Ghost

This is a story I'd written for a short story competition of 5000 words. I quickly realised that the story didn't have much purpose, so I started something else from scratch instead.

The length of time for which I had been a ghost no longer mattered. Years and decades passed, but my disappointment at this incorporeal afterlife never abated.

That being said, I'd been a ghost for 35 years. I could not stray too far from my final resting place, the thick, tight noose on the strongest branch of the sturdiest sycamore tree in the centre of the forest. I had waited for nothing these many years, the sun had risen and set upon my lifeless body, twisted in pain and confusion instead of the blessed relief I'd hoped for. I'd watched as the air withered my already aged face, blackberry cluster lumps of flies congregating to digest it.

In all the years since, I'd seen but few souls approach the centre. For one, the forest was too large to be easily penetrable for those who could be bothered to make the journey. For another, rumours had spread that the forest was haunted. Though I'd never sensed another ghost, one backpacking couple noted that many others like myself had chosen suicide in the forest. Was there a common thread between us all? Without having seen another spirit, I can't say. I can't even speak for myself, existence as a ghost has a way of distorting ones memories and perceptions. The memory of my suicide and my reasons for it aren't necessarily lost, but are so clouded by false memories, possible options, that I can no longer discern reality from fiction.

Perhaps, I mused, I was jaded by the illusion of life's possibilities. At first, the world seems so expansive, begging to be explored, so many opportunities are available to you, but when you're tied down by the demands of work, eating, sleeping, money, family, law, the walls of these necessary evils form around you until the world becomes unbearably small.

I had honestly expected that ceasing to exist would be like a dreamless sleep, like when you fall asleep late and night and you don't even really realise it's happened. I looked forward to this escape from the heft of existence, like removing an iron helmet.

However, here I was. Forced to exist, unable to leave the place of my death. Unable even to interact with other spirits, only to faintly sense their presence from another distant part of the forest when another person chose to leave the mortal coil.

One day, he appeared. I didn't really understand who he was, he had the air of a religious man but the dressage of a common lumberjack. He stood tall, staring up at my skeletal form with an axe and a shovel by his side.

“So many lost souls...” I heard him mumble to himself. I stared directly at him, though like the others he appeared not to see me. Only glance momentarily at the space I didn't really occupy, like you'd turn to face a gust of wind as it howled through the trees.

The man sighed and shook his head. Laying down his shovel, he raised his axe and began swinging at the base of 'my' tree. The strike of metal on wood blasted, one precise and efficient stroke after another echoing through the formerly clear silence of the forest. Eventually, the tree shook more violently and fell, crashing clear of others in the forest. My old bones in their threadbare clothes thudded unceremoniously against the soft musty browns, the dead leaves and dirt of the forest floor.

I couldn't decide if I felt confused, relieved, violated or entirely indifferent. What difference did it make to me, after all, if my remains had been retrieved? The only consequence of the desecration was a change of scenery. I didn't feel that this stranger had a right to make that choice for me, yet at least the change was refreshing.

He picked up his shovel and, approaching my body, began methodically digging a hole next to it. A beam of light shone through the overhanging branches, as though a higher power were shining directly upon the chosen position for my grave. When he'd finished, I noted the tenderness with which he lowered himself, scooped my remains up almost lovingly in his embrace, in a way in which I'd never been held in life. It was almost touching, had it not also appeared so utterly meaningless.

Though I knew I could not be seen, I observed the acts from a distance, in hiding. The man shovelled the last of the earth back onto my bones, marking the grave with a branch from the tree from which I had once hung. He turned to face me, to my shock.

“Hey, spirit.”

“Yes?”

“In life, did you know of the Black and Red?”

“The what?”

“The Black and Red. It seems you do not know. Alas, I must continue my search. Spirit, you have been laid to rest and are free from this place. You may explore the world, heaven and hell as you see fit.” The man slung his axe and shovel over his back as he continued his path along the forest.

“Wait!” I cried. “I...thank you. I was hoping for a true release from existence, but I don't begrudge your actions. There must be some way I can help you find what you're looking for?”

The man turned to face me, a stern darkness becoming him.

“It's not something you can find. It's something that exists, but is intangible. It's a presence, but an absence. You may search the lands and seas with all the time left to you, and may never find it.”

“Then, why do you look through this forest? Is it enough to kill a man?”

“Not to kill a man, but to become him, such that death may present an alternative. Go now, spirit, and be free. I must continue my work in this forest.”

Without providing answers to my questions, I watched him disappear into the growing darkness of the forest.