When the Dead Don’t Rise — A Gay Man’s Night with a Ouija Board
Your life is the envy of a thousand ghosts
The first time my friend Graham saw a dead body, he was only seventeen. Standing in a circle of teenage boys on a blistering winter morning in the desert, a trickle of warm blood creeped slowly toward their boots.
They were serving a mandatory three months in a military training camp. As they drove past a shooting range, their truck stalled, and a stray bullet ripped through the canvas and killed one of their friends.
Recounting the story to me in his late-70s, from the comfort of a reclining leather chair, my friend realized how easily the dead boy could have lived as long as he — and he could have died at 17, as easily as the boy.
Marching away from the barracks at the end of his brief tenure in the army, Graham savored the bond he had with his comrades, only deepened by the danger they faced. But he was eager to return to his first love — the theatre!
There the bonds were just as deep, though the dangers far fewer. The guns were never loaded, and the dead always rose to their feet to take a bow.
… Or at least that’s how it was supposed to be.
