The ghostly Invasion

The ghosts were first seen early in the year 2200. Suddenly the National TV was full of sightings, illustrated with photographs and accompanied by lurid tales about the dead rising from their graves. Clearly the last trump had sounded and the day of judgement was upon us.

Unsurprisingly the world continued on its way and the fuss in the media eventually died down. Although the apparitions were generally called ‘ghosts’, they were unlike any that had been seen before. They all appeared to be normal healthy looking people, albeit transparent. Most people had seen at least one of the ghosts and the general opinion was that they were harmless.

I was getting on for 100 years old when the invasion reached my home town. I remember it well; the neighbour who helped me with my shopping was pushing my wheelchair to the town when it started.

The traffic came to a halt in that unnervingly quiet way vehicles have nowadays, as what appeared to be a large coach suddenly appeared in the middle of a roundabout.

It was certainly unusual and it took a couple of minutes before drivers realised that the thing was transparent and posed no threat to anyone. Even though you could see through it, it gave the appearance of being solid by the poster displayed along its side. In large transparent red letters it proclaimed “The past is present ride jons tours”

It wasn’t very grammatical but at least the people getting off were harmless. It didn’t take very long before small children on bicycles who a few moment s before had been terrified, began riding through the ‘misty ones.’

The ‘misty ones’ themselves didn’t seem to worry about this, it was almost as if they expected it. We stopped and watched for half an hour or so trying to see where ‘jons tours’ had come from.

They were oddly dressed people, the men were wearing what I assumed to be bright colours although the mistiness of the subjects gave them a slightly watered down appearance. The women on the other hand, all wore a black tubular garment that fastened all the way up to the chin and reached just below the knees, with no obvious decoration at all.

Without exception every person had a small black box attached to one shoulder and had their heads cocked slightly to that side appearing to be listening, although we could hear nothing ourselves.

Policemen appeared and tried to make them move away but they took no notice of the officers, splitting up into small groups and wandering where they would. The ghostliness of the invaders soon became apparent as the occasional group would walk through a wall into a building. At first this produced loud screams from the interior and the building would evacuate quickly since the people inside had no idea what was going on outside.

Within the hour the local police made an announcement to the effect that neither side could talk to or touch the other. So where possible everyone was to continue as normal. Then on an unknown signal all the invaders turned and began to wander back to the bus. As always with coach trips one or two ghosts appeared to be late and had to run while the driver looked around anxiously to make sure all his passengers were accounted for.

Then they all disappeared as quickly as they had come. Of course the invasion had been noted and appeared on the local TV Newscast that night. Although there were many theories as to the reasons for the incursion there was no damage done other than a few minor accidents that had happened on their first arrival.

It had all seemed a bit of a storm in a teacup as far as we were concerned, but the next day they appeared again. This time the coach had a new sign on the side. “Trips to the past with jons tours. 2200 this month”

It soon seemed that ‘jon’, wherever he came from, had started a new craze. Before long coaches were popping up out of nowhere all over the country with advertising on their sides such as: “Did granny really look like that?”

“C 4 yourself the polloosh your ancsesters lived in,”

“Marvel as everyone moves like ants, following cullud lights.”

This fad amongst the ghosts from the future led to all sorts of inconvenience for us. Imagine a ghost popping up in your bedroom just as you were changing for bed. One woman whose picture appeared on the local TV had been having a bath when a grinning head appeared in front of her at the tap end having come through the floor, the bath and the water itself. One or two unprepared people had serious accidents when an apparition suddenly appeared. Then the focus changed to ancestry.

I suppose in retrospect I was lucky to be one of the first to be found. A young couple of ghosts were taking a great deal of interest in following me about. I didn’t mind too much, after all I couldn’t run away and I was curious to know why they seemed interested.

They were looking at a ghostly piece of paper they were holding and then comparing it to me. At last they made up their minds and approached me directly. They were obviously trying to say something, but rather that shooing them away or getting my friend to push our way through them I asked her to stop for a moment then faced the ghosts and made the classic I can’t hear you sign, cupping one hand to my ear.

The girl seemed to be the brighter of the two for she opened something like an old Kindle book and tapped rapidly on it before showing it to me. As far as I know this was the first time any attempt at communication had been made.

“Is ur name Frank Vitolo?” it said.

I nodded and the girl wrote once more in her book. ‘Wen was dat ur born?’ My neighbour provided a Biro to so that I could write my reply on the back of our shopping list.

The result of our communication was unexpected to say the least. The young couple hugged each other and ran off to a smaller coach than those we were used to seeing. A banner along the side of this one stated, “Find ur ansesters. 5MCr 4 suk/s!”

The girl ran back after a couple of minutes chat with the driver of the coach. It seemed they’d had an argument. She wrote a question on her piece of paper, ‘Ur paper. Pic plis.’

My friend brought out her shopping list gain and held it steady while the girl pressed a button on her shoulder box. Then she ran back to her coach and hugged her boy friend. The driver pressed something to her shoulder box; the couple had another hug and she hurried back to me.

She opened her pad and began tapping merrily. She told me that she was my great, great granddaughter and that 5Mcr was a lot of money that would enable her to buy a small cottage in the countryside. Then she could live with her boyfriend and be allowed to have children.

In actual fact there were very few discoveries like this. Now that we had established a way of communicating lots of people began carrying cards with messages already printed on them. “Go away, stop bothering me.”

“Thank God I’m not your ancestor you should be flogged” and notes in similar vein.

This approach certainly reduced the ghosts enthusiasm and the number of coaches slowly began too diminish.

Then the youngsters of our time started finding ways to annoy the invaders. They would gather in groups, point at one of the men and burst out laughing. Some of our girls would show off their figures posing in front of couples and this had the effect of reducing the numbers still further.

Of course the ghosts could not retaliate to this behaviour any more than we had been able. It was fairly obvious really; the trips had been a commercial operation and as the numbers of ghosts dwindled so did the enthusiasm of the coach operators.

Very soon any sighting of a ghost became a rarity and we all returned to our normal lives. However I did have one more experience myself. It was on the occasion of my 100th birthday. The ghost of the young lady who was my great, great, grand daughter wandered through my wall carrying a baby just as I was trying to blow out the candles on my cake.

She wrote that she’d had a boy baby and was living happily in Cornwall with her husband. She’d looked up her family tree and named the boy Franco Luca.

I suppose I should feel honoured, there’s probably not too many people who can say they’ve met their great, great, great grandson!