I had decided to investigate my Scots Irish ancestry and was touring Scotland on the Yellow Bus but it had rained almost every day. I never removed my leather jacket for the whole month of June. Now I was booked on the morning ferry crossing the Irish Sea to Belfast, but first i would spend a night in the picturesque seaside town of Oban.
The youth hostel stood in a 18th century stone building which had a converted stable out back. I had opted for an early night in my top bunk when I heard the three Swedish girls stagger in around midnight. The bed quaked as one of them bedded down in the bunk below me. I drifted back to sleep but soon woke again to heavier shaking.
A woman was climbing the ladder but it wasn't the Swedish backpacker. I was facing the wall with my back to the ladder as she hauled herself over the side, a voluptuous redhead in a lowcut dress festooned with bows and flounces. The strange part was, she seemed to know me as she wrapped an arm around, hissing into my ear "So! You're back!"
I had a sudden flash that in a past life I had been a young sailor and she was my girlfriend. I had shipped out one day forever after which her life hadn't gone well and here she still was, an angry ghost.
I may be tall in this lifetime but I'm not a man anymore. For a minute, though, I felt like one: pinned to the wall, grimly cognizant of how womanly passions could become twisted over the centuries by grief and frustration.
She hadnt changed much since the 18th century and still clung to me like a barnacle. From some pocket she pulled out a comb fashioned from fish skeleton and tried to jam it between my teeth. Choking and gasping, I recalled some advice on what to do in case of spiritual attack. Try it next time this happens to you:
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