Day of the Dead ...Finale
—Gregory Maguire
Adella
I foolishly dabbled in the occult and paid the price.
I supposed that because The Gypsy was a computerized Ouija board put out by Mac back in the 1980’s it would be just a bit of nostalgic fun and that would be the end of it.
I didn’t really expect to contact the dead, much less an actual person named Adella Constable who lived in Maryland at the turn of the last century.
I had no idea what the protocol was once you made contact with the spirit of a deceased person—I mean I couldn’t just treat it like a phone call and just hang up.
What if the spirit decided to haunt me and oppress me for the rest of my life? I had better not insult or offend the ghostly woman in any way.
I decided the best course was to politely end the session. I typed in: Got to go now. Goodbye.
The cursor moved across the screen in response. Sweet dreams, Cole.
I put the board and its various components back in the box. I contemplated burning it in the fireplace—I think I saw that once on a lame Friday Night Fright Show on cable TV. It didn’t make a bit of difference—the board would reappear the next morning.
I smiled grimly as I put it on the top shelf of my closet, intending to re-gift it to Rab and pass the curse to him.
It was after twelve by the time I got to bed, and I tossed and turned until three until finally falling into a deep sleep.
I dreamt again of my mystery dream girl, who often came to me in sleep, her face veiled and hidden by mist.
“Why is it always raining when we meet?” I asked her.
“Rain obscures details—there’s no time or place—only the ether and the eternal mist.”
“But I need more. I can’t embrace a shadow.”
“We spoke tonight—you in your world and I in mine. We communicated across the Great Divide—wirelessly, by telephony—and I, allergic to electricity.”
The stilted prose and the formal way of communicating seemed so foreign yet so familiar.
Then it suddenly dawned on me. “You mean that was you on the computer Ouija board—Adella Constable?”
“It was me, Love. I wrote so many letters through so many lonely nights—billets doux written to an unknown lover and then tossed into the fire like an MS sent on some celestial sea, to be washed up on the shores of some distant star.”
My mind reeled at this new revelation. But already I was mirroring her soul, communicating with her patter.
“Are you saying our souls reached out to one another like vines sending out shoots?”
“Exactly. There’s nothing more lonely than tapping out messages that can never be heard.”
“But my soul heard your cosmic SOS, and we connected—you by ether, and I by electric.”
She chuckled, “And now we share this bliss.”
“But to never touch or see you, or to hold you in my arms—it seems so empty.”
“Soul to soul communication—that’s the goal to which lovers aspire—and we have it. Would you settle for anything less?”
Adella’s question has been haunting me ever since.
I seem fated to a Platonic love affair that can never be consummated in the flesh.
I possess her in dreams, only to be dispossessed when I awake.
I think Shakespeare expressed it best when he said,
Some there be that shadows kiss.
Such have but a shadow’s bliss.
But soul to soul communication—it’s so precious and Adella and I have it.
How could I settle for anything less?
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If she did not appear as an attractive woman, would he still love her soul? I can imagine loving a woman so, that I reach past the physical in my yearning to be one with her.
Yet...I once fell in love with a girl - who I only saw in a dream. It has remained, two decades later, still the most beautiful love I have ever felt, though we only shared a few minutes....and the amazing thing is, she is still more real than women I have loved in the flesh.
Yes, a very deep question, Arthur. I always told my Lit students that the way of evaluating their love for someone is if they would spend time talking on the telephone with them. It sounds curious, but it's the closest we get to soul to soul communication without physical proximity entering the picture. Mind you, I know people nowadays use messaging on computer as a way of avoiding the entanglement of spending 'real' time with a person. Ironically, in the story, the narrator developed a relationship with the woman through texting, but later realized he had a prior relationship with her having seen her in his dreams - a case similar to yours.
All of this is giving me mental bumblebees - the bottom line is that many of my characters have rarefied relationships with ghosts, hence the Shakespearean quote at the story's end - Some there be that shadows kiss. Such have but a shadow’s bliss. I think I need a drink of wine, but it's only 4 pm here, lol