Ouija

A man saw a Ouija board for sale at a department store and bought it because he and his wife had been thinking about their son, who had been killed in a car accident almost a year before. They were very sad, of course, and they missed their son. And they liked a song the singer Lou Reed sang about using a Ouija board to contact the spirit of the late poet Delmore Schwartz, who had been Reed’s college professor and mentor. Reed sang about how he and his wife got the out their Ouija board and were happy and amazed when the pointer zoomed around and spelled the word “Delmore.” The song is called “My House.” Reed was comforted by the thought that the ghost of his old friend lived in his house. It made everything perfect, he said.

A year to the day after the death of his son, the man took out the Ouija board and put it on the kitchen table. He and his wife lit candles and cried and turned the lights off and sat down at either side of the Ouija board.

They rested their fingers on the edge of the plastic triangular dial that came with the board — gently, holding their palms aloft like it said to in the instructions — and looked into each other’s eyes without blinking. Together, carefully enunciating in one voice, they recited the questions they’d agreed upon. They called their son by name and asked him if he could he hear them. They asked where he was, whether or not he was happy where he was, whether or not he was any longer in pain.

Nothing happened. The dial didn’t zoom around. It didn’t move much at all except for a few times when one or the other of them flinched from the tiredness of holding their hands aloft — the instructions recommended waiting five minutes per question.

After half-an-hour or so, they stopped. Their wrists hurt. The man put the board away. The woman put a big glass pan of lasagna in the oven. Lasagna was the boy’s favorite.

Later that night, as they were lying in bed, not sleeping, they laughed to themselves at the idea of trying to contact their son.

But the man found himself feeling a strange, wordless sort of anger. He was angry at himself. For letting even a little bit of hope rest in such a silly idea. And he was was angry at Lou Reed, he realized.

But not just that.

(Previously.)