A not very useful thing I learned growing up at my house was playing with witches. There was a hall in the house where I ‘grew up’ for lack of a better word.

In the front hall, there was what looked like a dark cave. It was an empty closet space where my mother sat me, from whence came the board game: “Which Witch is Which?”

I didn’t care about witches or figuring out the game. Ever. I didn’t like it. It was creepy and I was supposed to enjoy it??

Who decides witches are appropriate playmates for children? I was very small. So much so I remember the dark hallway looking ten feet tall. The dark cave is where a character in my story, “Spooky the Ghost” came from.

Spooky was a newbie ghost, a non- gendered character looking to fulfill its ‘raison d’etre.’ Purpose. Fulfill its inner ghost urges, I guess. He haunted and chased things. He was awful cute in appearance. But, he was naughty.

Spooky, the Ghost was a real being in my childhood. Not a two-dimensional depiction on paper. It had energy. Presence. Children don’t feel fear from two-dimensional depictions in cartoons that don’t exist in reality.

Presence. That is the correct word.

Spooky’s presence brought fear. I felt like the ghost was calling me forth to do something bad. Something I didn’t want to do. He was haunting me into joining the ‘fun.’ Like peer pressure teenagers experience. Be one of us! This is cool!

This is why playing with witches is dangerous. This also explains why one day a few years later, I chased my brother with a knife. My brother was a taunter and bothered me. I was about four maybe? I don’t remember knowing the word “knife.” Or, how I got it.

I was a small child. So, reaching the kitchen drawer and pulling out a knife seems difficult to believe. Certainly, I didn’t say to myself (because I had almost no words, I barely spoke the first 40 years of me life); Hmmm…my brother is really getting on my nerves. I think I’ll get a knife from the kitchen drawer and chase him with it like a little savage. No such thing occurred.

That was Spooky, who chased and terrorized people, acting on my barely conscious being- urging me to do it’s bidding. Perhaps.

Witches don’t exist, one may say to try to discredit my claim. Or, denounce there is no other world but what we see with our natural eyes. No Spirit world.

There are people who proudly claim to be descendents of witches. That explains my ex-husband’s behavior. Smoke and mirrors man. Handsome, charming, generous, dutiful, devoted man one moment- gaslighting, treacherous creep the next.

Will the real Bill Richardson of Old Wendell Road please stand up? I don’t know whether such a person really exists. A spirit exists. A “tricky” one, warned a kind neighbor who noticed me approaching the danger. That’s where my hens lived.

The spirit masquerading as Bill Richardson was mean to my hens. What kind of human being can hate a hen?

Anyhow, Witches are in every genre of entertainment: Hollywood, Disney, Childrens Toy Industry, Harry Potter. They are tricky. Their job is to masquerade reality, entertain and charm us! Give us gifts when we obey. Flatter us into believing we are all descendents of the gods: we can do whatever we want!

They encourage us to do things we don’t want to. (Or, maybe we do want to do.) And, gaslight and terrorized us when we don’t.

I decided to put on new spin on Halloween. It’s a trick the Lord taught me: use experiences that are horrible and vile and turn them into Something Good.

I have a New Game Planned. It’s called: Out the Creeps!