Essex [the bad familiar]

12: Madame Govender's Guide to the Unliving

ESSEX MADE THE 2018 WATTYS LONGLIST!!! Not sure how or what alternate universe I woke up into, lol, but here we are. If you love it as much as I do, please feel free to share the story (after all, you and Wattpad have great taste)! 

Madame Govender's Guide to the Unliving

Understanding the Grave Consequences. 12th edition. Updated for 21st readers by  Octavia Renshaw-Govender; great grand daughter.

Chapter 11. Section 3C: On Cursed Objects

Existence is a curious state. Existence after you've stopped breathing? Curiouser. Practically heroic, if one were the sort inclined towards research and lists. Invisibility, shape shifting, near immortality, the ability to pass through walls or any object of your fancy, the conversational prowess to chat with others far beyond your time, an impervious nature toward being hit with *most* metals, the ability to make pets sit in corners and thus send their owners into a fit, being lucky enough to even get to chose between spinning pottery and spinning heads....

Cursed objects are one of those things that, in the last fleeting moments of life, with your dying breath, ascribe to the saying, "seemed like a good idea at the time."

Phenomenal cosmic powers, the ability to see the world without fear of being stabbed in some alley or becoming infected with malaria, ... itty bitty living space.

In short, the spectral after life is everything you dream about as a child. And as with childhood imaginations, the consequences and rules are often unknown until the player is fully committed to the game.

Those curiosities, however, are far less exhilarating once you realize you're attached to some, often meaningless, object that your soul had latched onto in a last ditch effort to stay seated on its throne of quickly expiring offal. For you see, the grand and glorious Soul, the essence of existence, the chi, ka, spirit, the force that feeds our marrow, tended on most days — particularly those days where it hadn't intended to pack its bags and gosh, look at that blue sky and this long list of things I want to do!— well, it tends to be a bit of home body.

The objects possessed are often just as much a curse to the attached as they are to the hapless idiot who supposes the dead man no longer possesses much of a need for a Elgin Hunters 14k rose gold pocketwatch.

Field research (footnote and references on following page) indicates roughly .00037% of unexpected deaths results in a cursed object. Of these extraordinary cases, only a similar percentage survives beyond fifty years. Data is of course limited to known cursed objects.

Such known objects are typically discovered and destroyed by ghost hunters after a spirit becomes, say, fed up with flickering in and out of existence beside an old oak tree for the ten thousandth time. Spiritual mischief is often a cry for attention and may be dealt with accordingly. Violence, however, is a sign that the spirit itself has been corrupted. Internal and external factors are often in play. Little is understood as to the progression of this disease.

 Time as well makes a suitable reaper for spirits attached to objects, but the most unexpected 'death' for a spirit often comes from those between the ages of "But whhhhy?" and "How come I've got to write the equation if my calculator can do it for me?" 

Many an unwatched child has been known to knock a hundred year old vase over, hug a sculpture or lose a pretty pocket watch to a particularly rousing game of hide'n'seek around the river (and in more recent years, a wizard who shall not be named set a few on path of seeking and destroying 'horcruxes' -- Renshaw-Govender). 

Most objects disintegrate or fall prey to the above intended or unintended consequences of ghastly encounters.

Objects extremely resistant to the rot of time hold the most corrupt spirits. Therefore, it is of critical importance that cursed objects of certain age and endurance be immediately destroyed. Release of these spirits is neither humane nor compassionate. Destruction is necessary. To release this creature from its cursed object is to set a hyena loose in a hospital nursery.