Birthday ghost story entry time! But it’s my 50th birthday today! That means… I’m old. Lawd, I’m old. Alas… I hope you enjoy this as much as I had fun writing it. Some of the items are real items (or real-ish items) from my own past. Happy birthday to me!
The Ring camera picked up motion on the doorstep at three thirty in the morning. Watching the playback on my phone sleepy-eyed in bed I could see a dark shadow moving away from the door, but nothing else.
“Put away your phone and sleep,” my wife said sleepily. “You’re not allowed to start your birthday until 6am.”
“Is that a new rule?” I said, the randomness of the comment clearing my sleepy brain just enough.
“Yes,” she said and flailed an arm at me in a half-hearted attempt to dislodge the phone from my hand. I took the hint, put my phone back on the nightstand and curled up against her.
When I did get up after 6am, I verified the front door was still locked (it was) and then I unlocked and opened it. Outside on our “Hello There” doormat with Obi Wan Kenobi’s face on it was a large gift-wrapped box.
“Honey? Did you get me something?” I called over my shoulder.
Veronica bounced into the room with the vigor only someone who looked forward to an early morning Pilates class can muster. “I did but…” she looked at the gift. “That’s not it.”
I lifted the box – it was heavy! – and set it on the living room table. Veronica and I stared at it for a long time. “Should I…”
“Open it?” she finished. “Yeah. I mean… maybe there’s a card inside?”
“Good idea.” I ripped into the paper, surprised how thick it was – this wasn’t some Dollar Store wrapping paper. I almost felt bad ripping it. Almost.
When the paper was stripped away there was… a brown cardboard box. No labels, no stickers, taped shut.
“A box,” I said in as flat a tone as I could muster. “Just what I always wanted…”
“Open the box, you goof,” Veronica threw a pillow at me.
I used a key to cut the tape and open the top flats to reveal…
Another box.
But this one was a wooden box. With tarnished brass corners, the worn wood looked almost purple and the grain stood out prominently. I hoisted the box out of the cardboard with a groan and serious effort.
“Tell me it’s your 50th birthday without telling me it’s your 50th birthday,” Veronica teased.
“Hey,” I said defensively. “It’s very heavy!”
“Yes, dear,” she said, hiding her smile in her coffee cup.
The box itself had no markings, just the tarnished brass corners and hinges. I ran my hand over the wood and couldn’t find any screws or obvious joinery. On the front there was a hasp that held it closed. Veronica found it first and tried to unlatch it.
“Geez, won’t budge,” she grunted and then snatched her hand away. “Ow! I broke a nail!”
“Tell me you’re 45 without telling me you’re 45,” I said.
“It’s not funny when you say it,” she sneered.
I reached for the clasp and it slid unlocked effortlessly. “Whoa, that’s weird…”
“What the…” Veronica stared at the mechanism. “You saw…” she stammered.
“Yeah,” I said, equally amazed. “I saw.”
With the clasp unlocked I reached for the lid portion and lifted it open on its hinges.
Inside the box rested a green plush turtle puppet.
“A turtle puppet…” Veronica said, raising an eyebrow. “Big, fancy wooden box for a $10 puppet?” Then she looked at my face. “Jamie?”
My mouth hung slack as my I couldn’t take my eyes away from the contents of the box. I gingerly reached in for the puppet and drew it out like I was holding a puppy.
“Jamie? What’s the deal with the puppet?”
“This…” I stammered, trying to put into words everything about the turtle. “I saw it in a gift shop when I was six. I wanted it so badly. My mom said no, and I cried and cried and cried.”
“Over a turtle?”
“He can pull his head and legs in!” I put my hand in the puppet and retracted the head and legs into the soft plush shell, all the while the smile on my face so wide it started to hurt. But I couldn’t stop smiling!
“Over a turtle…” she said again, clearly not understanding the earth-shattering nature of a puppet turtle retracting its head and legs for a six-year-old boy in that gift shop.
“My parents went back and bought the turtle and I got it for Christmas when I was… seven? Eight? I stared at the turtle and found myself absently petting the plush toy. “I don’t remember what happened to it…”
“It’s clearly been sitting in that musty box,” Veronica said. “Seriously, though,” she smiled. “I’m glad you were reunited with your long, lost turtle. Does it have a name?”
