Four stages of Manic Depression inspired by Jimmy Hendrix

1. Periods of great activity
“What’s all this, Amelia?”
I’ve handed Cliff his own jam jar with a tea light inside. Others are dotted about my flat, ready.
“Babe?”
He’s holding it out at me like a bomb that disappointed. It’s taken me all day to make the living room just right, and my bedroom, the kitchen, even the bathroom. It’s like a crystallised Stonehenge, only Stephen King did it.
“Think of good wholesome things and light it,” I order. “Then put it down, gently.”
I demonstrate with one of the many going spare. There’s room left on the edge of my coffee table.
“Now we wait for the ghosts.”
“Ghosts?”
“Spirits, then. Read online that you can trap the good ones this way. They like the warmth. May even get a few answers out of them.”
As he hesitates, I look at him, very aware that I’m not making much sense and not caring one tiny irrational bit. He does as I ask and tries his best to hide the worry behind eyes betrayed by dancing candle light.
“Now. Wait.”
I take his hand.
In silence, we wait while darkness treads above the soft light.