Interviewer

Para-Normality

Ghost: You people piss me off…

Me: What are you talking about?

Ghost: You’re obviously bastards…

Me: Look, I can think of a million other things a ghost could do to me. Verbal Abuse never really crossed my mind. What the fuck?

Ghost: You potheads are fuckers…

Me: Hey, hold on… What?

Ghost: You make my job so difficult…

Me: What are you talking about? Potheads get scared too…

Ghost: That isn’t the point.

Me: Really? What, besides scaring people, is the point?

Ghost: You people confuse us.

Me: … what was that, again?

Ghost: You let out all these extraordinary reactions. Last week, I met a couple of you-types, who ended up scaring me, by screaming back at me, with alcohol drooling from their semi-opened mouths. Then, I met a dude who didn’t see me, so I had to follow him for hours, fix a few signboards to reroute him, and appear under a park light… Do you have any idea what a park light does to us?

Me: Hmm…

Ghost: Fuck you…

Me: Hang on… I’m thinking… Illuminates you?

Ghost: It evaporates our transparent selves, so we lose a bit of our actual shape…

Me: Is that why I get to see ghosts who have half their head missing, or, like yourself, with amputated ghostly limbs… I swear, every time you fly by me, you look like a Mr. Bean doll, with its hands placed along the side. I suppose the nasty expression helps though.

Ghost: After the ordeal with the nearly-blind pothead, I stumbled into a grandmother’s house, hoping to scare her to death. I watched in implausible agony, as this ancient scarecrow, proceeded to snort and laugh at me.

Me: That is painful…

Ghost: And then, I encounter you. You have caused me to become an epitome of black-hole despair. An epicenter of regret.

Me: How?

Ghost: By talking to me as casually as you would to a person on a park bench.

Me: Well… this is a park…

Ghost: Oh, is it? I’m sorry, but usually after my BUHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAA, I expect people running away for their lives, or paralyzed with horror. “Have a seat. What’s your name, then?” definitely wasn’t what I expected… You cretins let off all these different tableaus of unexpected expressions, to the same tactical jumping-out-of-bushes approach I’ve used for centuries. Same action, different reactions…

Me: Are you sure it wasn’t just me on different days?

Ghost: Where do you live?

Me: Um… 16th cross, Palm Shade Avenue…

Ghost… What the… that was you?

Me: Well…

Ghost: I don’t believe this… What the hell were you doing, dressed up like an old woman?

Me: Well… there’s this play I’m writing, it focuses on an old lady…

Ghost: Why did you have to play transvestite for that?

Me: I wasn’t. I thought walking around in a gray dressing gown and a wig, would help me write her dialogues.

Ghost: Oh… bugger off…

FLASH (of disappearance)
FLASH (of reappearance)

Ghost: Oh, incidentally, you don’t believe in anything supernatural, do you?

Me: I’m an Interviewer. Every once in a while, even I write pretentious fables, not to mention the ones I see every week. So, to answer your question… No. Otherwise, it was a splendid job on your part.

Ghost: Right…

FLASH (of disappearance)

That was probably the strangest instance of someone, or in this case something, approaching me for feedback.

Therapy

Therapist: How do you feel?

Me: Great. I suppose that’s why I came here.

Therapist: This is a heart-to-heart session, Mr. Despina. I can’t help you, unless you help me?

Me: I find that unnerving. You mean I spend one hundred eighty dollars every week, to help you? Something’s not right about that, surely…

Therapist: May I ask… did you have a healthy relationship with your father?

Me: And this question is set to open the locks of which part of my sub-consciousness, I wonder?

Therapist: You say you saw a ghost…

Me: And what does that have to do with an unhealthy relationship. I hope you’re not assuming, that I was anally r…

Therapist: Mr. Despina, I’m trying to help you…

Me: ...by trying to convince me of something sick that never happened. You must be using some definition of the word “help” I’m not familiar with…

Therapist: It’s to determine the amount of unconscious fear you attribute to a figure you worship. In childhood, it’s usually a parent. You must have imagined a similar icon of terror, because you’ve never got over the fear of facing your father.

Me: WOW… That is some really top-notch stuff. Well-refined bullshit. I wonder which psychotic, psychiatric manual you read up, to come up with this analogy… you know what, this is it. No more sessions. I’m convinced I’m less of a shit than you are.

Therapist: Pardon?

Me: Still at it? Brilliant. Might as well finish this session, shall we?

Therapist: …

Me: You know what scares me more than ghosts? People. I’m terrified of them. I’m terrified of dishonesty, and torture, and beheadings, and repression, and surveillance, and stalking, and genocide, and fear-based morals, and guilt-based values, and warfare, and ignorance, and mass manipulation, and mass delusion - All of those unnecessary, screwed-up bits of dangerous nonsense civilized people are capable of.
I’d rather face a powerless, probably non-existent, supernatural entity, to an armed, ignorant, illogical living-breathing person. Unenlightened morons run the world; and supported by billions of clueless drone bees; probably have a better chance at silencing or killing me, or in extreme cases, result in a mild form of epilepsy; than wisps of crappy imagination, like ghosts.
I don’t believe in ghosts. Although, every once in a while, when I’m stoned, I think I experience something oddly supernatural. Some call it proof. I call it paranoia, or something not self-explanatory at the time; if not obvious. It is a sort of paranoia bordering on curiosity, unlike the regular obsessive, delusional type which seeps into psychosis.

Interviewer

A Live, nation-wide interview. It’s the only beauty, that could be attributed to bureaucracy, at all. It’s not the effect of neatly-arranged tables, microphones, and bottles of water, that’s interesting to look at. It’s the scuttling around of aides and event coordinators in order to make the event perfectly played out, that’s occasionally wonderful to watch. The nature of the interview itself is immaterial to them. But then again, that’s the nature of conformity. Like ants designing ant-hills, unaffected emotionally when they have to tear up a living, yet crippled insect, for food.

Years of gutless conformity and politically-correct interviews, have taken a toll on what was, ages ago, termed sharp wit. That was what was mentioned in a review of my work, a long time ago. As a TV interviewer, you could ask anything, and get away with it; provided you put on a convincing mask of charm, sophistication and unbridled innocence. In a while, don’t expect the interviewee, to retort, with a graceful, smart comeback. Sadly, I’ve obsessed over the fake-smile act, and forgot edgy interviewing for over ten years. This one’s my biggest interview, yet. I’ve got all the money, to wander endlessly, for many years to come. If this messes up… I couldn’t care less.

Imagine this - LIVE…

Question 1: Mr. President, could you explain to the nation, what your position is on Iraq?

Question 2: Is it too soon to say our economy will recover?

Question 3: Do you have any plans to move healthcare under the reins of government?

Question 4: If not, why is Abortion, Medicinal Marijuana and Privacy under State-Legislative scrutiny?

Question 5: When do you plan on resigning office?


END