On Being Haunted

November 21, 2012

I got a letter the other day. Specifically, I got a letter written ostensibly in blood, via finger-painting, from a Sanitarium that’s been closed for fifty-two years.

I’m hoping I’m being pranked.

I’m assuming I’m being pranked.

I hope I’m being pranked.

*gulp*

Maybe you need some help to figure out where I am here. SO, PICTURES!

Sooo, first, it’s from Muskoka Hospital for Consumptives. I’ll save you the clicking through, unless you want the full history. It was the first sanitarium in Canada. Contrary to popular believe, an asylum is for crazy people, a sanitarium was for treating tuberculosis. The Muskoka Hospital for Consumptives closed its doors in 1960. As opposed to the stories you would expect to hear from a kind of industrialized treatment center of the time, there’s some touching stories came out of it.

So, yeah, the letter came from a place that’s been closed for fifty-two years.

The text. I’m not sure if you can parse the text in the pictures, but it is as follows:

Obviously, no signature, nothin’. Obviously, no way to get a handle on ‘who’ from the handwriting, as it’s basically finger-painting. s@dogandgarden says it smells funny, but I don’t actually smell anything. Personally, I’m betting on ketchup or kids paints, rather than *ahem* blood, as the medium of choice.

The postmark, in case anyone’s interested, is 2012-11-09, so, four days prior to me receiving it. The post mark address is M4L 1A5: the processing plant near lakeshore in Toronto. The processing area for Muskoka is N0C. So. Probably (but, I guess, not necessarily) mailed from Toronto, NOT Muskoka (interestingly, the hospital had it’s own postal office: I guess it was convenient for the region at the time).