There Is No Such Thing As Pseudomagic

Is it a possession that’s taking place, do you think, like in the films? asked Frances.

Perplexed, startled faces at the mention of such a thing.  As if they hadn’t already crossed into uncanny territory.  But, you see, not everyone was quite ready to welcome in the devil. 

Elder stepped forward to get a look at his injured guest.  Sullivan’s face was drained, was alarmingly blue, but not a succumbed-to-death-blue; it was the blue commonly seen in someone after electricity had coursed through their veins before they went pop-pop and explode.  Sullivan hadn’t exploded, though at times he looked on the verge of going that way.  The notion of possession, even possibly a demonic one, had occurred to Elder as not a million miles away from probable, but probably ten or so million miles, for though he casually saluted the whole spectral catalogue in pursuit of his ends, in the face of Sullivan’s pale shivering body, he began for the first time to fear the unknown.  That foppery of his, its quixotic flavour, and the curse of autoschediasm, had gotten the better of him; he believed his own goddamn guff so much that the getting in of a potentially cancerous spirit was unimaginable.  When all was said, Elder wasn’t as qualified to tussle with darker forces as one would hope, if one was to believe that goddamn guff; truth be told, he too could be made to wander the chimerical deserts raving mad just like anyone else.  Sure how many memories of his grandmother were in fact coloured by suggestion, by the woman’s wild talk? 

I’d say it’s just a case of the old delirium tremens that’s bothering him, said Sasdy.

And the blueness? quizzed Abby.

Comes with the post, I suppose.  Unless...what we have on our hands is a case of pseudo-magic.

Elder turned, scowling: There is no such thing as pseudo-magic.  Snap out of that.  It’s a preposterous idea.

As Sullivan’s convulsions slowed again, he shrivelled back to his peace and sickness, and there were more outbursts of disillusion and panic.  Abby Kane went first. 

We shouldn’t have brought in here any of that stuff from the bog, neither the berry nor the body because I think...they’re up to no good.

It doesn’t befit us to approach this from a resigned vantage, said Elder, discarding his own fears for a moment.  Perhaps we all have this coming to us, terrible crippled state which it is.  Who knows?  It might be but a stage in the way to immortality.  We might all have to be electrocuted if we are to live forever. 

I can’t imagine what immortality would want with him, Frances said of Sullivan.

I agree, said Everly Stewart, who with her husband Jeremiah had recently rejoined the group fresh from post-coital slumber with more zest in their bones than at any time since Devin and Imogen arrived.  That man’s soul died a long time ago, she continued.  With all that poison in his body, I can see no way his body would persist.  He’s not like the rest of us.

Her husband nodded.

What about it, Archie? Sasdy asked MacKenna.  Are we meant for permanence or an exorcism?

To be frank, I hold broadly a neo-Popperian position when it comes to all of this, said the archaeologist.  If it is in any fashion falsifiable, science will let us know.  Until then, we must scrutinise the phenomena when it comes, and test it when we can.  But this one alcoholic among us neither proves nor disproves immortality.

There was no appetite for debate.

The ceiling light in the centre of the room flickered, the teardrop chandelier buzzing as though a bluebottle was trapped inside, a big one.

Ah, don’t stand under there!

Ismay Tasse was standing directly underneath the chandelier so Elder put the scold on her.  You must be causing that interference.

Pardon, she said. 

Sure enough, when Ismay stepped aside, the bulb ceased to clatter.  However, not everything was put to rights following this preventative measure, for a heavy weight had already begun to descend in the room; and it was more than just a change in ambience.  A great pressure was felt by everyone all of a sudden, psychosomatic in its nature, like a giant hand was outside the house, pressing on the roof and walls, squidging it like it was a baby toy.  The effect was a clamminess of the mind which served to disrupt the visibility of those with something like a mind in the room, making everything appear fuzzy and odd, tweaked and manipulated; some witnessed the bodies in front of them stretch like elastic bands before their eyes, while others were unfortunate to observe forgotten souls appearing next to them, long ribbons of colour, Abby Kane’s aunt Rosalie a peppermint ribbon, the estranged right-wing brother of Jeremiah Stewart a ribbon of sausage-brown; some watched teardrops fall from the ceiling and break into bluebottles on the floor to pop-pop and explode; and there were others who watched in terror as the bog man suddenly rose from the bean bag and came slowly towards them only to vanish before contact and reappear on the bag; while others saw Fatty Arbuckle step out of his picture frame and waddle out the door, turning and winking before leaving, likely a meaningful wink but none could know; some who were prone to glance on occasion at the unfinished lotus flowers on the walls saw them begin to extend their stems and grow new petals, then wilt, outperforming their humiliated creator; and they could see some of them custard seeping from unnoticed bandages on unnoticed scratches on certain skins, yellowy like pus not blood but custard so neither; and for others a powerful transparency like nothing any therapy could elicit fell over them and they saw one another dressed in the new clothes of the new men and the new women, and there was a birthmark or two to ponder; and then, and this was a shared vision for all of them, they began to see each other dead, as standing corpses, parched grey like the bog man, or to be more specific, those in the room they wished to be dead they saw dead.

And then the squidging stopped.

So that’s a flashback, I take it, commented Devin, who recalled from documentaries on TV the mad accounts the hippies would bring back from their travels in the subconscious.

No, Imogen said to him.  Just...flashes, I think.