A Ghost Tale.
It is not yet midnight when my ghost appears for the first time. I was alone in my living room a minute ago, the lights of the Bay Bridge twinkling outside my window. And now he is here, standing right in front of me, in a black t-shirt and torn blue jeans.
After the shortest of shocked pauses, I begin to scream like a scared little schoolboy, wetting his short pants. Perhaps this is because, although I am nearly forty years old, I really am just a scared little schoolboy, wetting my short pants. The room is a microwave. The moon is a lemon.
The skin of my ghost is pale. He is translucent, like a jelly fish. He looks just like I always imagined a ghost looks. His eyes are the eyes of an albino. They are alive. He is alive. But from the moment I first saw him ninety seconds I ago, I have known that he is dead; I have known that he is a ghost. He is no fake. Even in his silence, I can feel his death. He is sitting in my lazy boy, scratching his chin, dully observing me. I do not know why I am referring to him as "my ghost." There isn’t much I can see that makes him mine. I can barely think at all.
There is blood dripping from a small wound on the side of my ghost’s head. He doesn't seem to notice. There is blood on one of the shoulders, underneath the wound. Other than the wound and the dead in his flesh, my ghost looks young, maybe twenty or twenty-one. I find it is more difficult to measure age in death than in life, so I cannot promise to be precise. Maybe he is four hundred years old, for all I know.
I am twisting and turning. My eyes are darting this way and that. I am shifting my weight from one leg to the other and back again. I am sweating. My fingers feel numb and tingly at once. The room is a microwave. The moon is a lemon.
My ghost stands up as if to approach me. I begin to yell some more, loud and gutteral. "Aaarghh! aaaarghhh!! aarggh!!!" is all I can muster. He shakes his head slightly from side to side, but seems otherwise unaffected by my shrill screams. My ghost is clearly bored. I guess he expects more from me.
I am looking right in his eyes. He is looking right back at mine. "So what's your name," he asks me casually. I don't know how to respond. I throw up instead.
** **
And so this tale begins. This tale of my ghost. Of my ghost and me.
** **
I am sitting at the kitchen table now, staring at my ghost. The yellow light of the morning sun drips down on us. I do not know where the night went. Here now, the room is still a microwave. Somewhere, the moon is still a lemon.
I had always believed that if ghosts actually existed, they could only show themselves in the dark; in the dreary corners of a decrepit haunted house and so forth. This, apparently, is not so. The sunlight did not seem to bother my ghost at all. He just started talking.
"I would like this to be a dialog, man. Not just a monologue, you know what I’m saying? How does that sound to you?"
I don't know how to respond to this at all. So, I throw up again. My ghost just shakes his head, completely unaffected. There is a silence in the room I cannot explain. I would like to say it is the sound of a feather, but that is not right. It is the sound of the silk on the bottom of a coffin.
As he begins to speak, I am trying not to scream.
“Oh man, I know some demons. Nasty, nasty demons.”
I just stare at him. His face is so white. He blends in with the wall behind him, his dark long bangs hanging down his forehead, like charcoal on chalk. There is some odd combination of goth and grunge in him I don’t quite get. It feels very ninety-two. I just stare at him. I can’t help it.
“I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know where I’m going. It’s not like you think it would be. I mean, I know how I got here, don’t get me wrong. What I’m saying is, like, I kind of thought there would either be answers, you know what I mean, answer to it all.”
He pauses and looks at me. The thought occurs to me that he is waiting for me to respond. He could wait all day, for all I care. I have nothing to say. After a moment, he resumes. I try to make sense of his words, as he is pacing around the room like a young Lenny Bruce with longer locks.
“You know, I kind of expected that it would be more free, like you could go everywhere you want, anywhere you want. That’s kind of what like my fantasy about it was. Like maybe I could hover over my house and watch all my friends crying and everything.”
“That’s not what it’s like?” I am speaking to him, but I barely recognize my own voice. It sounds so dark and hoarse to me. His dead eyes grow bigger as he looks at me in glee. I can see he is delighted that I am beginning to respond.
“No, man! Not at all. Not all. That’s just the fucking point. I can’t fly. I can’t see through things. I can’t sense anything. I can’t even walk through things.”
“Really?” I guess I had always presumed that ghosts would be able to walk through things.
“No.” He hesitates. “At least, I can’t. Not really. Not consistently. Not yet.”
“So, does that mean you will be able to walk through things some day?”
My ghost looked out the window, suddenly quieter, less animated. “That’s what they say.”
I pause for a moment. “That’s who who says?”
He looks up at me in alarm. And literally from one second to the next second, everything changes.
** **
Lights off. A loud noise. A bang. I hear a scream. It is a woman's voice. The room -- which was flaming hot like the inside of a volcano moments ago -- is suddenly frigid. That woman screams again. It is a piercing wail of a scream. I feel momentarily as though it could break glass. I find myself looking at the outside window, wondering if it will break. The sky outside seems thick and red, like the bottom of a wineglass after all the merlot is gone.
It is not yet midnight when my ghost appears for the first time. I was alone in my living room a minute ago, the lights of the Bay Bridge twinkling outside my window. And now he is here, standing right in front of me, in a black t-shirt and torn blue jeans.
After the shortest of shocked pauses, I begin to scream like a scared little schoolboy, wetting his short pants. Perhaps this is because, although I am nearly forty years old, I really am just a scared little schoolboy, wetting my short pants. The room is a microwave. The moon is a lemon.
