A short time later, the two ghosts were sitting on piles of ice, that being the only material available to make furniture from. It’s not very recommendable to make your furniture from ice. I would advise using leather and wood, if they are available.
“So where do you think that bearded guy went to, Gary?” asked Doug.
“I dunno, man. One minute he’s all, ‘I think I can help you out’, then he’s all like, whoosh! Gotta tell you, if this is his idea of helping, it’s not a very good idea.”
“Yeah, like, he needs to look in a dictionary and find out what it actually means,” Doug nodded. “Unless his dictionary is broken.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Doug,” Gary scoffed. “How can a dictionary be broken? Oh, unless it’s like an electric dictionary, I guess.”
“Dude, can you get electric dictionaries?”
“I dunno. I guess. I mean, pretty much everything is electric these days.”
“Not true, man!” Doug pointed out. “You can’t get electric ghosts.”
“Dude, that’s a sweet idea!” Gary grinned. “If we were electric ghosts, we’d totally get some respect in the ghost world. We’d be haunting castles and stalking people in no time!”
“Yeah!” Doug chimed in. “Oh, but wait, we don’t have any electricity. How are we gonna get electric?”
“True. Aw man, I wish we had some electricity. Then we could be finally show those stuffy old steam powered ghosts what the score is,” Gary smacked his fist.
“Are ghosts made out of steam, dude?”
“Yeah, maybe. I dunno. But still, if only we had some electricity.”
“You won’t have to wait much longer, my youthful wraith friend,” said a friendly voice from above. The ghosts looked up to see Abraham Lincoln floating above them, carrying a large burlap sack.
“Hey man, where’ve you been?” asked Gary.
Abe apologised for the long delay, and explained where he’d been.
“Let me explain where I’ve been,” he said (See? Told you!). “You see, it seems the me the most obvious way to get you two on your way to the great beyond, is to let you haunt me in a residential setting. That way you’ll be able to prove yourselves as ghosts and stop bothering my penguin friends.
Unfortunately though, I’m sort of between houses at the moment. I briefly considered taking back the White House, but that doesn’t seem very fair to the current President. Fortunately for you, back when I was your age, or possibly younger, I had a bit of experience building houses. You had to back then you see, on account of the fact that you never knew when your property title was going to become faulty. Problem is, I’m a log cabin guy myself, and there aren’t any trees or heck, any kind of vegetation in these parts. So I had to go find myself some logs.”
We interrupt this narrative to point out that foam is also an important part of furniture. You may continue now.
“That’s a great story, dude-in-a-suit,” said Doug. “But what’s in the big bag?”
“Oh come now child, surely you’re not as dumb as you look.”
Lincoln emptied out the contents of the bag onto the icy ground below. A generator, solar cells, some plumbing devices, a central heating system, a fancy-looking coffee maker, and lots and lots of logs. Like, seriously, you wouldn’t believe how many logs came out of that bag. Frankly I think it stretches belief.
“Ohhh,” said Gary, who was undoubtedly the smarter of the two. “So you’re gonna build a new house for us to haunt! Thanks, dude!”
“No problem, son. Now just give me some time to get everything up and running,” Abe cracked his knuckles.
“How long do you think it’ll take?” Gary asked.
“Hmm, well let’s see now. Fortunately building a cabin is like riding a bicycle, you never really lose the knack. Mind you, it used to take a fair bit of time back in the day, and I have to admit I’m a little rusty at it. But with these new Lincoln powers of mine…I’d say…”
Lincoln dashed towards the logs and quickly set to work, a sonic boom showing just how fast he was going (faster than sound, for those who failed physics). It looked like there were multiple Lincolns all working on the cabin, as the pile of logs decreased ever more by the second. In time, the boiler, radiators, generator, solar cells, and all the other accoutrements Abe had gathered seemingly disappeared, though really they were just being installed in the house. Finally, the blur that was Lincoln slowed down to admire his handiwork, a mansion of a log cabin with all the trimmings.
“One minute 36 seconds,” he finished, smiling.
“Hey, I’m not dumb,” said Doug, thus proving a point.
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