In the heart of Mississippi, in a town long forgotten by progress and time, stood a mansion draped in the decaying grandeur of ancient wealth. Its current occupant, Nana June, was a sharp-tongued octogenarian with a reputation for speaking to the dead as comfortably as she did the living. On most mornings, if any curious enough dared to peek through the iron gate, they’d find her rocking gently on the creaking porch, a glass of sweet tea sweating beads of a past long gone, conversing with what appeared to be the ancient Summer breeze.
“Now, I ain’t sayin’ you’re a bad ghost,” she murmured one such morning, her voice a raspy melody, “but y’all sure know how to make a decent cup o’ coffee upside down.”
Matthew, her grandson, a lanky young man with an eternal air of dreams half-remembered, shuffled out, joining her in the shade. “Nana,” he drawled lazily, “you might scare folks talkin’ to nothing like that.”
“Who says I’m talkin’ to nothing?” Nana June cackled, her laughter like marbles clattering down wooden stairs. Her eyes twinkled with mischief even at eighty-four.
The morning’s peace was suddenly interrupted by the sight of Darlene Peabody, the local purveyor of all that is convoluted and curious, teetering towards the porch cradling a rusted remote control. “Evenin’ June,” she said. “Got somethin’ mighty peculiar here.”
“Spit it out, Darlene,” Nana June urged, casting a sidelong glance at the peculiar device. “I’ve got all day, but them spirits won’t hang ‘round waitin’ forever.”
“It’s a remote control,” she declared, “claims it’s haunted!”
Matthew took it, examining the worn buttons lazily. “How’d ya come by that notion?”
“I clicked it once,” Darlene claimed earnestly, “and suddenly found myself done seen an episode of Bonanza that ain’t never aired.”
Nana June chuckled, “A lazy remote that shows things that never were, huh? Sounds about right for somethin’ from Darlene.”
“Pa’s got one of those,” Matthew mumbled absently. “Doesn’t call it haunted, though.”
“Ah, but does it bring back memories you ain’t lived?” she retorted, raising an eyebrow expectantly.
The trio settled back on the porch, curious yet skeptical. As Matthew reluctantly pointed the remote towards the living room TV, he pressed the stubbornly mundane power button. The television flickered, the screen revealing not Bonanza, but an unfamiliar tableau: a parlor housing a gathering of folks, ghostly figures sipping from spectral teacups, their conversations muted yet vivid.
“If that ain’t somethin’!” Nana June exclaimed, her eyes sparkling with unexpected adventure.
“Seems like your remote does show the past,” smirked Matthew, the quilts of irony and peculiarity settling easily in their midst.
“It surely does,” Darlene replied. “I reckon it’s lazier than a hound dog on a summer’s day, only showin’ its best bits when it pleases.”
Days trickled by like molasses, and the remote became a fixture, not of ordinary banality but mystical clarity. And as they gathered daily, the ghosts—past memories and forgotten tales—became more than peculiar; they were companions bridging past joys and future sorrows, blurring lines of life and afterlife.
One languid afternoon, as they marveled at the ghostly festivities on their screen, Darlene observed, “Y’know, maybe this remote’s just here to remind us that time—lazy as she is—ain’t always what she seems.”
Matthew nodded thoughtfully, his lazy grin finally slipping into contentment. “Reckon if it makes y’all laugh and remember, it’s worth a tale or two.”
Nana June chuckled again, her quiet laughter a eulogy to all things Southern Gothic, a mirthful end, as if telling time she, like all good things in the South, was content to drift whimsically, without aim or purpose but steeped in joyful memory.