chapter 19

Justin was doing so well in the office that he gained a promotion. Management were still concerned about his inceasing weight, but they could not sack him just for being fat... no matter how big he became. He did his job well and that was what mattered.
The promotion gave him a pay rise which, although not huge, it alleviated any money worries he'd had. He now even had enough to put by every month to save.

Sometimes, he looked at himself in shock and horror. What had he done with himself? He was HUGE! No wonder the management at the shop were worried. If he was them, he would be worried! He was a heart attack waiting to happen, despite his young age.
Yet, other times when he looked at himself in the mirror, he loved the way he looked, he caressed every wobbling fold and rubbed his overflowing belly. That part of him wanted to get even bigger!
That was the part of him that forced him to eat when he'd had sufficient. That was the part of him that placed the orders at the takeaway and bought the fattening food.
The chatter in his head seemed to always be about food. It often squeezed out the thoughts about ghosts and other strange goings on in the house. He didn't bother going out much now. Why go to the pub and sit on his own when he could buy a few cans from the off license, sit in front of the fire on his own and get just as drunk? Why bother staying out late to go to a club, if there was no chance of him getting a date out of it?
He was becoming more socially isolated. He only spoke to people at work as part of his work. He never simply chatted to his colleagues.
His colleagues, simply thought he was weird. He was a glutton and a loner.

Then one day, his flatmate caught up with him. She was leaving. Not only that, she wa emigrating to Australia. She was going to make a new life for herself in Sydney. She had a nursing job to go to, she had accommodation lined up. She'd heard that if she owed money to some company and they could not find out where she was, after three years, they would write her off as a bad debt. She had deliberately taken out as many credit cards as she could and ran them up to the maximum. She had no intention of paying them off. Indeed, on her wage, it would be impossible!
She was going to do a runner! Disappear! She was waiting for one piece of documentation to secure her visa. All the bills were in her name. Justin could take them all over and pay for everything himself, or he could move out now and use the month's rent he was saving would go towards the rent somewhere new. The money he saved on his other bills could go towards his moving costs. His name was not on anything. No bailiff would come after him.
She was going to stay a few weeks at her parents' house, then she'd be off to make a new life for herself. She would be completely debt free! She'd have to be careful. She'd not be able to come back to this country for at least three years. She HAD to make it work out there, no matter what!
Justin did not agree with her plan. He could try to take over the bills, but then again, they might try to trace her through him. He might end up liable for the bills she had ran up because he was living in the property.
He had less than a month to find somewhere else to live, or he would be homeless!

He found a flat that he could afford two streets away. It was downstairs, with two bedrooms. It had exactly the same layout, except it was around the other way and the living room faced south. It was fully furnished and, the biggest bonus, it had central heating!

He had to pay his younger brother to help him move. Justin was too big to be lifting and carrying so much stuff, it was too much effort for him. Carl had a mini van he could use to make fewer journeys. Justin made it worth his while.

After only two days in the new house, Justin's head was clearer than it had been for months. He slept all through the night. The constant fear he'd lived with had gone and he felt no compulsion to overeat.
After a month in the new flat, he had already started to lose weight had he was being chatty more often to other people. The black cloud that had hung over him was gone. He was more positive and enthusiastic than he had been for years!
A year later, Justin had lost much of his excessive weight through health diet and exersise. He had a new group of friends, moved to a rival shop and felt a whole lot happier. His clothes were now more conventional, with a rebellious twist, rather than out and out weird.
Since leaving the flat, he'd never had the compulsion to overeat. He'd never heard any voices in his head or anywhere else. His fear was gone, strange things stopped happening to him.
Now he was out of it, feeling less stressed, Justin reasearched more into the spiritual world. He read somewhere that every religion in the whole world was based on someone having a vision, a dream or whatever else you wanted to call it.
That one sentence put everything into perspective for him. He had not been going mad! What he had experienced was real. He knew there was good in this world. He also knew there was evil. He knew what both felt like.
Further reading proved to be even more enlightening. He diagnosed himself as being clairsentient, in that he could not see or hear things from the spirit would necessarily, but he felt them.

His grandmother rarely visited now. She didn't need to he was safe. He knew he could call on her whenever he needed her help. There were others too. Some of them stayed in the background, but he knew they were there. He knew who they were. One of them even brought a dog with him when he visited, although the never came alone.

Little by little, he learned how to protect himself from the type of psychic attack that he had experienced. He now knew he was sensitive to the spirit world. That was why his flatmate and his friends had never picked up on it. It had been harder on him because he had not grown up with it and he did not have anyone to teach him what to do from the beginning.

His flatmate did go to Australia. The week before she left, Justin saw a someone in a car watching the house. They were there day and night. They might have been there perfectly innocently, but Justin's guilt made him think it had to do with moving out without paying the bills.
She had been waiting for this last bit of documentation and she suspected it had gone to the flat. Fearful of getting caught by the person watching the flat, she climbed over the seven foot wall from the back lane and then climbed in through the kitchen window, where the latch was broken. Then she had to crawl on her belly to avoid being seen through the glass in the front door.
She got her documentation and sneaked out unseen. Justin did not hear from her after that, so he did not know if she'd got away with running up all those debts. He suspected not, but he would never find out for certain.