“Turtle,” I said.
“You clearly hadn’t come into your creativity yet…” she sighed. She got up, kissed me and said, “I’ve got Pilates. Happy birthday, honey. I’ll see you in a bit.” And bounced out the door.
I cradled the turtle and stared at the box for a long time until the growling in my stomach told me I hadn’t had my own coffee yet.
An hour later, Veronica bounced back into the house. “I’m home,” she called. “I have birthday donuts!”
I met her in the living room with my second cup of coffee. “What makes them birthday donuts?”
“It’s your birthday and they’re donuts. Don’t overthink it, Jamie,” she opened the pink box for me to choose my favorite glazed donut.”
We sat around the big wooden box and quietly ate our donuts.
“Did you lock it again?” Veronica said around a bite of apple fritter.
“No…”
“She pointed the fritter at the front of the box. “The latch is engaged again.”
“That’s weird,” I said, wiping the sugar off my hands and reaching for the clasp. It opened effortlessly again.
“Show off,” Veronica said as I lifted the lid.
Inside was a snow hat with comical plush Viking horns attached. I lifted it out gingerly.
“Wait,” Veronica started, “I’ve seen that hat…”
Mouth agape again, eyes wide, I stared at the hat. “Yeah, you saw that picture of me.”
“Teenage Jamie, victorious and muddy in the snow?” she smiled. “You were so cute! But, that hat…”
I looked from the hat to the box and back. “That wasn’t in there earlier – it was just the turtle.”
“I know,” Veronica agreed. “I looked.”
“I have no idea where this hat ended up. I loved it. It was so silly and fun…”
“Just like the picture,” Veronica said smiling. “This would be ridiculously wholesome if it wasn’t so creepy.”
She was right. It was creepy.
But I still put the hat on.
A few hours later I heard a commotion in the living room. “Ow! Another nail?!”
I came in to find Veronica wrestling with the latch on the box. “What’s going on?”
“I saw it was latched again and figured there was a trick to opening it. And I proceeded to break another nail. How did you manage it?”
“I didn’t. It just,” I reached down and barely touched the brass latch and it gave way, “Did that.”
“I really hate you, Jaime,” Veronica said.
“You’re not allowed to hate me on my birthday.”
“New rule?” She asked.
“You got one, I’ve got one now,” I smiled lifting the lid and gasped.
“What is it?”
I reached in and lifted a gold watch, turning it over in my hands, examining the face. “It can’t be…” I said.
“It’s a gold watch…”
“It’s my dad’s watch,” I said, experimentally strapping it around my wrist.
“You never said anything about a watch…”
“I didn’t have it long,” I said. “My mom gave it to me after he died, shortly before I went to college. It got stolen out of my dorm room.”
“You’re sure it’s that watch? That specific watch? Not just a similar one?”
I rubbed my fingernail over the crystal face of the watch and felt the familiar scratch. “It’s the same watch.”
Veronica looked from me to the box and back. “Jamie, what the hell is up with this box?” she said very seriously.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know.”
We left the room and came right back and looked at the box. Still unlocked. Veronica came back in alone, then I did alone; still unlocked. We both left and drove around the block before racing back inside to find the box… still unlocked. I took the cardboard outside to the bin, came back inside and the box was locked again.
“The hell?”
“It’s locked!” Veronica exclaimed.
“It’s locked! And you were here when I went outside?”
“Just sitting right here.”
“And you didn’t notice?”
She tilted her head and gave me a look. “Yeah, Jamie, I sat here and watched the damn box lock itself and didn’t say anything. No, I didn’t notice!”
We both stared at it before Veronica yelled, “Open it!”
“Okay, okay,” I touched the clasp and it disengaged again. I opened the box and reached inside and pulled out a single key on a Disney keychain of Pumba the warthog.
“A key?”
“Holy shit…” I said.
“There’s an explanation here…”
“This was the key to my motorcycle.”
“The one you wrecked when you broke your leg?”
