The Wigi Board

“Have you ever done a wigi board?” asked Mowbray. Allen looked at Mowbray, his larger fatter friend with a hair cut that resembled Obelix from the Asterix cartoons, a bizarre guy who always had some kind of infactuation with belief systems or just popular culture. Mowbray lived in a small house with his two older brothers and his mum. Since his mum had to work Mowbray had too much time on his hands and mostly had the house to himself. His older brothers were into all kinds of popular 80’s influences such as heavy metal music and horror movies. Mowbray’s problem was he watched too much TV.
“What’s a wigi board?” Allen replied. “A wigi board”, said Mowbray, “is a way to contact the dead. You have to draw up a special kind of board with certain symbols and letters in the right places. The Wigi board is a way to communicate with the spirit world. I made one up over the last few nights and now I really want to try it out. For my first attempt I am going to contact Randy Roads”.
Allen’s eleven year old face went a little bit pale before he eventually managed to utter some words. “Who’s Randy Roads then?”. Mowbray looked at him with a cold glare like Allen was an uneducated novice or a moron. “Randy Roads was one of the best guitarist that ever was, he played with Ozzy Osbourne, in a band called Dio”. “Oh” said Allen, “umm”. He didn’t really listen to heavy metal. At eleven years old he hadn’t quite yet matured enough to be interested in any kinds of music yet. “So are you gonna do it with me Allen?”. Allen paused and then hesitantly replied “umm sure, when do you wanna do it?” “I”m keen so how about tomorrow after school? I was going to ask Bundy and Andrew to come too”.

The next day Allen met Mowbray at the rear entrance to the intermediate school which was connected to the bottom fields after the three o’clock bell had rung. Bundy was there with him but Andrew wasn’t. Allen quickly paced up, “Where’s Andrew then, is he comming?” said Allen. “Nah said Mowbray mockingly, his old lady wouldn’t let him”.
Andrew’s parents were devout christians of frence background and ruled Andrew with an iron thumb. If they considered something to be evil or not christian, a tv programm, book or a toy for example, then he wasn’t allowed to get involved.

After about a twenty minute walk they all arrived at Mowbrays house. A small white little box that looked as if it had been built in the early 1920’s. A bungalow or cottage was a better way of describing it. Mowbray went around to the back of the house and lifted up an old dirty coloured pot containing a sickly little tree . Underneath the pot was a tiny piece of shiny silver. He quickly snatched it up and then meandered back around to the front door of the house. He put the silver object into the key hole and opened the lock. All three boys wandered into the kitchen dropping their school bags in the corner and made their way through to the dining room. “Wait here” said Mowbray and he disappeared through a side door. “Got anything to eat” Bundy yelled after him. Mowbray returned a few moments later holding a piece of wood and a large bag of crisps.
“Here is is!” he said excitedly, “here’s the wigi board I made”.
Allen and bundy stared at the thin sheet of wooden board that Mowbray had painted black and drawn the symbols on in white and silver. Mowbray was an artist. There was no denying that. In class he spent more time drawing in his sketch pads than paying attention to the teachers or completing his assigned work. His drawings were always inspired by Rambo or Freddy Kruger and he would spend hours just on one character filling in every piece of last detail.

The three boys sat down at the dinner table and began the seyance. In the middle of Mowbray’s mum’s glass dinner table was the black wigi board. Mowbray decided to use a guitar pick as the moveable object that would glide over the symbols as the spirit passed messages back from the dark side. “Does it move all by itself?” asked Allen, a little bit bewildered. “Almost” said Mowbray, “we all put our finger on the guitar pick to allow the spirit to channel certain energies through us”. Allen thought to himself, surely this isn’t going to work, its just a silly game.

Mowbray started muttering. “Randy Roads are you there, Rand Roads are you there”. He paused slightly. “Calling Randy Roads… Randy Roads, Randy Roads are you there”. He paused again. Allen looked at Bundy. Both boys were looking a little bit uncomfortable and their belief in the wigi was starting to fade. Mowbray kept echoing the same words over and over in the background. Allen and Bundy found themselves being drawn in as active participants and begain muttering with Mowbray.
To the boys astonishment the guitar pick started to slide. Only a fraction at first, but it was moving none the less. “You’re moving it” said Bundy. “No I’m not” said Mowbray. Allen said nothing but kept his finger on the guitar pick all the same as it started to slide. Slowly at first but then momemtum started to pick up and the pick eventually wound up sitting on one of the symbols, the word ‘yes’.
The three boy looked at each other. Was this a trick. A simple desire to make the unbelievable believable. Mowbray looked at the other two boys. His face had taken on a very serious demeanour and his heart was pounding inside his chest. He picked up the guitar pick and moved it back into the centre of the wigi board. Then clearly and concisely spoke once again. “Randy Roads are you there?” This time he didn’t put his finger on the guitar pick but beckoned to Allen and Bundy to do so. Once the boys fingers touched the guitar pick and it quickly slid over and sat once again over the word ‘yes’.
Bundy spoke, “shit that’s freaky!”. Allen was alittle bit more mindful and asked, “Is he here, what do we do next Mowbray?”. “Lets ask him some questions, what ever you want” Mowbray replied.

Over the next few hours the boys put the wigi board to the test ranging from simple questions that they already knew the answers too through to questions about themselves now and in the future. Sometimes the answers were incomplete or made no sense, other times they seem to echo out a sinister truth that caused everyone’s tention to heighten. Mostly the questions were the boys inner fears as they tried to grasp any logic or reason to what was happening at that point in the dinning room of Mowbrays mum’s little cottage.

Time past quickly and before long there were the sounds of clanging and rattling at the door. Someone was fiddling around with the lock outside and a grating noise meant the key shaft had finally been rammed down the centre of the lock, a clicking noise was made as the lock was set free and then the door quickly flung open. It was Mowbrays mum. When she eventually stuck her head around into the dinning room it was empty. The three boys had quickly tidied up and moved along into Mowbrays bedroom.

The next day after school Allen walked the long way home so he could spend more time speaking to Mowbray. The events of yesterday afternoon had stayed in the their minds and they were anxious to talk about them. The next day it was almost surreal as if hadn’t really happened. When they arrived at Mowbrays mum’s cottage the weather had changed a bit and it was cold and windy. A storm was blowing up and Allen decided it was best if he hurried off back home before he got rained on.
As they approached the house Allen found himself gazing at the front door for some unknown reason. Since it provided entrance into the kitchen the wooden door was maded up of three panels of glass that had been glazed over to prevent it from being completely see through. There was a dark silhouette shape of a person standing behind the glass panels. As Allens gazed fixed on the shape is moved backwards and the shadow disappeared from sight. “Is your brother home?” asked Allen. “My brother , well no he shouldn’t be yet” said a puzzled Mowbray, “college doesn’t finish til 3:30, why do you ask?” . “Oh” said Allen, “nothing… well, I just thought I just saw him standing behind the kitchen door, that’s all. I thought I saw somebody there but then they moved back. How about your mum then? Mowbray stood still as if in a state of shock. Allen had thought nothing of it as after all it wasn’t his house.

Mowbray looked like he had seen a ghost.

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