I sometimes feel there is a poltergeist here. Yes, I know I am clumsy. But recently things have got a little strange. The other morning I was standing bleary eyed about to make a cup of earl grey – and when I poured in some hot water to heat up the standard IKEA glass vessel – I don’t do tepid – it actually EXPLODED. Not cracked, but like a bomb had gone off. The fragments were everywhere and looked like tiny pieces of ice.
It was good that I had my glasses on — I could have been Eyeless St Claire. Which I don’t need right now : it is bad enough moving around as it is without turning into a Thelma from Scooby Doo.
I think I just gasped when it happened – and then burst out laughing. As I did earlier when my cardamom rooibos fused with my Prive Eclat de Jasmin – making them both unusable – but a bit Marcel Duchamp.
Other oddities have been happening : things tossing themselves off supermarket shelves as I approach, various weird (tele)kinesis – but let’s not forget that Brian De Palma’s Carrie is easily my favourite film of all time and that as a young adolescent I taped the audio of Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist and learned every word of it off by heart. Am I Carole-Anne about to be sucked into the television ?
Does this make me spooky ?
Of course you are spooky! Spooky is good. And it is the witching season after all, and there’s been a Super Moon this week. Writing as someone who lived in a (very) haunted house as a child, I do believe there are more things in heaven and earth. You have also been going through great upheaval and pain, and your heightened senses might intensify incidents – whether this is paranormal or something that can be explained by science we’ll probably never know. Laughter is the best response!
Another coincidence we share !
I once lived in what was reputedly one of the most haunted houses in England : Abbey House in Cambridge.
I got thrown out for dancing too hard to Rage Against The Machine and damaging the ceiling below – it was a listed building and the hypereccentric landlady – whose name was LAVINIA DANKWARTS ( literally ) was having none of it.
We had some fabulous parties there but I never saw any ghosts
Here
https://jamesmdeem.com/stories.ghost.abbeyhouse.html
I agree about the heightened emotions causing these things, incidentally – I have had it before when I have been in a twist. I do have quite a strong energy.
Was it your parental home that was haunted ?
What was it like ?
You should have blamed the damage on the ghosts! Strange that there don’t seem to be any modern day ghostly appearances at Abbey House. Lavinia was my grandmother’s middle name ….
Yes, it was my parents’ home, bought when my father had money. A rather lovely three story house in Chiswick – the Bedford Park “village” designed by Norman Shaw. We had balconies! Many sightings of three ghosts (one was a little girl who would wander through the night crying “mama”), the piano played itself, the knocker would be violently rapped against the front door, someone would sigh just behind you in the kitchen, we would hear singing and a flute being played on the top floor etc etc. Should make a film about it. Strangely the people who bought it from us stayed only six months, and thereafter nobody lived there for very long and for the last 15 years it seems to be rented out. My school friends called us the Addams Family.
!!!
Flutes … I might need an exorcist
Abbey House was apparently ‘cleansed’ and is now a Buddhist Centre.
It was a very interesting experience – but I am glad no one was sighing behind me : that would have creeped me out big time
I forgot to include one very strange thing that happened.
A friend came to stay last weekend and I picked a ginger lily from the front garden and put it in the toilet.
I returned a few minutes later and it had gone. I looked but couldn’t find it.
I replaced it with a red spider lily.
“I walk where moonlight fears to tread, and whisper where the silence fled.“
Not sure where I picked that up but I love ❤️ spookiness!
You know, Neil—October is when the veil grows thin between worlds. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself entertaining unexpected guests. 👻
I’ve had lots of cups explode over my last 10 years of switching from coffee to tea. I thought it was just the crap quality cups we get here in Nepal? I finally invested in some Arcoroc tempered glass mugs.
Lavinia Dankwarts, what a fantastic name. 🧙
Carrie is such a great film, Stephen King really mixes the quiet dread of small town Americana with the operatic intensity of gothic horror.
It is so SATURATED. And schlocky and ridiculous but also very genuine and emotionally affecting.
Plus it really twists the cliches – to me, as played by Sissy Spacek, she is an entirely sympathetic character: sweet – just bullied.
And when the screen splits when she finally loses it, I also LOSE MY MIND.
As for exploding tea cups I know there will be an explanation for it but it was just the split second shatteringness of it that felt very poltergeisty – it had that energy
Interesting what you say about October 6th…