The Ouija Session

by Chris Raven

  After choosing locker and passing through the administration’s office to pick up my schedule, I walked towards my classroom of the past course. I was told that that year we were in classroom 102 again, so I didn’t have to go crazy looking around.

  Just entering, Jim raised his arm to draw my attention. He had me reserved a place by his side. I smiled and headed towards him. It seemed like that day everything was going to be perfect. Little by little the other students were arriving and taking their place. It was almost nine o’clock when we saw Jake come in. He seemed changed. He walked with his head bowed and his shoulders sunk as if his backpack weighed a ton. Even though we beckoned him, he didn’t lift his head or looked at us. He went to the end of the classroom at the same desk he and his brother had sat in last year. Seeing him there just made my good mood vanished. I even found that the light coming through the windows decreased a bit and that the rumor of the conversations was dimmed.

  I realized at that moment. There was another empty desk, another one that would not be filled no matter how much we waited to start the class. I looked forward, to the second desk next to the windows. Meg was sitting next to an empty place. I would never see Anne again, I would never be stunned admiring how the sun’s rays gilded her brown hair, I would never hear her laughter and her whispering when she and Meg discovered me looking at her with a silly face. I don’t know what happened in my head at that moment, but the reality hit me so hard that it left me breathless. I knew Anne was dead. I had been at her funeral, I had seen her body inside that white wooden box, I had seen how they buried her in the Riverside Cemetery, but it was her empty desk that convinced me that it was all over, that I would never see her again.

  The desperation I felt was so big that I noticed how my eyes filled with an irrepressible torrent of tears meanwhile my soul emptied as if it had been sucked to leave a huge black emptiness in return.

  When I woke up, I didn’t know where I was. Everything was white and silent. For a moment I feared I had died. However, little by little I discovered the sounds that surrounded me. I heard the wheels of a cart on the other side of the door and a faint beep coming out of a monitor by my side. I was in a hospital, but I couldn’t remember why.

  I felt very tired and had the feeling that I would be better asleep, that being awake would only bring me pain, so I closed my eyes again, ready to let myself be carried away by unconsciousness. I was about to fall asleep again when I heard how the door of the room opened and closed and a few steps approached my bed. I felt a warm and soft hand stroking my cheek and I knew it was my mother’s, but still, I decided to continue with my eyes closed, enjoying the feeling.

  “How much longer is this going to be?” asked my father’s voice. “He’s been sleeping for two days.”

  “Doctors don’t know. They say that after the panic attack he suffered at school, he should continue like this while his mind recovers, and he’ll wake up on his own when he’s ready.”

  “Well, we’ve also been told that there is a chance that he never wakes up.” I heard my father falling on an armchair. “I hate all this. It’s not fair...”

  “We have to have faith. Eric will be all right. You’ll see.”

  “No, he’s not going to be all right while we’re in this fucking town. Memories are killing him.”

  “But we’ve always lived here...”

  “No, this is no longer our place. We’ll never be happy in Swanton.”

  “And where can we go?”

  “Do you remember Ralph, my old high school chum? I met him the other day at Jamerson’s. He told me he’s living in Burlington and there’s a lot of work in the factories.”

  “But we’d have to leave our house and the kids just started school.”My mother protested again. “And you love your workshop. You’ve never worked in a factory.”

  I heard my father getting up again and approaching my mother. He must have hugged her because I heard her sighing while he kissed her.

  “Don’t worry about it. You know I’ll do anything to make sure you and the kids are safe.”

  She did not answer, though I suppose she nodded, agreeing to my father’s plan, because a couple of weeks later, we left Swanton forever.

  III

  Life in Burlington was shit. The new house was located on the outskirts, in an area plagued by warehouses and industrial buildings. Instead of the fabulous flower-filled garden we had enjoyed at Swanton, we only had a small plot of parched grass, plagued with weeds. The house was dark and narrow. It almost seemed that it had grown sneaking among the adjacent buildings, robbing them of a meager space. The interior wasn’t much better. The small windows barely let in the sunlight, the walls showed dark mold stains and all the rooms smelled of closed and damp.

  I didn’t protest once, not even when I was shown my sad little room. I knew that it was all my fault that we had to leave our house and our people because I was not able to control the things that I saw. So, I resigned myself, trying to smile excitedly and to find positive things to that house and that city. It wasn’t easy. All of Burlington was depressing. Even the sunlight seemed different, dimmer and sadder. And at night it was worse. The factories’ pollution covered the sky with a kind of fog that, illuminated by the streetlights, was dyed of a spectral yellowish color. The stars were rarely seen.

  School sucked, or at least I thought it did. It was a sad three-floor building colored in sandy tones, surrounded by parched grass and withered trees. Although I suppose it would not be like so, in my memories, I always see it under a leaden grey sky. The classes had already started when I arrived, and the groups were formed. No one came to me to offer to be his friend or join his crew and I did not make any effort to adapt. During the recesses I took a book out of my backpack, I looked for a remote bench and I would set to read. I soon realized that I started to get nicknames: the weirdo, the autistic, the outcast... I didn’t care. I think that, without being aware of it, I turned away from the rest of the world. I’d just lost all my friends. Some had died, others had disappeared from my life. I had the heart in the flesh. I couldn’t risk hurting it more for losing someone else. The books were safer companions.

