by owencarpenter-zehe
I first began to feel suspicious of a haunting when objects around the house began to disappear. I’d place my mug on the counter, turn my back, then poof it would be gone. The drawer to my desk would be full in the evening, but empty when i would wake up. Something just didn’t feel right.
It soon progressed further, with my glass cabinets shattering after i walked by them. Obviously, i tried to install new panes of glass. But every time i’d hold up the new pane to measure, it would just shatter again. I tried this 26 times, and everytime it shattered.
It was really digging into my savings. Additionally, when i was sleeping, i began to have intense dreams about milton’s paradise lost. I would dream myself as adam, in the garden, as satan, in all his hot glory, blows the whole thing up. I would wake up kneeling on the floor, covered in sweat, as if i was doing a squat workout. It was beginning to affect my life. I couldn’t sleep, i couldn’t eat, and i couldn’t walk in my kitchen because of all the broken glass; something had to change. I needed to inves- tigate. Something had to be going on.
On october 1st, a random book happened to arrive in my mailbox. This book was entitled the great controversy. The book itself tells a heavily biased story of the once tu- multuous relationship that is now “stronger than ever,” between the u.s. And the vatican. It was written by ellen white, one of the founders of the seventh-day adventist church. Pretty much every word in this book is conservative propaganda, so i blew it off as i would normally. Little did i know the pesky conservatives had a trick up their sleeve.
It clicked. The mug that disappeared was decorated with “god sucks” in garamond. The drawer that went empty contained all my marxist texts. Finally, the glass from the cabinets was made by millennial artisans with tattoos… All the things god hates most! I checked my apple watch records, and my late-night workouts were actually me kneeling, standing up, and sitting down as if i was attending mass!
Sherlock style, i went into my mind palace to assemble all the pieces like a jigsaw puzzle. Waving my hands back and forth, i deduced that the great controversy was the source of the haunting. The conservatives had imbued the book with the literal holy spirit. God himself was haunting me!
Once the identity of the specter was identified, i made it my mission to befriend him. I left out all his favorite things to try and locate him; i left abstinence pamphlets, holy water from the tap, and a portrait of mike birbiglia. The holy ghost ate it up like candy.
He immediately appeared in a visible form and i was able to commune with him. I sat him down and calmly explained that we are in the 21st century, and he needs to update with the times.
After some back and forth, he conceded. He then removed himself from the great controversy and place himself into a copy of middlesex i’ve been meaning to read. Finally, the book began to float out the door to travel to the next haunting victim. This time, it will be different though, he’s going to haunt as a newly liberal god.