Stranger Than Fiction by Palahniuk Chuck

Author:Palahniuk, Chuck [Palahniuk, Chuck]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Literary, Biography & Autobiography, Essays, Personal Memoirs, American Essays, Curiosities and Wonders, Non Fiction
ISBN: 9780385722223
Google: _KOWa81i6b8C
Amazon: 0385722222
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 2004-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

The Lady

A friend of mine lives in a «haunted» house. It's a nice white farmhouse in the country, surrounded with gardens, and every few weeks he'll call in the middle of the night to say, "Someone is screaming in the basement. I'm going down with my gun, and if I don't call you back in five minutes, send the police!"

It's all very dramatic, but it's the kind of complaint that smells like a boast. It's the psychic equivalent of saying, "My diamond ring is so very heavy." Or, "I wish I could wear this thong bikini without everyone lusting after me."

My friend refers to his ghost as "the lady," and he complains about not getting any sleep because "the lady" was up all night, rattling pictures on the walls and resetting the clocks and thumping around the living room. He calls it "dancing." If he's tardy or upset, it's usually because of "the lady." She shouted his name outside the bedroom window all night, or turned the lights on and off.

This is a practical man who's never believed in ghosts. I'll call him "Patrick." Until he moved out to this farm, Patrick was like me: stable, practical, reasonable.

Now I think he's full of shit.

To prove this, I asked him to let me house-sit his farm while he was away on vacation. I needed the isolation and quiet to write, I told him. I promised to water the plants, and he went off and left me there for two weeks. Then I threw a little party.

This man, he's not my only deluded friend. Another friend-I'll call her "Brenda"-says she can see the future. Over dinner, she'll ruin your best story by suddenly drawing a huge gasp, covering her mouth with her hand, and rearing back in her chair with a look of wide-eyed terror on her face. When you ask what's wrong, she'll say, "Oh… nothing, really." Then close her eyes and try to shake the terrible vision from her mind.

When you persist, asking what's scared her, Brenda will lean over the table with tears in her eyes. She'll take your hand in hers and beg you, "Please, please. Just stay away from automobiles for the next six years."

For the next six years!

Brenda and Patrick, they're odd but they're my friends, always hungry for attention. "My ghost is too loud… I hate being able to see the future…"

For my little house party, I planned to invite Brenda and her psychic friends out to the haunted farmhouse. I planned to invite another group of stupid, ordinary friends who aren't troubled with any special extrasensory gifts. We'd drink red wine and watch the mediums flit around, lapsing into trances, channeling spirits, doing their automatic writing, levitating tables, while we laughed politely behind our hands.

So Patrick was gone on vacation. A dozen people arrived at the farmhouse. And Brenda brought two women I'd never met, Bonnie and Molly, both of them already swooning from the ghost energy they felt there. Every few steps, they

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