“The ghost is back. ” whispered Sir Eddie, killing the conversation in an instant.

Everyone looked around at one another, suddenly embarrassed.  There they were, global elites every one of them, all gathered to witness Sir Edmund “Eddie” Flanders’ famous ghost, and none of them had the slightest idea what to do when the damned thing finally showed up.

This, despite the fact that they had spent the entire evening dicussing that very subject. No wonder they were embarrassed to be caught with their panties on the floor.

Sir Eddie, however, was in his element now, and remained serenely unperturbed. He closed his eyes for a few moments then, in a soft but firm voice, said “He says he would like you to direct your attention to the left dais on the central northern stage. ” ^[1]

Immediately the indicated spot was stabbed into brilliance by a spotlight. After a few moments breathless silence, the loudspeakers in the ceiling made some very strange sounds, then the pale lavender form of a man in Dickensian garb appeared in a sitting postion on the said.

“Hello everybody!” said the apparition in a voice brimming with old-boy bohemie. “Can everybody see me now?”

Astonished murmurs of “yes” mingled with a wide variety of expressions of awe and astonishment in at least a dozen different languages.

“Hello, my good friend Sigmund!” said Sir Eddie with unfeigned delight. “So good of you to join us this evening!”

“It’s my pleasure, ” said the ghost of Sigmund. “After all, what kind of a gentleman would I be if I turned down a request for such a… command performance?”

A ripple of laughter from the audience.

“I see that you come to us tonight clad in lavender, dear Sigmund. ” said Sir Eddie.

“Yes, do you like it? It took forever to get the shade just right. I might not get to play the dandy fop like I used to, but I still like to look my best. ” said the spectral Sigmund.

“You look smashing as always, dear Sigmund. ” said Sir Eddie. “Are you ready to answer some questions from the audience?”

“I believe I am. ” said Sigmund the ghost. “But I humbly ask that the audience say their questions slowly and clearly. I’m afraid my hearing isn’t what it used to be. ”

A ripple of laughter with a bit more meat in it this time. The audience was clearly warming to this friendly specter. That made Sir Eddie very happy.

” Very well. ” said Sir Eddie. “As per request, the first question will go to Doctor Silas Taverner, here representing the Associated Skeptics.^[2] “.

A very distinguished looking gentleman with piercing green eyes and iron gray hair approached the microphone and did his best to glare haughtily at Sigmund.

“Hello doctor Taverner!” boomed Sigmund. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you. You’re not here to lecture me on how unscientific I am, are you?”

At this, the audience laughed, not altogether kindly. Public opinion had been firmly on Sigmund’s side ever since, at Sigmund’s invitation, the AS had been allowed to send a veritable army of scientists into Sir Eddie’s mansion to prove that the whole thing was an elaborate hoax and yet were unable to do so.

“Not this time. ” said Doctor Taverner dryly.

To their credit, the audience laugh at this too. ”

“What I would like to ask you, ” said Doctor Taverner, “is  this : do you believe in an afterlife, as described in the world’s religions?”.

“Well I’m here, aren’t I?” said dead Sigmund.

Rich laughter from the audience. Doctor Taverner waited in frosty silence for it to die down, then quietly but firmly said “You know that is not what I meant. ”

At this, Sigmund looked ashamed. “You’re right, I do. ” he said. “That was juvenile and cheap of me. You have my deepest apologies. ”

“Apology accepted. ” said Doctor Taverner flatly. “Now as to my question…?”

“Ah yes. ” said Sigmund. “The truth is, I never experienced anything approaching an afterlife. I have no memory of any time spent in any sort of post-life destination like Heaven or Limbo or… Valhalla for that matter. As far as I can remember, I died on my plantation in Jamaica then immediately manifested back here, in my childhood home. ”

“Next question, please. ” said Sir Eddie.

A statuesque and angular woman of indeterminable ethnicity walked up to the microphone, and said “Hello Sigmund. My name is Calpurnia Patel, and I am here representing a consortium of news outlets from around the globe. ”

“A pleasure to meet you. ” said Sigmund. “And your question is?”

“Our readers want to know what it was like to die. ”

“Ah! Excellent! I was hoping someone would ask that. ” said Sigmund. “Because I finally have an answer. Until recently, I did not remember my death, but after a lot of… well, I guess you’d call it soul searching… ”

Smattering of laughter.

