Challenge #02294-F104: Some Came Along
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxLa6QgqM2w -- Anon Guest
Terrans believe in ghosts. Well. Most of them do. There's some phenomena amongst those sensitive to infrasound, magnetic radiation from electronica, and liminal spaces. There's also the growing Esper population who are unaware of their native abilities and prescribe activities or voices to spirits.
However, there are more than a few... incidents... that defy the explanations of science. Echoes in dark corridors from feet that aren't there. Whispers just out of understanding. Ships made of nothing but light, crewed by wandering skeletons, that fly through stations that weren't there before they died...
Then there's things like the Flying Dutchman, the stars of yesteryear, and random entities manifesting small tokens of their presence throughout both Edge Space and any areas of the Alliance where Humans can walk freely. People who never saw the launch of Apollo 11 come to space stations and decide to move in for reasons that elude everyone, even the Humans who seemingly brought them along.
There's a 19th-century housewife who tidies the shelves of Catastrophe Station, piles up dirty dishes, and makes tea and scones. They see her, sometimes, literally bustling along relatively vacant hallways. There's a 14th-century bard who picked up modern ballads and plays them to the night cycle on his lute. There's a 20th-century movie star who peeks into shop windows and sprinkles glitter for the Cleaners.
...all only visible in the dark. All only appearing in the empty places. Seen by few.
They're not all good, though. There's more than a few poltergeists who upset drinking vessels, or prefer to keep a specific shelf clean by ejecting its contents clear across the room. There are those who make the seams of the bulkheads bleed, or effigies weep, or manifest any number of foul liquids in random spaces.
They go where the Humans go. Many say that Humans bring their ghosts with them, and for all that they subsequently say that ghosts don't exist, those words might as well be true. Species who never encountered such phenomena meet with them wherever the Humans go.
It frustrated many, including Troxxam Fenrio, who found a Human Ambassador one day in an Unsuitable Food Eat, working their way through a soda that had been embellished so much that it counted as both liquid and solid food. He introduced himself and thanked the Ambassador for her time, then asked, "Do you know much about the phenomena that follow Humans?"
"Oh aye, I'm familiar," she said. "Sommat ye want tae know?"
"Why?"
She snorted. "Yeah, that's a popular one. The usual answer is 'why not', but think of it like this: we bring our faiths with us. We bring our legends with us. Nobody says nowt about it. When we bring our... oddness with us... people start tae comment. Our ghosts come with us.... because they choose. I mean, if you spend near a thousan' years hauntin' a pub, it makes sense ye'd want a wee bit o' variety, eh?"
When she put it like that... it sort of did. In the peculiar way that Humans made any sense at all. "They had opportunity to... wander... on Earth, did they not?"
The Ambassador plucked some fruit out of the flocks of cream in her alleged beverage and ate it. Then she said, "Some did."
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / photocreo]
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