Ever since she was a kid, she liked playing with the Ouija board.
When she lived with her parents, they obviously weren’t too keen with her spending so much time with it, on the basis that enabling the dead to make contact with the living wasn’t at all natural. Despite this, sometimes she managed to have a friend come around and they would spend time with it in her room. This less-than-ideal situation was rectified when she moved into her own apartment. Here, after work, she could spend as much time as she liked sitting in her small lounge room, moving the planchette around in order to spell messages. Although in the past she had experienced a number of successful communications with the other side, this had moved on significantly to a point where the board itself was being bypassed.
At first, the voices that she was hearing were just mumblings and hardly audible, but over time they grew stronger and more coherent. Of course, there were times when she had doubts about whether she was actually hearing such things or just imagining them. The credulity of it all was put to the test the evening she received an explicit request.
After a long stint of using the board to confirm that she had understood what was being asked of her, she turned to her little-used laptop to carry out the necessary research, as it involved buying something and taking it somewhere.
She was being asked to take a single stemmed yellow chrysanthemum to a specific location. It had to be placed on a small bench, located at the farthest point from the entrance of a large fenced park on the other side of town. This being a place that she’d never visited before.
The request came at very short notice. This had to happen on the following day, just before twelve o’clock. As a result of this, she decided to phone in sick in the morning. She felt sure that taking a day off wouldn’t be a problem. She would also have to contact local florists to ensure that they had what she wanted.
All this was managed and she had made her way to the park with a few minutes in hand. As she entered, she was surprised to find it quite empty. It was likely, she thought, that when people came out from the local businesses it would begin to fill. No doubt, the timing of what she was doing, would be related to this observation.
She hoped that the park seat she was heading for was unoccupied. As she made her way across a great expanse of grass, she was able to make out that it was. On arrival, she removed the wrapping and deposited the flower.
No mention had been made as to what was supposed to happen after the request had been fulfilled. This being the case, and because this event may well dispose of any doubts she had about the veracity of what she had become involved with, she had also brought a small lunchbox with sandwiches. She found a spot not too far from the bench and sat down with her lunch. A few minutes later, some distance away, a single figure was making its way through the park. It was a woman. She was surprisingly young and very attractive, dressed in formal office attire. She too was carrying a small bag.
Arriving at the seat, she stood facing it for several long moments before sitting down holding the stem with both hands, looking around. The flower provider eyed the woman without displaying any particular interest. The woman could be seen continually smelling the blossom and holding it against herself, while the movement of her head showed that she was sobbing.
The Ouija board owner surreptitiously stood and made her way out of the park.
As she went, she couldn’t help wondering what the future held for her now…