(soft spoiler:) I think I'm culturally incompatible with this story. Reading the end, I felt the whole thing was a poor joke or some kind of elaborate troll. M

(soft spoiler:) I think I'm culturally incompatible with this story. Reading the end, I felt the whole thing was a poor joke or some kind of elaborate troll. Maybe it doesn't help that I've only ever heard of "ouija boards" in the context of people laughing at the thing. So the story suddenly becomes comical when the characters (so far rational) appear to take it so seriously without explanation. I'm saying this is cultural, since I should probably have put myself in a mindset where ouija boards are going to be serious business before reading anything on livejournal. I could certainly enjoy a good fiction based on the premise that ouija boards work, but the art of good SF/fantasy is also about introducing unreal elements in a way that doesn't break the storytelling flow. A safe was of doing that is by introducing such elements right in the first paragraph (not in the conclusion...)