Notorious - John Jones (read after .TXT) 📗

well-worn carpet with a cheap, pre-owned hand-held hoover, and giving the coffee table a quick wipe with a cloth. The man had taken several pictures of him in various positions, and had questioned him about his psychic detection.

 

Curio had mentioned the other aspects of his talents as well, and it was all written down by the journalist who seemed genuinely interested. With national distribution he hoped the phone would ring more often, yet, he knew he had to get himself transport. Perhaps until he did, he wondered, only do readings with those people who were willing to travel up to the North-West. Where to meet though, that was a problem.

 

He thought about enquiring into whether he should find premises to do his readings, set himself up with a little stall somewhere. There was also the predicament he would have regarding his rent. At present, because he was receiving jobseekers allowance, his rent was paid for by housing benefit, but should he ask for more assistance in setting himself up with premises, then he knew the benefits agency would discover his added income.

 

His allowance may be stopped altogether or reduced. He would cross that bridge if it came, he thought, but with such publicity as this, his aspirations where enhanced by his further success, and the time, he hoped was coming closer when he could finally leave this ‘fucking dump’, as he often thought of it.

 

His prestige he knew was increasing, as was his talent, and he hoped to make enough money soon to buy himself driving lessons to pass the test to buy a cheap second-hand runaround which would mean more access to more clients. How he wished he’d kept his lessons up before entering university. He wondered where he would be now if he had. Living in a posh house? Mingling with celebrities? Still, he thought, turning around and sitting at his computer, there was plenty of time to enjoy the kudos that his eminence would bring.

 

After a few minutes, he was reading through the ‘Uncanny kingdoms’ message board, but found no response to his request for information regarding the book he was intending to write proving the reality of the paranormal. He had decided to put that on hold for a while until he was more practised and further understood the forces and energies he was dealing with. Checking his email, he saw that he had two new messages. One from an electrical company with new special offers. The other from Ribbet.

 

Before he opened it, he stood up and walked into the kitchen and put two slices of bread in a toaster he had bought three months ago from a market. He had an hour before another reading, a Mr P. Merryll who was half an hour’s bus ride away. After a few minutes, he was sat back at his computer, opening Ribbet’s email and crunching toast. ‘Dear Curio,

I think I have reached my limit. I have regressed to all the previous lives I once had. There must have been around fifteen. Everytime I try now, there is darkness. The one thing I understand they all had in common was the pleasure I had in causing harm to others. Yet, I did not deliberately seek to do this. I suppose I just get a little heavy-handed at times. Sometimes if somebody looks at me in a strange way, or if they bump into me, I get so irritated. I used to be a night-club bouncer, but it got to be quite exhaustive, and I was sacked. Sacked? Well I’ll have to give credit to the fella that told me this, but he still ended up in hospital in intensive care. Is this going to be my legacy Curio? When I die, am I still going to have these tendencies in the next life? The strange thing is, I hope I do, but I don’t know why. They say I’m here for my own safety and the safety of others, but I heard a rumour that changes are being made, and that there are going to be transfers. Those on best behaviour, like me, will have a good chance of being released, and when that happens, I’ll be able to come and visit you, Curio. I’d like that. We can chat away and discuss ideas. If I am right, then could you send me your address. I hope to hear from you, and see you soon.

Yours

Ribbet.’

Curio shook his head. No way, No way, he thought. A prisoner with violent tendencies. There’s nothing to think about. He typed his reply:

 

‘Dear Ribbet,

Yes, In the next life you probably will have these kinds of tendencies again, as you obviously have now. I would like to thank-you Ribbet for sharing your experiences with me, and hope that one day you do not feel like harming anybody. Perhaps whoever locked you away was right, and you need to stay where you are for the safety of others. I would prefer it if you did not meet with me, and I choose not to send you my address. In fact, please do not email me again. Thank-you, Curio’.

 

He clicked ‘send’, shook his head again, wondering where Ribbet was. Was he in another country? or just a few miles away? That was an interesting facet of the internet, he thought, the fact that you could communicate with anybody across the globe within seconds. Maybe Ribbet was playing with him, and was in the flat above, giggling over his keyboard. He did not know any of his neighbours, and would not recognise most of them if he passed them in the street.

