text: I began, at 7 AM, by placing the mirrors I bought on the dewy grass in front of our little yellow house, and stomping on each one with the heel of my boot, one after the other, trying each time to get a perfectly symmetrical spiderweb-shatter, failing worse with each attempt. 7:04 AM to 9 AM was spent picking mirror shards out of wet grass so that the neighbor kids didn’t step on them with their bare feet. I spent 9 AM to noon purchasing a black cat on Craigslist, bringing it home, then patting its bottom lightly with my hands, gently encouraging it to cross my path as many times as possible. It got fed up with me after about 40 path-crossings, so I gave it a little milk and let it rest in our bed. Then I went to our kitchen and dumped a few saltshakers out onto our floor, making sure not to throw any over my shoulder. I left the pile on the linoleum. I spent the afternoon with an A-frame ladder open in our living room, walking back and forth through its legs again and again, an opened umbrella in my hands, the waterproof fabric getting loudly pinched by the ladder every time I walked underneath. I did this for about three hours, following the same path, wearing deep grooves into the thick, cream-colored carpeting. I escalated from there, down in our unfinished basement with grey concrete walls and floor and foam soundproofing on the doors and windows. I had ordered quite a few religious symbols--crucifixes, statues of Jesus and Buddha and the saints, bibles, Qur’ans, copies of the Vedas, the Torah, everything sacred I could get my hands on--and on the evening of that day, around 6 PM, I loaded my (licensed) handgun, put on noise-cancelling headphones, and unloaded every round I owned into the holy texts and symbols of most major world cultures. I then took off my headphones, laid my weapon on the ground (safety on) and proceeded to jump up and down on the religious items with my aforementioned boots, then set fire to them with gasoline and a lighter. I watched to make sure the fire didn’t spread, spit on the ashes until I was certain my salivary glands were tapped out, then went upstairs, leaving the pile there. It was 8 PM. The sun was almost finished setting and the neighborhood dogs were barking to each other in their sweet, faux-aggressive way. The sound of crickets intermingled with soft voices, drifting in through our open windows from the neighbors’ front porch where they smoked Pall Malls and watched the sun’s slow downward retreat, the horizon turning a grey-purple. I finished my work of nailing the number 13 in place of our old house number (78) and went inside, making sure to leave our door unlocked. I noticed there was a raven sitting on our driveway and silently cheered. I went to our bed and checked on the cat, who was still fast asleep, then kneeled down, lifted up the sheet, and retrieved a baker’s dozen of identical boxes from underneath the bed. I brought the boxes to the living room, the stack teetering in my arms, then gently opened each one and set up their contents in a circle around me. The sun was down now, but I had not turned on any lights. I sat in my dark living room, the only light from the streetlights outside and the full moon, which shimmered over the horizon, perfectly placed so that from where I was sitting it looked like a beach ball, balancing on the chimney of the house across the street. It was 8:30 PM. I reached out and touched the planchette of the Ouija board directly in front of me, hoping the power of the other 12 in the circle would flow through it, and me. I felt the day’s bad luck, cursed actions, and general terrible vibes that I had so methodically gathered running through my veins. Confident in the evil and misfortune I had accrued, I reached deep into my diaphragm and began to speak the words that I had spoken, every night, at 8:30, for the past 391 days. “Hi, honey. If you’re out there--just know--I’ve been really awful today. I’ve broken mirrors, crossed paths with black cats, burned bibles, spit on the spirits--13 Ouija boards, I--I changed our house number--and... if anyone deserves to get haunted, it’s me. I would hate so much for you to come and throw around plates and appear in dark mirrors behind me and whisper evil things in my ear while I sleep and punish me for my transgressions against the spirit world--but I deserve it. I must be the most sacrilegious, evil person alive. I know how much you hated people who disrespect the religious, and how superstitious you were...” I waited. There was only silence. “I shot eight bibles today, hun. With a pistol. And I stomped on them.” Silence. I looked at the planchette in my hands and waited for it to move. Then I looked around at all the other Ouija boards, surrounding me, and looked for any tiny movement, anything. The silence only grew louder. “If you’re here, make a noise.” The icemaker in the kitchen gurgled a little. “Another. Please. I need to know it wasn’t just a fluke.” Silence came, this time pointed and thick, like she was doing it on purpose. “Please, baby--it’s a full moon tonight. I won’t be this unlucky for another month. Just haunt me. Please. Break something. Make the walls bleed. Make me bleed. Anything.” I closed my eyes as tight as they could go and kept my fingers distinctly uncrossed and thought about the number 13 and 17 and 39 and every culturally unlucky number I could think of, and I listened with everything in me for even the slightest noise in our little yellow house, and then I imagined Jesus being eaten by an anaconda, and then I slammed my fists on the Ouija board and begged for my wife to come back and haunt me in terms that are too pathetic to repeat here. Then I sat and listened to the silence for so long that I could hear my heart beating and the fluid circulating through my skull. I packed up all the Ouija boards without moving the planchette to ‘Goodbye’, slid them under my bed, and gave my new black cat a little kiss on the forehead. It was 9:30 PM. Slowly I lumbered into the computer room and sat down. For a split second I saw my reflection in the hazy black of my monitor. My eyes were worn and ragged, my beard patchy, my veins pronounced from the mental exertion of trying to will her ghost into existence. I focused on the gap behind me in my reflection, over my shoulder, hoping she would appear with black pointed teeth and red eyes and talons she would sink into my throat and use to drag me down to hell with her, or wherever she resided. Or maybe she would just walk in through the front door, somehow returned in perfect condition, and I could tell her about all my efforts to get her to haunt me through superstition and desecration for the past year since she passed, and she could laugh and laugh, and know deep in her heart that I loved her more than anything. Then my hand hit my mouse, the monitor flared to life, and the white light of the Amazon home screen obliterated my reflection and my thoughts. Slowly I moved the mouse, transferring my consciousness to my cursor. I forgot my body and my face and let autopilot take merciful control. It was 9:38 PM. I ordered mirrors, and salt, and ammunition, and religious artifacts, and bibles, and Quar’ans, and some cat food for next week. It wouldn’t be a full moon. I wouldn’t be as cursed. But I’d just have to try anyway.