A Girl and Her Ghost

I tried to marry light humor and light horror. I'm not entirely sure if I accomplished that, but I do enjoy this story. It's basically a metaphor. Anyone who has been in one of those relationships that you shouldn't be in, you know, because it's codepe

 

I had never seen eyes bleed before. The thought struck me in such a casual manner, like seeing tomatoes on sale at the grocery. The fact that I was more repulsed by my nonchalance than the actual thing I was seeing only added to my panic. I got closer to the mirror, just to be sure I was indeed seeing this monstrosity, and sure enough, the eyes were there, just as real as my reflection. They blinked and the red liquid squeezed neatly out of each tear duct and then disappeared. The eyes blinked again and again, faster and faster, until it seemed they were simply a grotesquely dripping pair of humming bird wings. I screamed then, loudly and violently, to disrupt the bloody flight.

 

I awoke, kicking blankets off of me and sweating. For a moment I thought my sweat was blood, leaked by crying, dead eyes. I shuddered and sat up, turning on the light. Everything was how it should be. Dirty laundry on the floor, journal opened and staring at me from the nightstand, and the cat, head tilted slightly, looking at me from the pillow beside mine. Everything is how it should be, I repeated to myself, slowly with as much calm as I could muster. Hopefully, my brain would believe my mouth and stop with the weird dreams. I didn’t have nightmares all the time, probably as much as anyone else, but this one….this one topped the weirdness scale for me. And the last part might have been the most terrifying. The serene whisper, a man’s voice, telling me the opposite of what I was screaming at myself. Hell no, it wasn’t ok. And anybody with bleeding eyes is going to hurt you. Haven’t you seen any movies lately? It was nearly five in the morning, almost time to get up. No time left to fall asleep and let sweet mindless dreams cancel out the nasty image. Let it keep, I thought to myself, then let it go. I got out of bed, fully aware that I was more abnormal than I had ever dared to think. Enough with that, I told myself, time for work.

 

The man’s voice haunted me throughout the day. He echoed in my head while I was driving, and even the new Incubus song didn’t drown him out. Instead of hearing the orders for books, or the questions asked by impatient shoppers, I heard his whisper. I think there was some crankiness about half-way through my shift, not on my part of course, but from Cee, my loving boss. There was a speech about giving your absolute attention to each and every customer. There was something else in there about drugs adversely affecting the performance of employees. I have never done a drug in my life, and I figured Cee knew that. Maybe she was just trying to be funny. It’s not that Cee isn’t funny, it’s just that she doesn’t make me laugh. No, self, I thought to myself, drugs are not to blame for spacey behavior today. Because the truth is, even while Cee was unleashing the cranky monster, I was still hearing a man’s voice, softly whispering, calling me. That’s right. He was calling. Watch out cliché city, here I come.

I left “Book Marks the Spot” at three on the dot. I usually stay a little later to organize the storage area, but my alphabetizing skills were sufficiently lacking for some reason. It was one of the worst days I had ever had. It was wonderful. I climbed the stairs to my apartment, thanking all that is considered holy by most cultures that it was winter break. I highly doubt spacing out in advanced physics would be helpful to my GPA. No pun intended, I snickered. I unlocked the apartment door and threw my coat on to the worn out couch. Actually, let me correct that. I tossed my jacket, unceremoniously, on to the man who was sitting on my couch. This correction took a minute to fully sink in, but, I promise, as soon as it did, I began a terrified and squeal-y jumping about and an extremely frightened (and most assuredly poorly executed) “jazz hands” routine.

“It’s ok, I won’t hurt you.”

 

“I have been floating around for quite some time now,”

 

“So have I. Well, floating, in the living, not sure what you want out of life, but at least I have a pulse, sense.” I said, loudly, causing myself to jump slightly.

“I saw your light glowing and you seemed to be what I was looking for. My light has been lost to me and I supposed that maybe you could share yours with me.”

I found myself thinking of the trusty Zippo in my pocket. Every now and then, it would spark without producing flame and I would have to refill the lighter fluid.

“You’re an empty Zippo, then.” I cringed immediately after saying this. It seemed out of place in what should have been a cosmic conversation. How many people get to talk to ghosts? How many of those people say something stupid like I did? My guess was none of them, save me.

“I don’t have anywhere to go, really. I could use a warm place to live, some company perhaps. And you have a lovely home. And a lovely face.”

With that he stood and walked over to where I was standing. As he came close, I could see that he wasn’t so much pale as see-through. A translucent ghost, inviting himself in and complimenting me while doing so. Now, one would think that a smart girl, such as I, would see through this apparition (ooh another unintended pun…what a funny girl you are) and ask him politely to leave. But he was awfully beautiful, obviously tormented, and I was, well, I was lonely. He took my hand and pressed it to his lips. His hand was not cold, as I was expecting. Rather, it was very warm, almost hot to the touch. His lips were quite chilly and the spot on my hand where he had kissed me would stay cold for several hours after, as if I was holding ice on it.

