uhUHuhUHuhUHuhUH
by Georgia Bellas
Babies holding hands. Babies sucking on planchettes. Chubby fingers clutching drool-coated pendants swinging YES and NO. Gurgling babble invoking spirits. The largest baby on the floor, surrounded by a half dozen smaller, each with just two fingers barely touching him, starts to levitate. Light as a feather, stiff as a board, light as a feather, stiff as a board is what they are chanting. To adults, it just sounds like uhUHuhUHuhUHuhUH. But the grownups are downstairs pouring whiskey in their coffee and secretly judging each other. No one over three years old is allowed up in the séance room.
Author's Note
Chicago. Busy street. Bookstores, shops, galleries. Walking hand in hand. Open door. Whiteboard: Baby séance, 11 a.m. We stop. Look at each other. It’s later than eleven but maybe? We head upstairs, find fur coats, cowboy boots, paintings, rhinestone necklaces. No babies. No answers.
Georgia Bellas is a writer, artist, and filmmaker whose current obsession is handmade paper. She and Dan Nielsen make up the Wisconsin-based art band Sugar Whiskey. You can follow her teddy bear, host of the award-winning weekly Internet radio show Mr. Bear's Violet Hour Saloon, on Twitter @MrBearStumpy.