 

His instinct told him that Ribbet was real. He was a psychopath who had been rewarded for his good behaviour. ‘Alright Ribbet, we’ll let you use a computer’. ‘Ok, we’ll let you film yourself regressing, but don’t forget your tablets when you're done’. He hoped never to see Ribbet. He was another ‘voice’ in cyberspace, another faceless individual hiding behind the screen, playing the tough guy, when in reality, he was probably a spotty, dribbling little boy with absolutely nothing better to do. Curio hoped he was, and not the image of a red faced, muscle bound, tattooed thug he had in mind.

He shut down the computer, and stood at the window, looking down at a man with a car bonnet up, looking confused at the intricate workings of the engine. The crunch of toast was the only sound in his flat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

40

 

 

Ominous clouds gathered, threatening rain, but Malcolm and Melissa did not notice the change in weather, as they were in a small, curtained room, dominated by a round table.

In the middle of that table was a crystal ball, and that was surrounded by tarot cards.

Melissa was stood nearby, the camcorder wrapped in masking tape and new film inside.

 

Malcolm kept glancing at it as Mystical Aurora, real name Jean Williams, clasped his left hand, and looked deep in concentration. She was an elderly lady, who looked to be in her early seventies. She wore a glamorous dress which was covered in symbols from the zodiac, and each finger had a glittering ring. Around each wrist were many bracelets, many of them with charms. She wore crystals around her neck, some attached to a headband.

 

Melissa had enquired about these and was told that the energy from the crystals could be deciphered through brainwaves, or the power of thought. It was easier for her to contact the deceased, or to read a persons future. She liked to think of the crystals as giving her a seventh sense. This was the second medium Malcolm had been to try and contact his father again, deliberately not mentioning his mother, or Ian. He did not wish to explain why, and doing so would give them fuel for their readings. The other had been useless. It was basically standard fare. He told him exactly what he thought Malcolm wanted to hear. Yes, he was happy. Yes, he was in a better place, yes, he told Malcolm not to worry about him.

 

Suddenly his father was speaking to him again, he had thought, so had decided to try one more. He knew there were many sharks out there willing to take people’s money to tell them what they wished to hear. Perhaps they were paying for peace of mind. Either way, the medium in that case knew exactly what they were doing, and played to the weaknesses of those who believed what they were told.

 

There was always somebody willing to relieve the gullible of their money, no matter what it was, no matter how low in society’s perception. If there was money to be made in certain areas, then the shark’s sense it like they sense a trace of blood in the water. He hoped this medium was ‘genuine’, which meant that if they were not in touch with spirits, or anything supernatural, he hoped they were deluded into thinking that they were. There was always an alternative account to what the medium felt, and when there could be no explanation, other than what they believed, then that would be the proof of paranormal reality.

 

Eliminate all other possible explanations, and if you are left with only one, then this was evidence of that which would not be described scientifically. Malcolm hoped that that window, that one account that could not be answered by any other means meant it was a direct route to the spirit world, and Aurora was in connection with it, as was Curio. If Aurora told him that his father was not happy with him for not sacrificing himself, then he would be quite impressed. It would mean he would seek out another medium, believe the other to be a shark, and choose carefully those mediums who looked to be in the profession for their genuine belief, not to make money from the gullible. If subsequent mediums all told him that his father was unhappy with him, then he would begin to believe more, but he guessed that they would only generalise. What they said could be widespread enough to include everybody. The gullible would find meaning in it that could be geared to them.

 

Rather like reading a horoscope. Read them all on one day and in each there will be something that each person could find that related to them. Cover up the dates and words, jumble up the texts for each of them, then pick out which one you could most relate to, and there would be a one in twelve chance that you would be correct, that it would be your sign.

 

Malcolm couldn’t help but believe that those psychics that believed themselves to be ‘genuine’, actually thought they had a gift, thought they had some form of connection, of link direct to the spirit world, or to what the scientific community had not proven to be real, or factual. A lot of them he thought were simply deluding themselves. Images in their minds and voices were activated by their willingness to believe, and by an active subconscious mind that gave the consciousness what it deemed to be related to the subject given to them at the time.

 

Haunted houses simply meant stories passed around of active spirits in that place, but there was never any collective sightings. Only one person susceptible to believing, and especially the mediums who thought they were psychic, were usually the only witnesses to the ‘ghost’. If many people saw the same ghost, at the same time, then credibility would be due, but Malcolm had always thought he had to see it to believe it, and belief in the spirit world for Malcolm was closer than he had ever thought possible. Curio had taught him that. Curio seemed to have been much more close. If there was only one genuine psychic with a direct link to the spirit world, and to his father, then Curio was it. His father had told him through Curio to go and see ‘Ian’, and