October 2025

“Your wife, Susan, has invited you to this neutral location to discuss your relationship post... demise. Are you here?” Melissa asked as professionally as possible. 

No response. 

Divan, the septuagenarian charity shop volunteer unhealthily obsessed with his paranormal side-scam, resumed control grandly. “Bring forth your grounding objects, so we may freely commune and find out why this spirit lingers.” 

With shaking hands, Susan reached into her Lush tote bag and retrieved an Oasis vinyl, classic car mug and mahogany box. As she lay each on the table, Divan reverently caressed the offerings. “He is here.” 

“Fabulous,” muttered Melissa. “Susan, why don’t you tell Jason how his recent actions have made you feel?” 

Susan glanced around the bookshelf lined room, eyes roving blindly. “Scared. Oh Jason, I missed you so much but changing the channel on my favourite shows, pulling the covers off in the middle of the night, hurling plates - it’s just not you. Why, Jason?” 

“Is there anything you would like to say to Susan, Jason?” 

The window rattled in the wind. The clock behind the counter ticked. A siren wailed its way passed. Guttering candles sent shadows swaying. 

“We need to concentrate his spirit,” Divan said, a gleeful glint in his eye. “A bodily pentagram.” More sprightly than his appearance suggested, Divan bounced around the shop, pulling out random books. “Head,” he placed an AS Head Start Biology textbook down, followed by Making Hand Shadows and Royal Armoury Guide for arms, followed by Lego Annual and Big Foot’s Adventure for legs. With a wicked grin, he pulled his last book. “Chest,” he said, placing Why Are Blue-footed Boobies Feet Blue? in the centre of the pentagram. 

The temperature dropped faster than a blue-footed booby plunging into the PacificOcean. Breath fogged out of three mouths, swirling towards the central book, solidify into a translucent ball. Divan’s muttering turned to frantic chanting as the ball exploded upwards, shifting and pulling, morphing into a body, but it wasn’t a human one - it was that of a large bird with long neck and large feet. It screamed loud enough to drown out Divan, to knock thoughts out of heads and obscure vision as it dived into the mahogany box. 

The mahogany box which contained Jason’s ashes. 

The bird avatar pulled the dust to undulating sands of groaning corporeal life once more. 

Divan paled and fainted; Melissa rolled her eyes. 

The thing that was once her husband bore down on Susan. Her chair went clattering tot he floor as she launched towards the window. “Jason, this is an Oxfam; get a hold of yourself,” she snapped, throwing open the panes. 

“In my professional opinion,” Melissa added, “you’ve reached the until death do us part section of your vows, marriage counselling is no longer required. Maybe try a grief councillor instead?” With a keening cry, the breeze snatched through the room, gusting what remained of Jason away. 

Melissa sighed heavily; this was why she shouldn’t take jobs on Fiverr.