Elmer Crigger turned to the medium, her turtle-like face illuminated softly by the many pitch-black candles on the kitchen table they sat at, and asked her nervously "N-now, are you certain this will work?" Secretly, he found himself suddenly hoping she would say "Oh, goodness, I don't think it will! No, in fact, it would seem that what we've planned is entirely impossible, and I should probably just give you your money back. Maybe even with a 10 increase for the trouble..." and therefore saving him the trouble of having to go through what he was slowly realizing was going to be a most eerie experience.

Instead, she simply sighed agitatedly and snapped, "Yes. And I'd thank you not to doubt my abilities again. I deal with forces that would make you evacuate your bowels and gibber like a ninny, and I do so more regularly than a boy scout gets molested. That being the case, please show me the proper respect."

Elmer gulped heavily, not sure how to respond to this. Madame Presagio was supposed to be very good at what she did, but she intimidated the living hell out of him. The fact that she looked like a grandmotherly turtle somehow heightened the effect, as if she were likely to somehow trick you by offering you crumbly chocolate chip cookies, only to chew you out mercilessly when a few wayward particles fell on the floor. Further, her name was Italian but she seemed far more likely to dine at an Old Country Buffet (all the while paying careful attention to how many Weight Watchers™ points everything would cost, until the critical moment where she would decide to be a "bit naughty" and spoon copious amounts of chocolate sauce on top of everything) than an Olive Garden.

Elmer, meanwhile, was a 24-year-old man of average height and weight, though his arms were unusually long and his head a bit too large for its own good as well as being adorned with a large copper handlebar moustache. He wore a dull brown suit with a gray bow tie, and his red hair was gelled down and parted to the side. Steeling his resolve for what was soon to be a very disturbing experience, Elmer nodded indicating that he was ready to begin.

The medium rolled her eyes into the back of her head, breathing deeply, and took Elmer by the hand. She did not bother with any of the usual clothing of her profession, and instead wore bright purple pants and a yellow bowling shirt. Elmer reasoned that part of her seeming annoyance probably had to do with the fact that he was infringing upon her usual bowling night.

"Now..." She said, her voice suddenly deep and throaty, "We will attempt to peek beyond the veil of the great mystery. We shall pierce through the walls of space and time itself, gazing deeply into that most macabre of-"

"Erm... Excuse me, miss?" Elmer asked timidly.

"Yes?" She asked, her eyes rolling back into place and her voice returning to normal (although her tone was a bit more testy than it was before).

"I don't mean to be rude, honestly, but could we just get started? I'm feeling queasy and I fear that if we don't get on with it I may lose my nerve."

"Well, if you'd rather neuter the art of the thing, then yes, I suppose we could. Ahem." Once again she rolled her eyes back and spoke deeply. "Avo muerte tod resucite fantome... Avo muerte tod resucite fantome! AVO MUERTE TOD RESUCITE FANT-"

There was a flash of navy blue light as the candles flickered, everything seemed to briefly shudder and shimmy, and as large bubbles of air spewed out from above the table in a whirlwind. As they passed over things in Elmer's field of vision, he saw the things they passed briefly become old, decrepit, and dead until the bubbles floated past. He fought valiantly to suppress a scream when a bubble passed in front of Madame Presagio's deeply concentrating face, morphing her visage into that of a rotted skull, and he failed miserably. Cowering beneath the table, whimpering, he heard a familiar voice croon above him.

"Elmer? Elmer, sweetie-fanny, is that you?" It asked kindly.

"G-grandma! Grandma Esther, is it really you?" He asked, crawling out from under the table. Hovering inches above the tablecloth stood a tall, bony woman of about 80 years old glowing a bright blue colour. She smiled kindly, and as she did so Elmer felt his anxiety about the whole thing ooze away gently. Grandma Esther had one of those smiles, the kind of smile that said "Even though the fact that I'm even talking to you right now defies about a thousand different laws of nature, everything will be alright, and if you look adorable enough you may even come out of this thing with a new teddy bear."

"Oh Elmer, look how you've grown! Look, Elmer, I'm glad you called, I have something important to tell you!"

