A seasonal not too scarey ghost story
The Leak at Colliers Hill
Emily the seventeenth century ghost was fed up with the infernal noise. The building work had been going on for centuries and it felt like forever. All she wanted was some peace and quiet to think. Actually the builders were due to finish the house extension in a matter of weeks but with Emily being a ghost, her experience of time is quite different to yours and mine.
You see ghosts move very slowly. Roughly speaking, one minute of human time is about the same as one year for a ghost. Actually ghosts don’t really care about time all that much – its quite irrelevant, so you see they are not in such a hurry as us humans usually are.
Emily was in a spot of bother, and it wasn’t only the building site noises, although they did add to her problem. It was worse than that. Much worse. Let me explain:
Emily lived in an old house called Colliers Hill. She wasn’t born there or anything – that’s just where she was assigned. Human’s and their daft beliefs, they’ve got it all wrong. Humans really do believe that ghosts haunt places that they had lived in during their human life on earth. Rubbish! While we’re on the subject let’s dispel another myth: Ghosts don’t show up and spook you because they are ‘angry spirits’ or ‘it wasn’t their time to die’. Absolute twoddle! They don’t even spook. You see the verb to haunt actually means: “to appear in the same place over and over again”. Well just you think about it. Are you seriously telling me that you don’t haunt the bathroom? The fridge? The biscuit jar?
Anyway where were we?
Ah yes! Now Emily was assigned to Colliers Hill by her head of department to keep an eye on things. Colliers Hill has a lot of history. In fact it is positively steeped in it! Ghosts depend on history for their survival. Think of it like humans needing gravity, which stops everything floating away. Well without history, ghosts would kind of disappear. A ghost does disappear eventually of course, once its assignment is over, but without history it would be a disaster!
Colliers Hill had a suspected leak – and no, I don’t mean gas! One of the builders had got a bit over excited with his super-charged titanium plated 700 watt hammer drill, one day, and had gone right through a wall cavity.
History was slowly leaking out of the hole.
Emily not only had to doing something about this for her own survival, but for the survival of ghosts everywhere. Not to mention the fact that she would fail at her assignement! She would be in disgrace.
Emily walked the corridors, paced the kitchen floor, and visited the bathroom on a number of occasions, trying to think of a solution.
BANG! went someone’s hammer.
CLANG – CLANG! went a spanner as it fell through some scaffolding….
and the whine of that band saw was the final straw for poor Emily – how could anyone concentrate with this racket?
She let out a howl of frustration which no-one heard of course.
Or did they?
Emily turned to see a builder drop his tools with thud and slowly remove his ear protectors. He seemed to be looking directly at her.
Now it may surprise you to learn that ghosts aren’t actually very good at manifesting themselves to the human world. Don’t get me wrong: they can do it and indeed they have done so – after all - we’ve all heard ghosts stories haven’t we? But when was the last time you actually saw one – a ghost, I mean?
The truth is, ghosts don’t know how it happens. It’s a phenomenon, which no ghost can explain. A ghost would be unable do it again if they wanted to. A ghost might well reveal himself to humans over and over again but it would be purely by accident if it did. Most of the time they are unaware that they are even doing it, and the fact is, ghost sightings are quite rare. Something to do with science I suspect. Certain gases mixing with dust particles at a specific temperature……….who knows? Ghosts certainly don’t!
So naturally, Emily was surprised to see a builder staring right at her and slowly edging backwards with wide eyes and gaping mouth. It surprised her even more to discover he was following her movements around the room!
It just so happened that this was the builder who had caused the leak in the wall and they were in the very room where it had happened.
Emily hesitated at first, not sure what to do. The builder was still edging backwards and was almost out of the door. She realised he would soon come to his senses and run and yell for help. Emily did not want to cause a spectacle – this would just make matters worse.
Ghosts much prefer to be discreet, to be honest. They can’t go about their business if they are being eyeballed by silly humans all the time. Imagine how you would feel?
But this builder could be very useful!
“STOP” she yelled.
The builder stopped dead in tracks.
“W-W-W-W-W-Wha?” he stammered back.
Emily explained to the builder about the hole in the wall and that he must repair the damage before history is lost forever. She had to speak quite quickly for a ghost because she did not know how long she would appear for and she needed to get this message across to the builder, before she disappeared from his view. Ghosts are used to speaking very slowly indeed. So this was very difficult for Emily, and not forgetting that the last time she had uttered any spoken word to humans was back in the seventeenth century. They spoke differently back then.
The builder gave an uncomprehending stare. It must have been her seventeenth century language. Or maybe it was her ghostly way of speaking?
She tried explaining again, this time moving closer to him.
This only served to make the builder look all the more uncomprehending - and make his hair stand on end.
Emily was stuck. How was she going to get this builder to do what she needed him to do? She tried one more time to communicate with him. Speaking as carefully and clearly as she could and with all the effort she could muster, she cried:
“ collect your tooooooooools and mend that hooooooole!!!”
To her absolute amazement it seemed to do the trick. The builder turned and saw the hole which Emily had pointed towards, that he had made earlier in the week with his super-charged drill. With shaky hands he grabbed a tube of something called ‘filler’ from his tool bag and smothered the hole with the toothpaste-like stuff that came out of it.
He turned around to check the ghost’s approval, but by now Emily had disappeared again.
For the rest of the day that builder walked around in a daze, not sure what to make of what he had seen. Interestingly, he decided not to make any more holes in that house!
Emily the seventeenth century ghost was relieved, to put it mildly. She had secured the history of Colliers Hill for another few centuries. She was also pleased with herself that she solved the problem all by herself. She knew her assignment would soon be over….and she would ascend to heaven.
Well at least, that’s what she’d been told. Truth is, no-one really knows where ghosts go after their assignments are completed…….
But Emily couldn’t wait to find out.
THE END!!
Written for Colliers Hill Conference Centre and Guest House by Colin Feesey.
