Don't Ever Try This - You Don't Know What You Are Playing With

Summary

A man tells a disturbing real-life story from when he was 28–29 and traveling around the UK for business. He stayed in a large Victorian flat near Kensington High Street with close friends, especially his best friend Chris.

One evening, while the owner of the flat is away, the group decides to mess around with a Ouija board for spooky fun. The narrator explains the basics—letters in a circle and a glass as a “pointer”—and they darken the room to set the mood. At first, it feels like a typical party game, but it quickly becomes ominously specific.

The board spells out warnings involving “the death card.” The friends interpret this in a very particular way because, whenever they play poker, they refer to the queen of spades as the “death card.” They fetch a deck of cards and, after shuffling, dealing/cutting, and turning cards over, the queen of spades appears. They test it again, and once more the queen of spades comes up, despite odds the narrator says are extraordinarily unlikely.

Still frightened, they try to see what happens if they don’t stop. The Ouija board slowly spells out that Chris will die.

The narrator insists they weren’t trying to prank or scare Chris. He acknowledges the skeptical argument that “of course you push the glass,” but emphasizes that the messages felt targeted and deliberate. He then connects the incident to what happens in real life: not long after—about a month or six weeks later—Chris suffers a seizure and is hospitalized, where doctors discover a brain tumor. Chris is told he has about a year to live, but he actually survives around four to five years, enduring worsening seizures. The story ends by noting that Channel 4 documented Chris during his final year, including his funeral.

Takeaway: The narrator’s warning is simple: you should never play with a Ouija board, because you never know what you might “summon” or trigger—or what strange coincidences might follow.

Main highlights / notable moments

• The Ouija board quickly becomes responsive—shifting from “party game” to threatening.
• The “death card” cue strongly matches their poker superstition about the queen of spades.
• The timing is eerie: the board’s message predicting Chris’s death lines up with his terminal diagnosis soon afterward.
• Chris’s seizure and brain tumor deliver the story’s emotional payoff and lasting horror.

Jokes / light moments

• The narrator initially frames the board like a teen party game, including playful, explanatory detail—until it turns serious.

Characters / personalities mentioned

• The narrator — the main storyteller.
• Chris — the narrator’s best friend (a civil engineer and photographer), later diagnosed with a brain tumor.
• Chris’s friend / flat owner (unnamed) — owns the Victorian flat where the events occur.
• Additional background acquaintances — mentioned only generally (including other poker players in Devon), without individual identification.