  I perfectly remember the afternoon when my mother came to find me at school. I was sitting on my desk, following with interest the evolutions of a bright green fly on the other side of the window while Professor Collins was telling something about the war of independence, when we heard two knocks at the classroom door. Right away we all turn our heads over there.

  The door opened, and the principal entered the classroom, followed by my mother. I jumped up without asking anything. My mother had red eyes and a congested face. Something had happened, something very bad. I picked up my backpack in a hurry and ran to her to hold her hand and squeeze it, trying to make her understand that, whatever had happened, she had me.

  When we left the class, she sat me down in a hallway bench and sat beside me. I waited for her to breathe, trying to control her desire to cry.

  “Your father has had an accident at the factory.”

  “Is he going to die?” I asked, desperate.

  “No, relax. A machine crushed his arm and they had to take him to the hospital. I’ve been with him and he’s out of danger, but they don’t know if they can save his hand.”

  I was silent, unable to believe what she was telling me. My father had always been a strong man, a kind of superhero able to fix everything, the point of support for the whole family, the safe enclave that you could hold onto. I couldn’t believe anything bad would happen to him, much less that he could lose a hand. In all my memories, he was always building a piece of furniture, doing some fixing at home, repairing his motorbike, mending the toys that Lissie and I wrecked… I couldn’t imagine him crippled and defeated.

  “Now we’re going to find Lissie and then we’ll all go to the hospital together. I don’t want you to panic or cry in front of him. All right? Can you be a strong boy?”

  I nodded, and when she got up, I took he
r hand again. I did not know if I could be a strong boy because I could only think about one thing, an idea that was repeated over and over again in my head: if we had not left Swanton because of me, nothing bad would have happened to my father.

  The next few weeks were hell. The doctors managed to avoid cutting off my father’s hand, but they couldn’t do anything to make it look like it used to. The machine had cut several nerves and tendons, so it lost mobility forever. He had his hand, but it was just a dead, claw-shaped appendix that was useless to him and caused him pain.

  When he was finally discharged and able to return home, the situation did not improve. As he was, he could not return to his work, so the company fired him. I did not understand much of compensation, insurance, pensions and lawyers, but in my house, there was no talk of anything else. The only thing I understood was that we were running out of money, that my parents spent the day arguing and that, when they screamed, my father left the house slamming the door and did not come back until dawn. When he came back, he used to sleep on the couch. We found him there in the morning when we woke up. I remember watching him from the living room door, wondering how my father, my hero, was turning into that gray, drooling specter that smelt of cheap whiskey.

  That situation at least had a positive part. The whole time my father was in the hospital, I was sleeping with my mother. We continued with that custom when he came back. After all, he spent most nights away from home, so my mother and I kept on making company to each other. She helped me scare away my ghosts and I helped her to feel less alone.

  In all that time, none of my friends came to visit me. I began to think that I had misled them, that they had no power beyond Swanton or that perhaps they had already found peace and would stop bothering me. I didn’t care why. The important thing was that I didn’t see them anymore. I began to caress the idea of being able to lead a normal life and to consider that it had only been dreams provoked by the anguish of those days. I even began to slowly convince myself that I had only imagined them. Until that day in the pool arrived...

  IV

  It had started the month of October and even though the air was starting to get colder, it still didn’t rain. Once in a while, we saw black clouds passing over our heads, but they continued their way to unload in faraway places. In the city, it was rumored that soon the city council would have to take action and start with water restrictions.

  Maybe that was one of the reasons why the school decided to bring forward the swimming courses of that year, for fear that the city council would decide that the municipal pool was a water expense that they couldn’t afford. We were notified that Thursday that we had to carry a backpack with everything necessary and, instead of going to school, that day we met at the multi-sports Center’s doors.

  I wasn’t worried at all. I could swim since I was little. I had spent countless summer evenings swimming in the fast stream of the Missisquoi River or in the deep waters of Lake Champlain. For me swimming in a pool was a children’s play, so I was the first to get in line to start the activities.

  The monitor explained the first test, which would serve to determine our level and then split into groups. It was about climbing up to the trampoline, jumping into the water and swim a lap in the pool. Just listening to the explanation, most of my classmates leaned back, saying they couldn’t jump from so much height. Others began to mock them and call them chicken, and, in a few seconds, everyone was insulting or trying to defend themselves.

  “Enough.” shouted the monitor, trying to impose silence. “This test is not mandatory. Those who want to make it go to the trampoline. Make groups of five and start climbing up.”

  I went to the trampoline stairs without a second thought. I have already said that I was not very popular with my classmates and I think I believed that being the first to prove my courage would help them look at me with different eyes. As soon as I saw that four other guys were following me to complete the group, I started to climb the ladder without hesitation.

