Day 2,272

The older spirits are getting smarter while the newer ones flail about trying to process their untimely demises and return to their former lives. Quite frankly both annoy the hell out of me but I'd rather put a new soul to rest then tear an experienced one away from something it has no business inhabiting.

Lately they've taken to possessing older machines, ones we don't use as much or pay all that much attention to. The less aware we are, the easier it is for them to sneak in and get real close to the living. From there it's just a matter of waiting until the person can be injured enough to loosen their soul and then they just slip inside, force the original soul out and carry on as they used to.

The career change from priest to IT support is a tricky one to explain and one that only exists on paper. People often joke about calling for an exorcism when everything else they've tried doesn't work and when I take their equipment away to repair it I do just that.

Force the old spirits back out and bind them to something holy, or at least perceived to be holy. Most of them aren't too inclined to mess with religious icons - even in after death. I like to keep a stack of crucifixes in my work van for just such an occasion and they've yet to let me down.

The latest case I dealt with used to be a noble in the 17th century, real sly one that decided to hide in the photocopier of a local library. Staff complained about how it always misprinted, how it never scanned right but they weren't able to see how the copied images showed a man's grinning face.

Soon as I began to open it up I saw him warped around the internal machinations, ectoplasm short-circuiting and rewiring as it pleased. Given a few more days and he probably would have gone for the in-house technician, wandered off with his life quite happily and left the poor man's own spirit to writhe about in his place.

The only good thing about the older souls in this region is how fervently they still believe in god. One quick flash of the crucifix and a few sufficiently pronounced Latin phrases and they're out. The real challenge lies in convincing the dead to leave for good and hope they don't use the split-second of freedom between the trap and the air to try and shatter your own soul.