The skin of my ghost is pale. He is translucent, like a jelly fish. He looks just like I always imagined a ghost looks. His eyes are the eyes of an albino. They are alive. He is alive. But from the moment I first saw him ninety seconds I ago, I have known that he is dead; I have known that he is a ghost. He is no fake. Even in his silence, I can feel his death. He is sitting in my lazy boy, scratching his chin, dully observing me. I do not know why I am referring to him as "my ghost." There isn’t much I can see that makes him mine. I can barely think at all.
There is blood dripping from a small wound on the side of my ghost’s head. He doesn't seem to notice. There is blood on one of the shoulders, underneath the wound. Other than the wound and the dead in his flesh, my ghost looks young, maybe twenty or twenty-one. I find it is more difficult to measure age in death than in life, so I cannot promise to be precise. Maybe he is four hundred years old, for all I know.
I am twisting and turning. My eyes are darting this way and that. I am shifting my weight from one leg to the other and back again. I am sweating. My fingers feel numb and tingly at once. The room is a microwave. The moon is a lemon.
My ghost stands up as if to approach me. I begin to yell some more, loud and gutteral. "Aaarghh! aaaarghhh!! aarggh!!!" is all I can muster. He shakes his head slightly from side to side, but seems otherwise unaffected by my shrill screams. My ghost is clearly bored. I guess he expects more from me.
I am looking right in his eyes. He is looking right back at mine. "So what's your name," he asks me casually. I don't know how to respond. I throw up instead.
** **
And so this tale begins. This tale of my ghost. Of my ghost and me.
** **
I am sitting at the kitchen table now, staring at my ghost. The yellow light of the morning sun drips down on us. I do not know where the night went. Here now, the room is still a microwave. Somewhere, the moon is still a lemon.
I had always believed that if ghosts actually existed, they could only show themselves in the dark; in the dreary corners of a decrepit haunted house and so forth. This, apparently, is not so. The sunlight did not seem to bother my ghost at all. He just started talking.
"I would like this to be a dialog, man. Not just a monologue, you know what I’m saying? How does that sound to you?"
I don't know how to respond to this at all. So, I throw up again. My ghost just shakes his head, completely unaffected. There is a silence in the room I cannot explain. I would like to say it is the sound of a feather, but that is not right. It is the sound of the silk on the bottom of a coffin.
As he begins to speak, I am trying not to scream.
“Oh man, I know some demons. Nasty, nasty demons.”
I just stare at him. His face is so white. He blends in with the wall behind him, his dark long bangs hanging down his forehead, like charcoal on chalk. There is some odd combination of goth and grunge in him I don’t quite get. It feels very ninety-two. I just stare at him. I can’t help it.
“I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know where I’m going. It’s not like you think it would be. I mean, I know how I got here, don’t get me wrong. What I’m saying is, like, I kind of thought there would either be answers, you know what I mean, answer to it all.”
He pauses and looks at me. The thought occurs to me that he is waiting for me to respond. He could wait all day, for all I care. I have nothing to say. After a moment, he resumes. I try to make sense of his words, as he is pacing around the room like a young Lenny Bruce with longer locks.
“You know, I kind of expected that it would be more free, like you could go everywhere you want, anywhere you want. That’s kind of what like my fantasy about it was. Like maybe I could hover over my house and watch all my friends crying and everything.”
“That’s not what it’s like?” I am speaking to him, but I barely recognize my own voice. It sounds so dark and hoarse to me. His dead eyes grow bigger as he looks at me in glee. I can see he is delighted that I am beginning to respond.
“No, man! Not at all. Not all. That’s just the fucking point. I can’t fly. I can’t see through things. I can’t sense anything. I can’t even walk through things.”
“Really?” I guess I had always presumed that ghosts would be able to walk through things.
“No.” He hesitates. “At least, I can’t. Not really. Not consistently. Not yet.”
“So, does that mean you will be able to walk through things some day?”
My ghost looked out the window, suddenly quieter, less animated. “That’s what they say.”
I pause for a moment. “That’s who who says?”
He looks up at me in alarm. And literally from one second to the next second, everything changes.
** **
Lights off. A loud noise. A bang. I hear a scream. It is a woman's voice. The room -- which was flaming hot like the inside of a volcano moments ago -- is suddenly frigid. That woman screams again. It is a piercing wail of a scream. I feel momentarily as though it could break glass. I find myself looking at the outside window, wondering if it will break. The sky outside seems thick and red, like the bottom of a wineglass after all the merlot is gone.
There is something inside me, too, that feels like that, like the dregs of a once fine wine. I get the sense that I may throw up again. My head is spinning like a top, like that little girl with the pea soup in the Exorcist, round and round and round again. I begin to make these peculiar gurgling sounds, as though I might be drowning. I am drowning in fear.
There is a woman in front of me now. She wasn't there a moment ago. The lights above me and racing on and off. The woman in front of me is scabbed and gray. Her hair is a mound of wire. Her eyes are not human. She is not human. She is flailing about, her torn, dirty dress a tornado of rags and rips, oily and juicy. She is frothing at the mouth, her jaw hiccupping up and down, mad sounds drawing out of her.
She points at this and that around the room, and my belongings go flying. A flower pot flies over my head. My mattress flies off its frame. Records zing through the air like frisbees, crashing into walls and exploding into a hundred pieces of black vinyl tragedy.
I am covering my head. I am screaming but it is no long high-pitched. It is a low, gutteral yelp, just vaguely aware now of the bad things I am facing. It is a wet yelp.
** **
“Hey, by the way,” my ghost calls out to me over his shoulder. “You know why you keep thinking of me as your ghost?”
“No,” I reply quietly, but with sudden anticipation. “Why?”
He pauses for a moment. “Because,” he answers slowly, a smile subtly conquering his face. “Because, I am.”
** **
I do not know what to make of this response. I get the sense that my ghost doesn't, either.
No comments:
Post a Comment