Three months into treatment, Sheila began seeing ghosts. To be more precise, Sheila began creating ghosts. Around the time that her implant locations started itching, David appeared in her living room, smoking a cigarette and drinking a coffee. At this time, he was in Europe attending a conference. David hadn’t responded to her questions at that time, preferring to smile enigmatically. When she left the room and returned, he had gone. The coffee mug, clean, was back on the shelf, but the smell of smoke remained.
From that point, other people started manifesting around Sheila. Sometimes in the middle of the night, which was initially very disturbing but Sheila’s natural stoicism and irritability banished any fear from her mind and replaced it with a vague annoyance.
Mostly these were people she knew, but sometimes they were strangers. A young woman with black hair was quite common, she seemed scared and knew she was out of place, unlike the others who had all the insouciance of a neighbour’s cat.
Through force of will, Sheila started to summon ghosts she wanted to see. Donald Rumsfeld, Alan Greenspan, Napoleon Bonaparte. Her house started to resemble a student party. She whirled and squeezed past the great and the good, cramped into every corner of her suburban domicile.
Her head itched, until one day she dislodged an electrode. The General Magic started beeping, and she was alone again.