missed so much of your growing up… and your mother’s too. I so wish that I could have been there with you both.”

  She smiled. “But that’s just it… you were.”

  I shook my head. My lethargy was becoming unbearable.

  “Grandad… you saved us; Mother… and me.”

  “Linus
?” I asked.

  “No… he didn’t make it… but he wasn’t nice.”

  “So, April – your mother – listened to me?” I said surprised. I didn’t think that Lin… your father would be persuaded.”

  “No. Linus thought Mother was stressed by the thought and excitement of the voyage. But I was so scared by what you had said I… I ran away.

  Mother said she would look for me but Linus told Mother that if she didn’t come now, he would go alone.”

  She paused.

  “What is it?”

  “He said that nothing would stop him boarding the ship and that his future was across the ocean.

  Perhaps,” she continued, “he was righter than he knew…”

  The drunk and I looked at one another.

  I remembered seeing Alex at the entrance to the graveyard seemingly… hiding.

  “Once the ship had sailed I returned home…” she continued, “… and I’ve had a new – and much nicer – step-father for the last thirty years.”

  Then she smiled at me – a gesture that was so much more than a movement of the mouth.

  “Come; there are others you really need to meet before… you rest,” she said.

  I stared. “Am I going somewhere?” I asked suddenly feeling out of my depth and yet comforted with the feeling that someone else was giving guidance.

  Though a little sadly, the smile was reciprocated. “I think you might be… now.”

  I paused, not sure where this might be taking us.

  I heard the drunk whisper over my shoulder.

  “Oh my, the discontinuation!”

  I looked over at the drunk just as Alex spoke again.

  “A couple of hours after Mother and I saw you, Grandad visited.”

  “But… am I not Grandad?” I interjected, suddenly feeling something I was so desperately clinging to was being tugged away from under me.

  “In a way…” but then she continued, “I spoke to Grandad about what had happened in the graveyard mentioning that Mother and I saw you… him, but Linus didn’t. Rather than laugh at me he was extremely interested.