Ghost Girl

Nope, not another Torey Hayden experience.

When I awoke this morning, I could hear a young girl's voice.
Strange, I thought.
I listened harder, and my brain decided that my neighbour's daughter must be playing in my drive again.
I would've thought no more about it, except that the voice seemed to be repeating the same phrase over and over, every fifteen seconds or so.
Strange, I thought.
So I listened hard, and my brain decided that the voice was saying 'Ec-to-pla,' as though it were unable to complete the word ectoplasm. And I realized that the voice was coming from inside the house.
What would a young girl be doing in my front room at 6.15am, repeating the word 'Ec-to-pla'?
A reasonable question, my brain decided.
As I shuffled along the hallway, I could see a flashing red light, blinking on the wall in the front room.
Perhaps I left my computer on? my brain thought.
But I could see that the plug was removed from the wall-socket.
And I listened hard, and still the voice repeated the same sounds: Ec-to-pla.

Well, inside the lounge, I discovered that my son's age-old activity centre toy-game thing had been switched on: it was under a book, and presumably I had leaned on the book thereby switching the activity centre toy-game thing on (although how I didn't notice is another mystery).
When I lifted the book up, I realized that the voice was saying 'Let's play an activity,' which really is hard to equate to 'ec-to-pla,' and yet still my foolish brain had concocted this image of a ghostly girl haunting my front room, seeking absolution or revenge for unresolved issues of her tortured corporeal existence.
Brains are pretty cool the way they are so easily coerced into believing the most outlandish things.
Which reminds me: I really must send off that fifty quid registration fee to claim that million pounds I've won in some new lottery that I've never heard of before.