  When I got upstairs, I walked the trampoline to the edge with a quiet step, while at my back I was hearing how one of my partners began to doubt. I felt brave and powerful. I was sure I could make a great jump and get stuck in the water. I looked down for a moment, hoping to see if any group of girls watched me with admiration, but that’s not what I found.

  There was something in the pool, immersed under the water. I looked better and I thought I could distinguish three dark figures. They were standing, placed in a circle in the area where I was supposed to fall. I was surprised that the monitor didn’t order them to get out. Staying in the area where we were going to jump could be dangerous. However, the monitor was still standing on the edge of the pool without telling them anything, as if he did not see them.

  I heard someone coughing at my back, along with a few giggles. I must have taken quite a while at the trampoline’s edge, without giving any sign that I would jump. My classmates had to be interpreting that delay as fear. At that time that didn’t bother me. It seemed much more important to me that those three people took so long underwater without giving any sign that they needed to go up to get air.

  I leant a little further forward. I could not be seeing wrong; the distance was not so great. I clearly saw three people in the water. At that time the three figures raised their heads towards me as if they had realized in unison that I was watching them. I recognized them immediately. It was them: Anne, Bobby, and Dave. They were there, they had found me again and they didn’t care to appear in broad daylight in front of a lot of witnesses to catch me.

  The panic took over me and I tried to retreat, but the guy behind me didn’t like the push and yelled at me to jump. My four companions were occupying the whole trampoline and they didn’t seem to have any intention of taking off and letting me run away. I tried to push the guy behind me and he pushed me back even harder. I noticed I was losing my foot and the void was opening beneath me. I tried to kick and shake my arms as if I had the crazy idea that I could stay in the air and reach back to the safety of the trampoline. It wasn’t like that. I fell and fell, for an infinitely slow time, as I watched how they raised their arms to pick me up.

  The waters were closed upon me. For a moment I was surrounded by foam and bubbles and I thought that when my vision finally cleared up, they would no longer be in the water. I’d rather believe that I was going crazy, that I was hallucinating and seeing things that weren’t there before thinking they could be real. Unfortunately, I soon saw them again. They were by my side, at the bottom of the pool, swimming around me. I saw Anne, with her brown hair floating in the water, Bobby with his dead eyes and his Bart Simpson T-shirt, Dave swimming with his stupid asthma inhaler in his right hand... They surrounded me and prevented me from fleeing. I’ve never been so afraid in my life. I knew I couldn’t do anything to escape and I was going to die in that pool. They spread their whitish limbs of softened flesh towards me, trying to touch me. Fear turned in extreme disgust. I couldn’t stand that they touched with their dead hands. I felt an irrepressible retching going up my throat and, unable to do anything to avoid it, I vomited all the cereals from the breakfast, expelling at the same time the little air I had left. I waved my arms and kicked desperately, floating in the middle of a cloud of cereal and milk with cocoa, thinking it was a disgusting place to die.

  I heard a loud noise behind my back and felt the waters moving. Something huge was coming for me. I waved my arms and kicked again to escape, without being very clear where was the bottom and where the surface. In my desperation, I just wanted to get away from what was coming, while I noticed how my lungs ached as if they were going to explode and how my vision was becoming more blurred. Something grabbed me tightly by the waist and pulled me. I thought it was the end, that I had been caught and that they would drag me to the humid and dark place where they were doomed to spend eternity. However, it was not so. I noticed that the waters were opening and that there was breathable air all around me. I began to open my mouth, despe
rate, as if more than breathing, I was trying to swallow the air in bites.

  The monitor took me to the edge of the pool, helped me out and kept me sitting up so I would vomit the water I had swallowed. When I recovered a bit and refocused my vision, I looked back at the pool. They were still there, under the surface, turned to me, waiting for me. All I know is I screamed and screamed until I lost consciousness.

  That’s how I earned my nicknames for what was left of school and that would follow me in high school. Eric, the crazy. Eric, the madman. Eric, the nutcase. And my favorite: Eric, the krispiepuker.

  When I woke up in the hospital, I still didn’t know about those nicknames, or how they were going to condition my future life. I didn’t know that years were waiting for me to be the weirdo, the laughing stock of all my classmates. I still can’t figure out how I didn’t get my father’s gun and went to the institute to commit an outrage. Well, I can explain it to myself. The gun was hidden in the closet in my parents’ room, inside a safe box locked with a key that my father always wore. I never even had that option.

  My mother was sitting next to my bed in the hospital. She had leaned forward and was asleep, with her head resting on the mattress, at the height of my knees, taking my hand. Who knows how long she was like that. I felt very sorry for her and the guilt again harassed me. How long was I going to keep worrying her and scaring her like that?

  While I was still wondering if I should wake her, the door to the room opened. A brunette woman with shell-rimmed glasses and a white coat approached my bed. My mother woke up when she heard her footsteps and, seeing that I was open-eyed, she pounced on me to hug me.