Gothic Riddles

Chapter 7

Riddle 1

Psychic Ability

I live in New York City and often use the Bus to got to work in the morning. Most people would avoid traveling by Bus but I think it can be a really fun experience. And I have had my fair share of weird but fun experiences. It was roughly fifteen years ago on Christmas Eve when I encountered this really weird man at the bus stop. The snow was falling in a cloud of Merlin-white and the air was beautifully cold. It wasn’t the skin-biting pinch of a windy day, more like the powdery cold of a crisp, refreshing Alaskan snowfall. I was standing at the stop waiting for my bus. Enjoying the high spirits of the commuters as they swarmed around me.

There was a homeless man in the middle of the street weaving his way through the traffic. I could only assume that he was homeless as his actions and clothes were bizarre. He held a brown, paper bag in one hand and he would occasionally put it to his mouth to take a drink from the bottle within. The other hand was being used to make obscene gestures and to thump the bonnets of the honking cars. All the while he issued forth a string of obscenities and vile curses. Not just your ordinary curses either. This guy was threatening the motorists that the milk would curdle in their fridges’, their food would turn to sawdust and that he would render them barren and infertile for eternity. He was like a one-man comedy show with the outrageousness of his performance.

He had a strange appearance, almost as if it was contrived. His hair was wizened and straw-like, nearly fossilized it was so dry. He had sad, wayworn eyes and a distinctive beard. It wasn’t a thick, captain Ahab beard but rather something a lunatic might have: straggly, unkempt, and spittle-flecked. His face was toil-worn and tanned from exposure to the elements and he walked with a weary, lethargic air until he would suddenly explode in a burst of rage. His fingers were gnarled and knobbly and the clothes he wore were musty and minging judging by the reaction of the people he passed. Their noses would crinkle in disgust and they would peel away from his presence. I don’t want to sound pass remarkable and overcritical in all this but he was a truly unpleasant character.

I saw him moving to a corner of the bus stop, muttering to himself as people passed by. He was holding out a cup, begging for spare change.

A fat woman passed by the homeless man and I distinctly heard him say, "Pig.", Wow, I thought to myself. This homeless man is insulting people and he still expects them to give him money? Then a tall businessman went by and the homeless guy muttered, "Human.", Human? I couldn't argue with that. Obviously, he was a human. The next day, I arrived early at the subway station and had some time to kill, so I decided to stand close to the homeless man and listen to his strange mutterings. A thin, haggard-looking man passed in front of him and I heard the homeless guy mutter, "Cow." Cow? I thought. The man was much too skinny to be a cow. He looked more like a turkey or a chicken to me. A minute or so later, a fat man went by and the homeless man said, "Potato." Potato? I was under the impression that he called all fat people "Pig".

That day, in office, I could not focus on work, I could not stop thinking about the homeless man and his puzzling behavior. I kept trying to find some logic or pattern in what he was muttering about the people passing through. Perhaps he had some kind of psychic ability, I thought. Maybe he knows what these people were in their previous lives. I had always been a believer of incarnations and the next life so I thought that it could really be the theory behind why and what he was doing.

After that day, I would observe the homeless man every day, listening carefully to what he was saying about people. After a few days of observing I began to think that my theory could be right. I often heard him calling people things like "Rabbit" or "Onion" or "Sheep" or "Tomato".

One day, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to ask him what was going on. As I walked up to him, he looked at me and said "Bread."

I tossed some money into his cup and asked him if he had some kind of psychic ability. The homeless man smiled and said, "Yes, indeed. I do have a psychic ability. It is an ability I obtained years ago. But it is not what you might expect. I can't tell the future or read minds or anything like that.", "Then what is your ability," I asked eagerly, "The ability is merely to know the last thing somebody ate," he said. I laughed because I realized he was right. He said "Bread". The last thing I had eaten for breakfast that day was toast. I walked away shaking my head. Of all the psychic abilities someone could have, that one must be the most useless.

Thank You for reading, hope you enjoyed these riddles.

The answers of the previous chapter:

Riddle 1

The Man was not alone in the elevator. Elevator buttons don't light up unless someone presses them from the inside. Also, It is not possible to press, say, floor 8 from outside the elevator as there are no "floor number" buttons on the outside. There was a ghost in the elevator and it pressed the button and as soon as the man realized it, he ran out of the elevator.

Riddle 2

The wife died in April but the last entry in the diary was made in May. Even after the wife had died, Her ghost kept writing in the diary.

Thank You and Good Luck for the next riddle. :)