Last night, while meandering aimless through what’d been up to that juncture a pretty mundane dream, my night visions verve was upped a notch by a visit from my Great Uncle Hector’s ghost.
Initially I didn’t recognise my late forebear as his face was masked by a cricket helmet. His identity only unveiled when he advocated to me in his unmistakeable West Yorkshire tones “If you win the toss, Gary, I’d bat first.”
Distracted by his idiosyncratic batsman’s helmet, which bore left and right car indicators and a sign on the rear warning ‘If you can’t see my mirrors, I can see you’, I didn’t question why he felt the need to share that advocacy. His advice made all the more bizarre by the fact I wasn’t even playing cricket in the dream.
During his short visit, prior to evaporating genie-like into one of the pockets on a dressing gown hanging forlornly on the back of the bedroom door, Hector disclosed a version of Facebook for those in the afterlife was due to be trialled within the next fortnight.
His parting wail was to assure me if the project gets rolled out to ‘our side’ he’d invite me as a friend. Startled at such a proposition, I informed him I’d only accept it if he promised not to invite me into a game of Candy Crush.
Knowing they bore me rigid, he assured me there’d be no invite to play any games whatsoever. Adding he’d some afterlife photos he wanted to show me; in particular one of him and David Bowie playing table tennis. Not to mention a recent selfie with TV presenter Richard Madeley’s long demised sincerity.
Hector also spoke of sharing video footage from his audition for ‘The Other World Has Talent’, His ‘party piece’ being the construction of a Simon Cowell depiction in balloon form.
What’d played out in night vision was the typical non-mainstream behaviour Hector bequeathed the family pre-mortum.
Amongst the quirky acts he undertook during his life, Heck converted his budgie Tufty to Judaism. An act leading to renaming his feathered friend Havel. A move incurring him a significant monetary outlay for an avian bar mitzvah; including a £1,500 bill for kosher millet spray.
Great Uncle Hector was relative on my maternal grandmother’s side, and bears the accolade of being the first family member to visit the Great Wall of China. Incidentally, that’s not the mammoth construction in Asia whose vastness stretches over 13,000 miles.
No, I’m referring to the Chinese takeaway on Edgar Road in the town of Betterstone. An eatery of dubious hygiene standards which recently closed down after Public Health officials felt moved to facetiously rename it the Salmonella Inflictor of China.
It’s the first time Great Uncle Hector’s ghost has visited me during a dream, although I think he once appeared during my waking hours. I could be mistaken. though. as the white apparition floating around my back garden bore the writing ‘Tesco – Every Little Helps’, so was more likely a supermarket carrier bag.
After her mother passed away in 2018, my estranged wife Karen asked if I believed loved one’s spirits returned to walk at our sides. Spectres influencing how our future existential plot lines unfold. Even though I’m hugely sceptical whether such hocus focus does actually play out, opining it’s prudent to keep an open mind about the possibility, I informed her I’d no idea .
That being said, me suffering a cardiac arrest within a month of her mum’s funeral has swayed me more towards the possibility of spirits existing……. I just hope she doesn’t come back anytime soon to finish what she started!!
A consummate raconteur, Great Uncle Hector is welcome to connect anytime he likes. although I’m not convinced it’ll be via the afterlife Facebook trial mentioned in last night’s dream. An event I’d venture which’ll never get rolled out to living loved ones.
Anyhow, as I’m having my leprechaun-like toenails shorn shortly, I need to make tracks…… Adieu until tomorrow!
