After running disk utilities to recover from my corrupted disk drive on Monday, I tried once again to open the rest of the digital images I had taken with my Handspring at the Rogers Buchanan burial ground. On the first attempt, my disk siezed momentarily. I reset my system quickly, let it run through its disk check, and then tried again.

And here's the image, as it opened.

I haven't resized it or done any image correction it because I was afraid I'd lose the distortion in the image. It looks like some bytes got whacked, because at a certain point there's a strange pixilation, and the left boundary of the photo seems to be remapped in part on the right.

I can't figure this out. And I'm just a little bit creeped out by the whole thing right now. But it's probably just the result of radio frequency radiation from TV Hill or something (the broadcast towers for most of Baltimore's radio and television stations are parked atop towers on the next hill, which I pass on my way home).

But it makes my imagination race just a little. I mean, what if the dead could push electrons around?

Let me be clear–I don't buy this “Crossing Over” crap. I somehow doubt they whisper in John Edward's ear; I'm sure that his namesake probably has better connections to dead people (since the dead can vote, sometimes).

But what if there were some way for the dead to make their presence felt digitally?

Imagine having Edgar Allen Poe on your AIM buddy list.