Ghosts, Pt. 1: Ghosts and Objects

There is an antique store near my work that I occasionally walk past.... Only if I miss my main bus and I don't feel like waiting for twenty minutes. Sometimes even though the walk to the light rail station will take just as long as or longer than waiting for the bus, I just want to move.

One day I took pictures of the outside of the antique shop as I walked. All the images of interesting old stuff and shaky reflections from the streets made me think of ghosts. I would imagine antique shops would be a hot bed of ghost activity. All that accumulation of old things, once considered precious by someone long ago, together in one place. I can imagine all the ghosts coming out at night. They would slither from old vases or pop out of slightly ajar dresser drawers. They would get together and mingle in the aisles of the store. They'd drape them self on the old floral fainting couch. They would hover around the gramophone, waiting for ghost music to begin. The mean ghosts would knock over valuable china and porcelain. The bored ghosts would try to slip underneath the door to get outside to the breeze, but they'd be trapped to the store until their haunted item sold. 

It seems strange that there aren't more tales of haunted antique shops. After all, there are plenty of stories of haunted objects. The best haunted object story of course is the infamous Twilight Zone episode about Talking Tina!

I read a story about another haunted doll, this one though is supposedly true! A mother, feeling nostalgic for her college aged daughter's childhood, bought an old Raggedy Anne doll. She gave the floppy, grinning toy to her daughter. The daughter told her mother she liked the gift, although maybe the daughter was just being gracious, knowing her mother missed her dearly. The daughter kept the old doll in her apartment that she shared with her roommate.

Soon, strange occurrences began to happen. The roommates found crinkled pieces of parchment paper with scrawled bits of messy writing, the writing of clumsy handed child. I don’t know what the writing said, but hopefully nothing so sinister as “I’m talking Raggedy Anne doll and I’m he going to kill you!” (Like scary Talking Tina!) The doll seemed to gain the ability of mobility. The two roommates would find the creepy toy in all sorts of strange places. They were certain they had not moved the awful doll. After seeing the doll standing on her soft raggedy legs as if she were a real child with bones and muscles, the women were convinced, the doll was supernatural!

The only course of action was to talk to someone with expertise in these matters. So the roommates consulted a medium. With an aura of confidence and mystique, the medium diagnosed the supernatural problem. The doll was haunted by a ghostly girl named Annabelle who had died in the apartment. Annabelle was ever so lonely and scared. She only wanted to have friends she could call her own. With soft hearts, the two college students agreed to let little Annabelle stay in their home.

But soon, Annabelle’s antics took a sinister turn! Instead of being sweet, she became a maniac. Her ghostly mischief took a turn toward the violent when she cruelly attacked one of the roommate’s gentlemen callers. The roommates regretted their decision to let Annabelle stay, and questioned the abilities of the medium.

The roommates decided to turn to a more reliable form of psychic help. They talked to Ed and Lorraine Warren, who were a psychic duo with a good reputation. The Warrens scoffed at the notion that the doll was just sweet, innocent Annabelle! Instead, the doll was possessed by a true demon. The demon wanted to sink his claws into one of the women, to possess her and once again have a worldly body to do evil deeds.

The Warrens took the creepy doll with them back to their supernatural museum. Instead of destroying the wretched doll and banning the demon back to the fiery pits of hell, they kept the doll. They encased it in a glass enclosure with a sign that says “Warning: Positivity do not open.” These Warrens seem a little naïve. If the demon can wriggle its way into a doll and possess it, I think it won’t have trouble wriggling out of a glass enclosure. As far as I know, glass doesn’t hold some sort of anti-demon magic. The two roommates must have been relieved to no longer have to face the sinister doll living in their apartment.


Source:
Jenkins, Beverly. "10 Most Haunted Objects Of All Time (haunted Items, Haunted Dolls) - ODDEE." Oddee RSS. Oddee, 18 Aug. 2013. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.<http://www.oddee.com/item_98684.aspx>