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two crimestories
university. This sentence,
tweaked for context, was
trotted out each time
anything
supernatural
came up, and I always
laughed accordingly.
“The poor old man should
have been checked out,”
she claimed.
“But he was harmless,” I
objected. “I mean, who
cares if someone comes
into a pub and orders
a pint for an invisible
friend?”
“I don’t know,” Sam
replied. “Someone should
have done something. His
son, for example. They
could have run some
neurological tests on him.
It’s not alright for an old
man to run around, talking
to sprites.”
I explained that this
had been going on for
years and nothing had
happened.
“The odds that nothing
bad would happen were
extremely low, but it
wasn’t impossible. Most
people would call that
luck,” Sam concluded.
“What
could
have
happened?” I asked.
“Well, a breakdown of
some kind. His sprite
might have told him to kill
somebody. Or himself.”
“But he didn’t.”
“Pure luck,” Samrepeated.
We made off to get
together that weekend,
and I took the rubbish
out. I really missed the old
man. I hadn’t known him
well, but I still missed his
friendly grin, his watchful
gray eyes, his wrinkled
face. I glanced up at the