“… I managed to retrieve the memory. So get your image capturing machines ready, dear audience, because here it is. ”

Sigmund stood, and began to pace back and forth on the stage like a nervous professor in front of an advanced class.

“First off, you all know that I died of a tropical fever in Jamaica in the year 1876, yes? ” he said. “Well as one might imagine, this was not an easy death. That thrice-damned plague toyed with me a lot time before finishing me off. I had a brutally high fever, a hacking wracking cough, and I could not sleep a wink without being haunted by nightmares so vivid and cruel that Hell itself would be preferable.

But worst of all was the spasms. They affected every muscle in my body at the same time and felt like I was being squeezed by the hand of a giant made of stone.

These grew in severity, and I am now convinced that they are what finally did me in. The last living memory I have is thinking ‘There’s no way I can survive another one of those!’ and alas, that proved to be true.

But what you want to know about is the moment of death and what it felt like. At first, I felt a great wrenching sensation, as if I was being ripped out of my body. Then I felt a sensation like all my life I had been carrying a heavy weight and now it was gone. I felt it fall away from me. Then for a few terrible moments it was totally dark and I was extremely cold. Then, it was as if some light inside me turned on and suddenly the world and its warmth were back, but in a stranger, more shadowy form. ”

“What’s it like being dead?” said an elderly voice from the audience.

“Fairly pleasant. ” said Sigmund. “I am now immune to all forms of bodily pain.  I feel neither hunger nor thrist nor any of the natural passions or cravings. I am always perfectly comfortable and relaxed. Most of my earthly troubles died with my physical form, and now I am free to roam, explore, and learn to my heart’s content. ”

“Most?” said another aged voice. “Not all?”.

“No, not all. ” said Sigmund sadly. “I may have lost my lust, but love remains. I may no longer suffer but I feel the suffering of others. I may not be part of humanity any longer but its fate concerns me greatly. To live in any form is to know heartache. Even when one no longer has a heart.”

A well coiffed dowager asked, “Do you miss your more…. passionate emotions?”

Siguind paused, growning with concentration.; “Yes, and no. I’m sorry, but that’s the best answer I can give you. On the one hand, I do miss the excitement, the thrills, and the simple animal heat of the more passionate end of the spectrum. Those emotions can be very life-affirming… so to speak. ”

Smattering of laughs.

“On the other hand, I cherish the clarity of mind my post-living state affords me, and I do not miss the constant incessant demands of lust, pride, greed, and ambition to which I was all too prone in life.

So to answer your question… and I apologize if this confuses everyone… but I have to say that I wouldn’t want my passions back, but that doesn’t mean that I do not miss them from time to time. ”

And so the evening went. The questions ranged from the mundane to the profound to the downright ridiculous. As the evening wore on, it became clear that the questioners were running out of questions and their helpful spook was running out of answers, or at least the capacity to articulate them.

“I thought the dead never get tired.” observes a young man who clearly thought himself to be surpassingly brilliant for his penetrating mind.

“Good point. ” said Sigmund. “I shall clarify. We do not get physically tired. After all, we have no physical form to support. Nor do we get mentally tired in the same way the living do. I can read for hours without feeling any strain, for example.

But we do get emotionally tired. I suppose that comes with having emotions no matter what side of the barrier between life and death we are on. ”

“And it’s clear that our patient guest grows emotionally weary. ” said Sir Eddie. “So I am afraid the next question will have to be the last. ”

“Then let me ask you this, you unholy apparation. ” said a very tall, very thin man dressed head to toe in red-lined black velvet. “How long did you think you could perpetuate this monstrous violation of God’s domain and all that is holy. ”

“I beg your pardon?” said Sigmund. “Bemirch my name no more, you humbug. I am as devout a Christian, sir, as you could ever find in all of Christendom.

“BLASPHEMY!” thundered the tall thin man. He ripped down the collar of his heavy black velvet coat to reveal something which superficially resembled the Catholic priests’ “dog collar”, but was gilt with gold and covered in arcane symbols.

“You are a foul emanation of Satan’s own devising! “, shrieked the man,  “and I am here to cast you back to the firey pits of Hell that spawned you!”.

“Pits of Hell?” replied Sigmund in tones of outraged incredulity. “I will have you know, sir, that I hail from Abbortsford, not Tartarus, and find your… ”

“ENOUGH!” screamed the highly agitated man. “By the powers invested in me by the Shroud of the Sacred Heart, I cast you out, demon!”.

