Flapper Girl ↠ Ghosts

[ 003 ] the clairvoyant

"Yeah, yeah... I'm actually picking up Alison tomorrow, same time the builders are coming... I know, not very convenient... yeah, mate, she's been in a coma for most of the past two weeks... it's crazy..."

     So when the fated day comes, Effie stands ready at the door for all the visitors. First is a stream of construction workers kitted out in hard-hats and arms exposed — in some cases this is pleasant, but in other cases Effie raises an eyebrow at one of the builders who crouches down, his buttocks peeking out from above his trousers. How flattering, she thinks sarcastically. People can get away with that these days?

     "Homecoming day, eh?" says Julian, swooping in.

     Effie groans distastefully. "You should stay way out of Alison's vicinity, before you give her another life-threatening injury!"

    "Aw, come on, I'm not going to do anything. And that wasn't my fault..."

     With a scoff, she ignores his remark and stares intently at the door. Effie can't lie... she is quite curious. First of all, she doesn't remember many people surviving comas with such ease when she was alive, so she wants to see Alison in one piece herself. And secondly, she does wonder if she might be the only ghost remotely interested in making her stay. It's some activity, in this dead-dull purgatory pity party, and she is going to take advantage of it the first chance she gets. Meanwhile, it allows her an escape from Mary's peculiar show-and-tell upstairs, of how to milk a cow:

     "Now, have her face the right way, you want the end with the milk there, not the end for lookin' and chewin' out of. You want to take this finger and this finger, gently but quickly, and that releases a big squirt of the stuff..."

At this, Mary had done a rather questionable hand gesture of yanking udders.

"Good Lord," the Captain had muttered, blinking flustered at the invisible 'udders'.

"Chuck some of the muck out," Mary carried on innocently, "So, you can check then if the milk be smooth and white, not beige and lumpy."

"Right, I'm off!" Effie had lurched up at that point, feeling her appetite nauseated to the point of ruin... well, not that she was going to eat anyway, but that was besides the point.

She much prefers being among all these living beings, watching as a beer-bellied builder starts rummaging through his toolbox for a hammer.

To her relief, the rumble of the futuristic motorcar outside alerts her attention to Alison's return. "Oh, she's back!" Effie exclaims. "Look smart..."

Alison, somehow, is walking on her own two feet. The only visible signs of her frightful fall are a giant neck brace and a few scars and cuts on her face, but nothing major despite that. Effie finds it miraculous. She stops with Mike to discuss some building regulations, but over her husband's shoulder she begins to scrutinise something in the distance — and there it is again. That funny feeling. Effie knows she's only staring at the builder behind her, but still can't shake the intensity of the direct eye contact that Alison probably isn't realising.

     Once the discussion is over, Mike places a hand on the small of her back. "Why don't you go and have a lie down and I'll grab your bags, yeah?"