(Crater left by the detonation of a Japanese aerial bomb in the Ford Island Dispensary in December, 1941. You are looking out the front door to the company street that leads to the hangars and the headquarters to the left, and the barracks to the right. The Bunk Room is above and to the left and looked down ion the courtyard. the building remained in operation that day, sepite the damage, and served as a triage station for the wounded and a temporary morgue for the dead. In my time, the debris had long been cleared and the terracotta tile re-laid on the courtyard, complete with a small brass plaque noting the events in the buiding that day).
I was going to introduce you to Karen Anderson, medium, this morning. It was a great plan, of the sort that famously does not survive first contact with the enemy, which in this case is inexorable time.
For a variety of perfectly good reasons, morning somehow became noon, I got a call to go to lunch with an associate, by the time I got back to the Bunker I really needed to take just a little lie-down and rest my eyes. I am getting very sympthetic to some of my friends who have retired and can no longer distinguish Saturdays from any other day.
Resting my eyes to bring my narrative skills to their usual high level, I was awakened with the sound of the emergency passkeys rattling in the locks in the door to the inner hallway. It was the monthly visitation of the Maids, and in the time I would have been telling you about how Karen came to be an intermediary to the spirit world wound up being devoted to my iPad and sitting down in the lobby, flirting with Rhonda the concierge. Along with that, I managed to read about the latest revelations from Wikileaks, and wondered where the hell this is all going. But though I despaired of generating part three to “Medium is the Message” today. Then I clicked onto an email from an old shipmate. Something from yesterday’s story resonated with him. Here it is).
“You are not the only one with some memories from Ford Island. I left the Staff just as you were getting there, but I wanted to pass along something that happened to me in the same place. Oh, the bunkroom on Ford Island did not only talk to me. You had that…whatever it was…looking down on you. You are not the only one who had some very strange moments in that room. It was not that the place was creepie, though our little space was certainly the worse for wear. It was the sense that we were not alone when we trudged over to grab some shut-eye in the night.
“On at least two occasions, I felt odd temperature changes (cold to hot, hot to bone chilling cold), moaning voices and visions of injured people in beds. There was also the strong smell of burning oil.
I was absolutely sure that I was awake sitting up and then standing up when these oddities continued. You are the first and only person I have ever told about this.
That there were presences there I am convinced.
I was under no stress emotional or physical at these times. Perhaps I was just open to whatever was there.”
I completely agree. I don’t know about haunted houses (though my pal in Winchester casually remarked that her house has what the locals call a “Haint,” and she is cool with it). I do know that the second dek of the Ford Island Dispensary is one of the strangest places in which I have ever spent time. I’ll introduce you to Karen in the morning. Bear with me.
Copyright 2017 Vic Socotra
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