Just a lot of sad, bored ghosts
A breakthrough happened at a local haunted motel this Saturday afternoon when scientists finally made contact with the beyond. Human nature has always led us to wonder about the meaning of life in the universe, and furthermore, what happens to that meaning, our consciousnesses, when we die.
At Overtly Spooky Motel in Ithaca, NY, a scientific team led by Fredrick Dedrik has now developed a system through which we can now both speak to and see the dead. In fact, it seems all that separates our world from theirs has been a thin atmospheric barrier. Between global warming, protoplasmic energy exchange, and recent advancements in paranormal science, it was only a matter of time before we broke this barrier down.
Surprisingly, scientists are urging those who wish to contact their loved ones to be patient, as ghosts have no identifiable addresses, phone books, or afterlife census data. In fact, it’s difficult to tell if they have any form of society at all.
“Without the need to maintain life, there is no need to maintain jobs, government, or other normal societal necessities,” says Dedrik. “These ghosts are just floating through death, with no discernable purpose at all.”
“This can be devastating for many spirits,” explains Dedrik, “because the possibility of a lack of meaning that stretches on forever without an end is even more harrowing than the thought of a meaningless life.”
“It just doesn’t get any easier after you die,” Dedrik stresses. Luckily, there have been several support groups created by ghosts for ghosts in an attempt to remedy both those with situational post-departing depression and those with generalized depression.
“Once you get over the hump of realizing there’s no inherent purpose to life after death, it becomes easier to deal with, at least for me,” booed an 867-year-old crone who attends one of these therapy groups regularly. “We call them HAUNTINGS. Helping Apparitions Undertake New Therapy In Ghoul Society. It’s just a lot of ghosts getting together to talk things through. It’s a great support resource.”
Dedrik wants readers to take comfort in the fact that, despite being trapped in an alternate dimension with no purpose and despite having no professional resources available, ghosts are still banding together to work through their crippling depression.
“It would be nice to see a real psychologist,” creaked the stairs of the old motel, which are haunted by the late bookkeeper, James Eidolon. “But none of the dead psychologists are handling this well either, so we really just have each other. No one leads the sessions. We all just meet up, and somebody always gets the protoplasmic ball rolling.”
We reached out to the ghosts at the hotel and told them to get in contact with us if they had anything they needed. The responses came to us via eerie messages through the wind, blood written on our mirrors, maggots arranged in certain configurations across dining tables, etc. The biggest problem we’re hearing from the ghosts, apart from the lack of professional psychiatric help and wi-fi access, is exorcisms. As one ghost writes in what we believe to be the blood of one of our neighbor’s chickens, “There is no need to kick us out of your home for minor wailing, booing, or accidentally knocking over a few precious family heirlooms.”
Often, ghosts feel unsafe going to HAUNTINGS because of the human stigma against ghost congregation. The parallel world of the undead demands the right to gather safely without the chance of being exorcised in the middle of group therapy.
Please, we urge you to abstain from doing anything to make ghosts feel unwelcome in your space. We all have something that makes our lives difficult, but ghosts have to deal with the never-ending and meaningless expanse of time and space every day for the rest of eternity, so perhaps it’s time we gave them a break.
Please abstain from burning sage, praying spirits (good or evil) out of your home, or mending holes in white sheets. If you would like to set up your space as a friendly one for HAUNTINGS, consider leaving a jack-o-lantern burning on your porch year-round or leaving self-help books on local gravestones.
Isabel Murray is a third-year writing major who strives to make their home into a safe space for ghosts. You can reach them at [email protected].