“The same. The key was in the ignition when they hauled it off. I was always mad I didn’t take it…”
“I mean, you had a broken leg to worry about, you can hardly blame yourself for forgetting a memento.”
“But… it’s here,” I stared at the box.
“Another memory,” she said.
“This is a fucked up spooky version of ‘It’s Your Life’ isn’t it?”
I nodded. “I have no idea what’s next…”
“Dinner is next,” Veronica said. “I’m taking you out to Emilie’s. You can have that lasagna you love.”
And we left for dinner.
And when we came back…
“Yep, it’s locked,” Veronica said, passing the box as we came in the front door.
I touched the clasp, it disengaged, and I lifted the lid.
“Cocktail napkins?” I said lifting a blue and a white napkin. Then I recognized the blue napkin. “Oh God…”
“What is it?”
I held up the napkin that was embossed with gold script declaring “Cheers!” and below in smaller script, “Jamie and Alice, 4 June 2003.”
“From your first wedding?” Veronica stared, starting to laugh. “I like this ghost’s sense of humor, at least. What’s the other one?”
“I don’t know,” I said looking at the white napkin. In plain black script read “The Hung Jury.” I started laughing then.
“I don’t get it…” Veronica asked.
“The Hung Jury is a dive bar across the street from the courthouse. I got hammered there with Louise and Angie after my divorce was finalized.”
“Wow,” Veronica said looking between the two napkins. “Full circle… I remember that night – you called me absolutely shitfaced. I was still in Denver.”
“I figured I wasn’t going to waste any time trying to woo you.”
“Oh, that’s wooing me?” she laughed.
“I mean… I was drunk…”
She leaned over and kissed me. “It was sweet.” Then looking at the box, “Thanks creepy box. That’s a cute one.”
There was an audible click and we looked at the box. Locked.
“You saw it this time, right?” Veronica asked.
“Well, heard it…” I said. I looked at the clock – 11:50pm. “Guess the powers that be wanted one more item before my birthday was over.” I stared at the box for a long moment.
“Tick tock, let’s go,” Veronica gestured to the box. “It’ll probably turn into a pumpkin at midnight or some such shit…”
I unlatched the clasp and opened the box. “Well, I’ll be damned…”
“What is it?”
I lifted a tan canvas sling bag out of the box.
“No way!” Veronica laughed. “Didn’t that pickpocket steal that from you in Mazatlán?”
“Yes!” I said, reaching for the zipper. Inside, there was my passport and phone with all our holiday pictures still in the (fully charged!) device. “It’s all in here… how?”
Veronica moved over to me and slid an arm around my waist. “The ghost clearly wanted you to remember our honeymoon.” And she pecked me on the cheek.
A clock started chiming in another room.
“We have a clock that chimes?” I asked.
“Not that I know of…” Veronica said as the chimes rang out the twelfth sound.
The deadbolt on the front door unlocked on its own, as did the door knob lock. The security chain slid slowly across and fell limply. Veronica and I stared at the door, too stunned to move. The door knob turned and the door opened slowly creaking on its hinges.
“I just oiled those,” Veronica hissed in a whisper.
A dark shadow figure glided inside the doorway from the darkness outside. Even in the light inside, the mass of blackness was still little more than a roughly person-shaped emptiness. It moved across the living room to stand in front of the box. Then it turned its… dark mass that seemed like where a head would be and a voice that emanated from everywhere and nowhere said, “Happy 50th Birthday.” It levitated the box between arm-ish dark bits, turned, and glided to the doorway. Before it left the voice laughed and said, “You’re old,” before gliding into the night and vanishing, the door closing behind it.
We stared at the closed door for a long time.
Veronica finally broke the silence. “You got totally owned by that shadow person. You’re old!” And she started laughing.
I hit her over the head with my turtle puppet.
Postscript: I read this to Akilah and she laughed at the ending saying, “That’s not where I thought it was going to end.” I asked how she thought it was going to end and she relayed a tale that ended with a stalker and a string of bodies… way darker, but pretty hilarious. Alas, maybe I’ll do a Director’s Cut version of this with her darker ending when I put this in the book…
