100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2023. #92. Chair.

Do you fry your eggs with butter or olive oil? Me, with the oil but not too much of it. I pour some on a paper towel and swath the frying pan with it, ensuring I get all of it in and around the pan. I add some milk or cream to the eggs to make them fluffy. In the pan next to the eggs are the corned beef and onions frying on low heat; when it's ready, I pour the eggs all over it and let it sit until everything sets in. When that is ready, I lay it over the pile of rice and pour the ketchup on top. Easy comfort meal during the late night hour before I sit down to watch my favorite show about the New Jersey mob. People ask me how I decompress? This is it, having a plate of comfort food that will eventually kill me in my 50s or 60s while I wash it down with a large can of a highly sugared energy drink. I'll be joining the dead people I talk to soon enough, but what's the rush, right?

I don't think that people are born mean; it's because of the environment they grew up in. Helping this local family extricate a spirit that's been making their lives miserable in their little Hawaii Kai hobble surprised me. It's a cramped five-bedroom home that's stuffy and constantly filled with vape smoke hovering about the room despite several fans running. They're all overweight, from the pre-teens to the grandparents. The chairs they sit in seem like an appendage more than furniture. That may explain why they're all overweight and very mean to one another. The spirit in the house was one of their own who died in his chair while eating spam and fried eggs from a paper plate at four in the morning. The empty chair sat in the corner of the room with the indentation of someone still sitting in it.

"You want me to bless the chair?" I asked.

"That's why you're here, right?" The grandfather growled.

"Did you all want to get up and join me in the prayer?" I invited them for the sake of spiritual unity.

"No, no," the grandmother gestured. "Just do it from where you're standing."

As I gave the prayer, I noticed that no one bothered to turn the television off. "Uhm, maybe you should switch that thing off so I can give the prayer?"

"No," the grandfather gestured. "Just do the prayer before our favorite show starts."

That I did, with a shrug and a smidgen of disgust. When I was done, the grandmother removed an envelope she'd been sitting on and tossed it at me. I didn't want to catch it with my hands, so I used the bowl, which, until a second ago, held the blessed water in it. I was called back to that same hobble on five more occasions as each one of those people died as a result of their health issues. It was heartbreaking because the grandparents survived their adult children and grandchildren until they had no one left but one another. Even then, standing before the last one who requested my presence was quite the task. He sat there crying, horrified, and very much afraid. The spirits of those who lounged in their chairs until they died in it were right back, haunting it as they did in life. 

"Please," he pleaded. "Help me get out of this chair and out of this house!"

It took every ounce of human strength to pull him out of that chair. It also took a few minutes for him to get his balance and bearings. As he painfully made his way to the front door, his family's spirits cried out to him from their chairs, "Don't leave us here, Papa! Don't leave us like this!"

Crying hysterically, he pleaded with them to leave him alone while covering his ears. The more they pleaded, the more he screamed for help. He finally made it out the front door before he collapsed and died of a heart attack in the driveway. 

~

The corned beef omelet didn't seem appealing anymore when I thought about it. I dumped it in the trash and made myself a sandwich. It's better that way. I no longer felt my mortality being drained out of my soul through a can of New Zealand corned beef and a few fried eggs.