As he said this, the tall thin man gesticulated meaningfully at Sigmund with what appeared to be a very fancy cloth napkin.

Nothing whatsoever happened.;

“Now see here, my good fellow…. ” began Sigmund.

“NEVERMIND THAT! ” said the tall thin man. “Clearly God tests my faith! Well I, for one, will not be found wanting! SEE THIS, you disgusting apparition! ”

The tall thin man pulled a squat, thick, and jewel encrusted cross from within his coat.

“Oh my God!” said Sigmund.

“Ah ha, that got your attention, didn’t it, demon?” said the tall thin man smugly. ”

“….is that genuine fifteenth century German ironwork? ” continued Sigmund. “If so, that’s an incredible find, good sir. It belongs in a museum!”.

“SILENCE, SPAWN OF LUCIFER! ” howled the tall thin man.

“See here!” said Sir Eddie. “As my friend has repeatedly informed you, he is not a demon. He is a Christian. So for you to keep trying to banish him this way is absurd and insulting in the utmost. Furthermore, it clearly is not working. ”

“Maybe you should send for a Satanist!” said a wag in the back.

“BLASPHEMY!” screeched the tall thin man. With a dramatic gesture, he tore the outer layer of his coat off to reveal a vest studded with bricks of plastique explosives. “Satanm you will not triumph today! I will cleanse this place with holy fire! I will bring down the walls of Jericho! I will weild Samsons… ”

And with that, there was a crack, then a fizz, then the tall thin man fell to the ground.

Everyone turned to look at the source of the odd sounds and found that it was none other than Doctor Taverner, who was holding something that resembled a cross between a water pistol and fine china.

“Ah good. ” said Taverner. “I got him. Damned thing is nearly impossible to aim. ”

“What on Earth was that?” said Sir Eddie.

“Oh, just the usual overwrought lunatic, I expect… ” said Taverner.

“Not him….; what did you shoot him with?” ” demanded Todd Aster Milligan , who was “in security” somehow.

“Oh! That. Right. ” said Taverner. “Just a little something some friends and I are working on. A nonlethal takedown device for law enforcement. Entirely ceramic, no metal parts. Sprays a precisely balanced dose of a fast-acting sleep agent. Absolutely fooproof. As lone as you hit open skin, they go down. ”

Todd Aster Milligan approached Taverner and said, in a quietly menacing tone, “I would very much like to examine that device, Doctor Taverner. ”

“Of course. ” said Taverner, handing the device to Todd Aster Milligan. “It’s quite simple. One shot only, I am afraid. Firing it almost always breaks it. As you can see, all it does is drop a pellet containing the propellent into the chamber containing the sleep agent. ”

“And that’s it?” said Todd Aster Milligan.

“That’s it. ” said Taverner. “However, you should know that the formula for making the propellant is known only to its inventor, whom I shall not name, and the formula for making the sleep agent is known only to ITS inventor, who is me. ”

“I see. ” said Todd Aster Milligan, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“But good God, Taverner… ” said Sir Eddie. “why on Earth did you bring it HERE?”.

Taverner bristled at the question, but then relaxed. “Well if you really must know…. I was hoping to use it to impress the charming Miss Friedkin. ”

All eyes were suddenly on a highly shocked Miss Gretka Friedkin, the world reknowned crusading philanthropist and extremely eligible widow.

“Well…..” she began, clearly uncomfortable with the sudden attention. “…seeing as you just used it to save all our lives…. color me impressed!”

Everybody laughed, and the party, which has been nearly dead before the incident, suddenly sprang back to life and lasted till the break of dawn.

Our tall thin fanatic – real named Charles Edward Singer – woke up in a secure mental health facility with only partial memory of what he had done and a newfound zeal for his pledge to never go off his medications ever again.

Sir Eddie decided that he had had QUITE enough excitment for a good long while, and retired from public life to spend more time doing what he really liked to do, namely being a globetrotting sex tourist.

The entity known only as Sigmund enjoyed his fifteen minutes of game very much, but the media moved on to the next new thing, he was secretly relieved. A scholar by nature, he returned to his (after) lifelong pursuit of knowledge, and publishes well researched historical fiction mysteries under the name Jackson Holloway.

And finally, the Associated Skeptics eventually disappeared after successfully doubting its own existance.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.