Riviera

Ever since his discovery of the board and what it could do, his hobby changed.

It started at a jumble sale. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking at until the nice old gentleman smiled and explained what it was for. The old guy seemed to be quite an expert. He explained that the word Ouija came from an ancient Egyptian word, meaning ‘good luck’. He then went on to say that there was a rumour about how it was named. The story went that a well-known medium once asked the board to name itself. He had chuckled and said that he didn’t believe it himself. That morning, the conversation went on for some time. The man found it hard to believe that his customer had never heard of the board before. From his own perspective, considering his general lack of social interactions, he wasn’t surprised that the subject was completely new to him.

Anyway, that’s how it all started. After paying a pittance for it, he left, making straight for home. He couldn’t wait to spend computer time learning everything there was to know about the thing he’d purchased.

Looking back later, he realised that it was that same day that his usual pastime of playing puzzle video games solo, on his computer in the evenings, was about to change… forever.

As a bit of a loner in his mid-twenties, he’d landed a reasonably well-paid clerical position with a finance company after leaving school and was never really short of money. Because he was neither particularly interested in girls or any kind of social life, his somewhat solitary existence was spent doing whatever he wanted to do. As a result, over the following weeks, his evenings were almost exclusively directed to the business of getting to know all there was to know about the board.

Once this was done, he spent time scouring the obituary columns and noted the names of a number of recently deceased people who had held senior positions in financial institutions. Creating a short list of those he considered to be the best, he began work on what he regarded to be the master plan for his future.

Coming to the board, as he did, with no preconceived ideas about it, other than what the old man had told him, he contacted a number of spirits with relative ease. He had no doubts about the veracity of the board and what it was capable of. The planchette flew around the board and he made steady progress towards what he had planned.

Eventually, having been in touch with these over an extended period, striking up relevant conversations regarding matters of finance, enabling him to gather expert advice regarding stocks and shares, all aspects of his plan took shape. Over a few short years, you could say he became very comfortably off, and it was time for him to retire.

He left the company, packed his belongings, along with his much-loved board, flew out to the French Riviera where he had purchased a coastal villa with a panoramic view of the Mediterranean Sea.

On the subject of ‘used by dates’, as precious as his board had been, he no longer needed it.