TRADITIONALLY, ghosts come in all shapes and sizes. Some will appear on the midnight hour rattling their chains like an accusation from beyond the grave; others carry their heads through the afterlife like a beloved pet. Some talk to us from the static on the edge of sleep, and others wear nothing but shapeless sheets as if all fashion sense had deserted them on death.

Some are friendly, some are vengeful, some act as a warning, and some don’t even know they’re ghosts at all.

Yet amongst the banshees, wraiths, revenants, phantom hitchhikers and ladies in black, you rarely come across a gothic genius, but that’s the sort of spirit Abergavenny man Johnny Turnip claimed he encountered at this year’s Green Man Festival.

“Originally we thought the ghostly guy was a time traveller because he talked all weird and dressed funny!” Explained Turnip.

“And although my initial instincts about him being from another time and place proved right, that place was not a geographical location but a land beyond time that exists behind the veil. Or as most people know it, the afterlife.”

Turnip told the Chronicle they first met the strangely attired gent with the peculiar accent at this year’s Green Man Festival.

“We were having a beer under a tree and trying to hide from the terrible music, when this guy in an old-fashioned black suit, a hat, a cane, and most impressive of all, a cape swung by and joined us.”

Turnip added, “At first we thought he was one of those lonely nutters who wear weird clothes to compensate for the fact they’ve got no personality, but as soon as he started talking I could tell he had a bit more about him than your usual oddball. There was a gravity in his eyes, and a lived-in timbre to his voice that made us all pay attention when he said, ‘Mind if I join you fellow travellers? My bones are weary, my soul is worn, and I crave a drink to ease the passing of centuries and the constant malady that dances like a pox-riddled whore across my mind.’

“Because we’re the sort of boys that relate well to borderline alcoholics who keep themselves nice and can articulate themselves properly, we instantly welcomed him into our inner circle.

“At first I was convinced he was a man from the future sent by fate to teach me the way of the time-lord, but the more I spoke to him I began to realise he had probably died a long time ago and was a ghost. Which, if you think in terms of semantics, is just a time traveller by another name.

“Anyhow, as Big Tony threw a can in the stranger’s direction and we all marvelled at the speed in which he drank it before we gave him another, we asked him his name, to which he replied, ‘Have you heard the song about the poet who died in the gutter?’

“To which we all said, ’Nope!’

“‘Perchance you’ve heard of the city in the sea or Annabel Lee?’He said.

“‘Doesn’t ring any bells, mate!’ Said Puerto Rico Paul.

“This seemed to set him off, and he suddenly stood up and began shouting at some imaginary figure none of us could see, ‘The Bells! The Bells! I have kept my vigilance well Reynolds. What more do you demand of me?’

“‘Easy stranger!’ Said Paul. You’re amongst friends here. Sit and take another drink. You look like you need it.’

“’Need? spat the stranger. ‘I have no need but an overwhelming compulsion to drown myself completely in the waves that roll onto some distant shore and leave nothing but the driftwood and detritus of a world gone wrong in their wake’

“‘Fair enough!’ Said Paul, handing him another can. ‘It’s only session lager, but it’ll do the job if you drink it fast and in bulk!’”

Turnip said, “As the stranger sat back down with a sigh and guzzled his can like a glutton with no manners, I asked, ‘Where you from, friend?’

“He looked up from his lager and, with eyes that have seen too much but not enough of what they crave, he sighed, ‘The past, the present, the future. It is all one to me. Nameless here for anymore.’

“‘You’re not a goth, are you?’ Asked Paul suspiciously.

“‘I am no goth, but I carry the burden of genius like a ball and chain.’ Said the stranger.

“‘A gothic genius!’ Said Big Tony in wonder. ‘Has there ever been such a thing?’

“‘Well, there was Robert Smith.’ Said Puerto RicoPaul. ‘But he was overrated. LeBon was the real innovator.’

“‘Shut up you pair of clowns!’ I snapped. ‘Let the man speak.’

“‘Are you a time traveller?’ I asked eagerly.

“‘Time has no dominion over the dead!’ He snapped with a kind of contemptuous air that reminded me of some girls I used to know in the eighties who were into Morrissey.

“’So you’re a ghost then?’ I asked.

“‘I am both haunted and lost and can no longer see a clear path to the future or the past. As for the present, it is but a never-ending series of moments I cannot grasp. Does that make me a ghost?’

“‘Probably not, but it does make you a bit messed up!” Said Big Tony.”

Turnip told the Chronicle, “Once again, the stranger sprang to his feet, and this time he screamed. It was primal, prolonged and full of the sort of sorrow that has no end. After he had exhausted himself, he sat back down and softly said, ‘I stand amid the roar of a surf-tormented shore, and I hold within my hand grains of the golden sand — how few! Yet how they creep through my fingers to the deep, while I weep — while I weep! O God! can I not grasp them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save one from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?'

"After he had finished, we all sat around in a sort of embarrassed silence, until Big Tony began a sort of slow clap that soon died out.

"'Well, that was nice.' I finally said. 'Are you a poet?'

Poe
(Public Domain )

"'I am cursed with the unforgiving eye, the detachment of a god and the heart of a man. If that makes me a poet, so be it, but I am a dead one, and they once called me Edgar.'"

"'I see!' I said. Pretending to understand while racking my head for names of famous dead poets. All I could come up with were Shakespeare and Shelley, but it didn't matter, because soon the Goth ghost would reveal all, and not only that, he also taught me the secret of true time travel."

To be continued......