"You telling me something?" Elmer asked, amused and happy to finally see his dear grandmother again. "I thought you'd be asking me how everyone was and-"

"I know how everyone is, Elmer. I can see all sorts of things, now that I'm not here any more. Speaking of which, dear, tell your cousin Isaac that his wife is cheating on him. I think he ought to know."

"But his wife is in a coma!"

"That's what he thinks. But that's not what I had to tell you, dear." Grandma Esther's demeanor suddenly seemed rather grave. Elmer felt concern tickling the back of his mind.

"I see..." He began hesitantly, "well, what is it you had to say?"

"Well Elmer, this is very difficult for me to have to tell you. Now, you know that as your grandmother, I will always love you and care for you and I think you're one of the finest boys on earth, right?"

"Of course, Grandma!" At this point Elmer shot a glance at Madame Presagio, slightly embarrassed by the turn the conversation had taken, but he was relieved to see that she was concentrating far too hard on maintaining the rift between the lands of the living and the dead to notice anything short of an atomic blast.

"Well, as I said, I know all sorts of things now that I'm dead. Secrets of The Universe, how everything works, and it's all really very complicated and weird, and the majority of it would probably make you-"

"Evacuate my bowels and gibber like a ninny?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes. How did you know?"
"I get it a lot. Anyway, continue."

"Right, right... Well dear, it would seem that The Universe has a... Well, I'm not quite sure if you could call it a will, but it definitely has... tendencies."

"Tendencies? The Universe? What, Grandma???" Elmer asked.

"Oh dear. When I say tendencies I mean that... Well, The Universe is sort of like a god, sort of like a force, sort of like a place, but it really isn't any of these things at all. And it can't exactly think per se, but it does have likes and dislikes."

"But how can it have likes and dislikes if it doesn't think?"

"Well, that's part of what makes the whole thing so weird, isn't it? In any case, The Universe, whatever it is, well... Elmer, I'm afraid it doesn't like you very much."

The anxiety that had previously dissipated suddenly pumped through Elmer again as he heard these words. "P-pardon me? It doesn't like me?"

"Well, no. Not in particular. In fact... Oh, I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it would seem that The Universe actually hates you quite a bit."

"Oh." Elmer said simply, looking like a particularly morose 5-year-old boy who had just been stabbed in the chest by a favourite teddy bear (though significantly less bloody).

"Now sweetie-fanny, don't take this the wrong way! I mean, you're a bright, friendly young boy with plenty of good qualities! Anyone in their right mind would absolutely adore you!" She said, almost pleadingly.

"But it's The Universe, Grandma! I think it would know a thing or two!"

Grandma Esther simply looked at him uncomfortably.

"Besides which," he continued, "If The Universe hates me so much, why hasn't it done anything about it?"

"Done anything about it?" Grandma Esther asked, puzzled.

"Yeah! I mean... It could have easily crashed a planet onto me or had me probed by aliens or something equally nasty by now, I imagine. Why hasn't it yet?"

"Ah, well, The Universe is a very passive-aggressive sort of cosmos. It's very prone to repressing its emotions until they blow up in a sort of bottleneck. Rather unhealthy, that." She explained.

"Until they blow? So you mean all this pent up aggression is..."

"...Is going to come to a head eventually, yes. And... Oh, God..." Grandma Esther said, her jaw dropping and her eyes widening as if she had suddenly spied something. Elmer looked around confusedly, and Madame Presagio shrieked in pain as blood poured from her mouth and eyes and she fell over, quite dead. Elmer let out a scream of terror and looked at his grandmother.

"Grandma! Grandma, what's going on? What do you see?" He yelled. A thunderous sound roared, more through his mind more than through his ears, and everything started to take on a strange, greenish tinge. Elmer felt an unpleasant whirring in his organs as the laws of nature were violently thrown out the window all about him. As if those fleeting laws felt a need to confirm this, Grandma Esther had inexplicably become quite solid, and Elmer noticed with more than a bit of fear that Madame Presagio was standing up too, though she was still clearly dead and the vacancy of her bloodied stare indicated that there wasn't really much of her left anyway.

"It's happening!" Grandma Esther shouted, leaping off of the wooden table as it started to take root and sprout leaves.

"What's happening? What is it!?" Elmer demanded, as the flames on the candles were replaced by slowly growing stalactites of ice.

"The bottleneck! It's happening now Elmer! It's-"

And then the bottleneck blew.