Icebreaker

“What’s this? Hey, Linda, look at this!” Smack dab in the middle of our footpath in the middle of our fifty acres, sat an anvil.

“Wow, where do you think it came from?” she queried.

“Honey, I don’t know. Maybe someone dropped it out of a plane or one of those choppers that skim way too low in the middle of the night.”

“That’s nuts!” she retorted. “How could it land from that height and not leave a dent in the dirt? Remember gravity and the mass of objects and impact sites and all that engineering stuff? You’re still supposed to be an engineer, you know.”

“Of course, I remember all that stuff! It just doesn’t make sense that this should be here on the path this far back off the road. I mean, no one could toss it into our yard from the road; it’s too far and this thing looks way too heavy.

“It only makes sense that it would come from above. Unless you put it here.”

“I did not put it here! What makes you think such a thing? Besides, I couldn’t pick up one side of it, let alone carry the whole darned thing. For that matter, you may be able to pick it up, but you sure as heck couldn’t carry it all the way over here. And there aren’t any tire tracks around here. So, you didn’t bring it over here either, huh?”

“Nope. I say it came from up above somewhere.”

“Well, I still say that’s nuts.” That woman insists on disagreeing with me.

“Hey, guys, nice anvil.” The voice came from behind some trees along our path. “Do you know where it came from?”

We were shocked and a bit taken aback by the query from an invisible source.

“Who are you? What do you want? Why are you hiding on our property?” She can ask more questions quicker than a woodpecker can pound bugs out of tree.

“I’m not really hiding. I’m just not visible to you. It’s true I have trees between you and me, but I’m not hiding.Here, I’ll show you.”

We saw the weeds bending as something came out from behind the trees. And that bending action proceeded toward us.

“See what I mean? You can’t see me.

“The physics of it confuse me. Suffice it to say, I am real, I am in this dimension and time, and this is no trick. I am not a ventriloquist or a prestidigitator. I’m just a guy who’s invisible.”

“Can we touch you?” Linda asked.

“I don’t think so. Go ahead and try.”

“How can we do that if we can’t see you?” I queried.

“Linda, do you have to deal with his engineering mind all the time?”

I could see this was going to be one of those bad engineering joke fests.

“Yeah, but he means well,” was all the woman of my life had to say.

“Well, Jack, I’ll keep talking and you keep reaching out toward my voice. I’m about three feet to your right.

“Keep coming; you’re doing good. Okay, there you just walked through where I am. Did you feel anything?”

“Wait, I’m about ten feet from where I started. You say I walked through you?”

“Jack, believe me.I haven’t moved; you walked through me. Which indicates to me that you can’t touch me.”

Linda stated, “So, he can’t touch you when you stand still. Can you touch my right shoulder?”

“I’m touching it. Feel anything?”

“It feels like an ice cube on my shoulder,” she responded.

“Yeah, I’ve been told that before.”

“Are you a ghost? I’ve heard ghosts have an icy touch,” she said.

“I might be. But, I don’t recall any other life than this. I always thought ghosts were deceased humans haunting this planet,” was his reply.

She continued, “Why are you here? What are you? What do you want from us?”

He responded, “Well, I don’t want anything from you guys except maybe some friendliness and conversation occasionally. I don’t have a lot of friends or anyone else to talk with.

“As far as what I am, I guess you would call me a free spirit. Get it? I know, my jokes are almost as bad as Jack’s.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’d say they are every bit as bad as Jack’s,” the love of my life responded.

“Okay, I’ll concede that,” the bodiless entity said.

“I’m here because I happened to be passing by and felt you guys. You’re both quite noticeable in your energy. Few shine as brightly as you two do.”

“Okay, now that opens a new can of worms, as they say,” I jumped in. I can only stand being quiet for a very finite amount of time. Seconds, I think they define it.

Entity responded with, “You’re right; I blew it. So much for the brain being ahead of the mouth. Well, suffice it to say, I apologize. I can’t explain any more than the statement.”

“You can’t or you can’t? Come on, we’re adults here,” Linda input. “Unless, of course, you aren’t an adult.”

Oh, I liked her slick way of sucking more information out of our impossible guest.

“I am an adult, I’ll have you know!” She hit a nerve.

“Just because I like to joke around and visit with people doesn’t mean I’m not an adult. One is allowed to act childish on occasion, you know.

“And to want to visit with special creatures like you guys. And to play tricks on you.”

Linda beat me to it, “What do you mean, play tricks on us? Are you telling us that you lied about all this?”

“Oh, no, I don’t lie.This is all real as far as I am concerned.

“I do like to visit with people, to observe their ways and to join in conversations.”

“You do realize that most people would be very uncomfortable talking with a disembodied voice, don’t you?” Linda always gets to the point, eventually.

“I thought of that. Thus, the anvil, the trick I played on you, the gift I gave you.

“You can bring friends over, show them the anvil, and we could all engage in weighty conversation.

“Get it? Weighty conversation?”

Linda again, “Are you an engineer, too?”

“No.

“Do you remember the stories about poltergeists? You know, “ghosts who cause a disturbance? Well, some say that a poltergeist is drawn in by a kid with some kind of emotional stress. Or, that it is drawn by some kind of extra energy. Or, that people just make them up.

“In any case, I think I might be something like that. Are either of you emotionally stressed or something?”

Linda replied, “No, neither of us is.”

I jumped in with, “Wait, you’re saying you’re a poltergeist? Not just some kind of alien spirit come to haunt us or maybe some kind of angel come down to protect us from some dark evil?”

Okay, I admit I sometimes get a tiny bit melodramatic, but this is a perfect time to get melodramatic, in my opinion.

“No, I don’t think so.

“Like I told you, I travel everywhere. I get drawn to people and sometimes they respond well and other times they get all freaky and do weird rituals and call friends who come over and do weirder rituals.The most polite people simply ask me to leave and I do.

“You guys are the first in millennia that stopped to chat. A lot of times, people just scream and run or totally ignore me. Those people worry me.

“I brought the anvil kind of like an icebreaker. Get it? Icebreaker, anvil….

“Okay, I admit I think I’m funnier than you appear to think I am. Nevertheless, the anvil will cause people to come here and talk about it.”

“But, you’re invisible,” Linda reiterated.

“That is true; thus, you have another topic to interest your visitors.

“Come on, let’s go up to the house and plan our next party!”

I have my doubts. An anvil for an icebreaker?