OCCASIONAL opium eater and visionary poet William Blake once wrote, “What is now proved was once only imagined.” However, an Abergavenny man has taken things one step further and made the audacious claim he can use his imagination to control and shape reality!

Semi-professional paranormal investigator Johnny Turnip told the Chronicle that while staying at a haunted house in Powys on New Year’s Eve, he and his two pals were subjected to a “nasty and sustained attack” from “creatures beyond the veil” and only managed to survive with “their sanity intact” by using the collective powers of their imagination to overcome “the poltergeist thuggery.”

Turnip explained, “If I’m to be honest, things got a little tense towards the end of our confrontation with the ghosts, particularly the ancient nature spirit, but when the warlock Earl Elderflower appeared on the scene, it inspired us all too tap into his Dr. Strange vibe and use our imaginations to control the show.”

Turnip added, “The warlock taught us that ghosts feed off the imagination but the flip side of that coin is they can also be conquered by the mysterious workings of the mind. And if there’s one thing that me and the boys are strong in, it’s imagination.

“In hindsight, I can see all those years in school spent daydreaming and creating outlandish scenarios to pass the time was just fate’s way of equipping us with the tools we’d one day need to ply our trade in the realm of paranormal investigation.

“I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve all been accused of being out of our tree and trying to escape reality in the past. Yet little did the legion of small-minded empty-headed fools know we were in training for the day and the hour when we would do battle with supernatural entities.

“What looked like alcohol and recreational drug abuse to the untrained eye was in fact a form of strength conditioning.”

Turnip explained he, alongside Big Tony and Puerto Rico Paul, tapped into the collective power of their imagination after a long night of visitations from the other side.

“It all began not long after 9pm,” recalled Turnip. “We were downing shots and playing the Rizla game. The one where you stick a fag paper to your mate’s head with the name of someone famous written on it and they have to guess who it is when there was a loud knocking on the door like someone was trying to put it through with a sledgehammer.”

Turnip added, “Because we were in the dark heart of the Powys countryside we weren’t about to take any chances and went mob-handed to see who it was. For all we knew it could have been a bored and psychotic farmer looking for a little bloodsport to celebrate the end of the year with.

“As it turns out it was a postman, wearing those weird shorts they tend to rock in all weathers these days. The guy looked particularly miserable and unhelpful, even for a public sector worker.

“His eyes had that unsettling and peculiar emptiness to them that I often put down to regular employment, but in this case, it could have been because the poor sod was forced to work on New Year’s Eve. Now that’s what I call a scandal!

“Anyhow, he asked if I was Johnny Turnip and after I narrowed my eyes, clenched my fists and nodded my head slowly like I was in a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, he handed by a brown package with my name on it. The writing looked like it could have been done in blood but then again it could have also easily been the work of a teenage goth who had broken into his mum’s lipstick collection, so I wasn’t phased.

“‘What we got here chump!’ I barked merrily as I took the package and began tossing it up and down in my hand playfully.

“‘It’s a message from the ether.’

“‘Don’t know any Trevor’ I said while giving him the hard stare.

“‘Ether not Trevor’ The Postie replied in a high-pitched and impatient whine while casting nervous glances at the foreheads of us all, which let me know I was already winning this particular confrontation of wit and nerve.

“‘Ether, Trevor, whatever!’ I said elaborately like I was talking to a half-wit. ‘The question is, who the hell are you and how did you know I’d be here?’”

Turnip explained, “At this point, he just looked at me a little nervous like I was the guy knocking on stranger’s doors on New Year’s Eve and murmured, ‘I was paid by a fruity old guy to dress up as a postman and deliver this package. That’s all I know. Please don’t hurt me!’ He shrieked while continuing to look anxiously at my forehead which I unconsciously put my hand to and drew back the fag paper that Puerto Rico Paul had stuck there earlier.

“The Rizla read ‘Idi Amin’ and the penny finally dropped. Paul’s had one with ‘Pol Pot’ written on it and Big Tony’s read ‘Stalin!’ The postman probably thought we were a cult of stray sorts with some sort of dictator fetish going on.

“‘Don’t worry about the name tags on our head mate,” I told him. ‘It’s just a game. A bit like guess-who, but for grown-ups.’ At this point, Big Tony tried to smile reassuringly but when Tone shows his teeth it’s always a little bit wolfish and threatening, so it didn’t really help.

“Jumping in to help the poor fella, who at this point was visibly trembling, Puerto Rico, Paul put his arm around his shoulder and said, ‘Chill mate. Come on in for a drink and warm your bones. We’ll put on some tunes. Do you like Duran Duran?’”

Turnip explained, “As a professional Simon LeBon impersonator, Paul often uses the Duran Duran question as an ice-breaker with other males of a certain age but in his fanboy fervour, forgets that most of us were into The Jam and Madness and looked down on the New Romantics as a terrible disease. As opening gambits go, it also sounds like the sort of trick question psychos often use to start a fight.

“As it turns out the postman wasn’t a fan and after causing Paul’s blood pressure to visibly rise after saying ‘True’ was the only song by Duran Duran he really knew, he made his apologies and scurried off into the Powys night.

“As for us, we returned to the living room of Cherry Tree Cottage with the package and that’s when all hell broke loose!”

To be continued ……