I let him stay. He didn’t eat anything. He didn’t cost me any money. I don’t know what he did while I was at work, or eventually, when I went back to school. I could picture him, sitting there, on the ragged couch, waiting for my return. I found that soon, he consumed all of my time, and when I wasn’t with him, all of my thoughts. He would lay in bed with me at night, his hot skin keeping me warm. He would play with my hair and tell me stories. At first, never about himself, mostly just what he had seen when he was traveling in the unknown. And let me tell you, it’s a sick world out there. He intrigued me in every sense of the word. Eventually he opened up and would tell me of his death and his time before he died.

“I think it was my mother that killed me. Or maybe she hurt me and caused me to kill myself. I can’t remember really. I just know I bled a lot. I cried a lot. It hurt a lot. I really despised myself, I know that much. I still do, you know. I am worth nothing and I can’t even figure out why I am still here.”I thought to myself. Good pun, unintended, and definitely not funny. It still had not occurred to me that perhaps I was not in the best situation. He had a hold on me that was seemingly unbreakable. Not that I was jumping to break it, mind you. I loved that he was tortured. I certainly found beauty in all his pain. And I knew that eventually, if I worked hard enough, he could come through it and get where he needed to go. It had been a particularly cold night that night, and he had held me particularly close. He had kissed me for awhile. Well, I’m not going to start lying now…I kissed him back. The next day in classes, I spoke as though I had been sucking on popsicles all day. Try saying physics with a numb tongue. Not easy and certainly not graceful. I guess he made me feel special. I must be special, I figured, if such a tormented soul would seek me out for help. There were times, though, when I caught a glimpse of my nightmare in him. I figured that wasn’t the real him and put it out of my mind as much as possible. During these times, he wouldn’t speak to me for days and he wouldn’t lie with me in bed. Sometimes he would yell at me, cussing loudly, usually over a small thing. One time in particular that I can remember, I had answered the phone one evening and spoken briefly to a friend from school. He raged when the call was over. He thought I ought not to be talking to other people when I had him to pay attention to. I thought about it awhile and figured he was right. The most striking thing for me about his hard days was that whenever he had them, his eyes would bleed for hours on end. They never left a stain on the carpet (unlike the cat). They didn’t even fall past his chin. Once they hit the edge of his face, they would disappear. They left no streaks on his lovely face, either. Yes, bloody tears are creepy enough, but add all that stuff on, and you’ve got a whole new weirdo ball game.

You are a ghost of a man,

It came to the point where I didn’t talk to my friends anymore. They didn’t need me as much as he did. They couldn’t light me on fire with their touches like he could. Why waste my time, I figured. I ate less and less. I never cleaned anymore. I would skip classes and took some time off of work so I could be with him, my death angel, my tortured soul. On the days when he wouldn’t speak to me, he would let me know just how he was feeling by throwing my stuff around the apartment. I remember thinking it was a joke at first, but it happened more and more frequently as time went by. Sometimes I would wake up in the morning and all the furniture would be completely rearranged and there would be little holes punched in the walls. I never woke up when he was doing this interior decorating. Ghosts can be quiet when they want to, you know.

As time went by, his color got stronger. His lips were a light kitten-nose pink and his hair seemed to rise above his eyes. The holes in his clothes shrank and the bottom of his pants lost most of their fray. His touch became less hot and his kisses, when he gave them, were no longer the icy heaven they had once been. I saw how much he was improving and rejoiced. My forlorn ghost lover would be whole again. I was some kind of freakin martyr and he would remember it was I who breathed the life back into him and stay with me forever. Isn’t that the sweetest thing you could ever think of?

He seldom left the apartment, but when he would go, I would rush around, trying to put things back in their rightful places and sweep broken pieces of dishes or picture frames off the floor. One day, he decided to do some window shopping. It had been almost a year since he had slithered into my life and I assumed he might try to pick out a suitable anniversary present for me. That’s what good ghost boyfriends do, no? He left, swinging his chain wallet (which was always empty) and whistling a tune from the Underworld (or maybe it was just Rammstein). I rushed around then, like always, and then decided that it would be better if I looked really nice for him when he came back. It’s always better to get a gift when you were looking your best. I ran the water in the shower and glanced into the mirror over the sink. Through the fog of steam, I could see cold empty eyes staring back at me. No, they weren’t empty. They were full….of blood. I had seen eyes bleed many times, but never my own. I leaned closer to the mirror to make sure it was real, and sure enough, it was as real as my reflection. I touched the bloody tear drops and inspected my fingers closely. Real blood. My blood. I looked back up at the mirror. What stared back at me was a shock (if bleeding eyes doesn’t shock a person enough). My face was almost translucent and my lips were dead kitten-nose light purple. And all the while, my eyes were bleeding, crying red rivers of pain and self loathing. I flashed back then, like some kind of crazy acid trip, back to all the times he yelled. All the times he cussed, threw things, and ignored me for days on end. A deep pain filled my gut and I realized I missed my life. I ached for my friends, I hungered for knowledge, normality and missed laughter. Where had they gone? I thought of him again. I recalled his now pink lips, his healthy skin, my pretty little soul sucker. Several moments of self-pity came and went. The normal, “how could he have done this” and “why me” thoughts floated in and out seamlessly. I looked straight ahead, into my bleeding eyes. I looked at myself. I had forgotten I existed for a time.

A cool touch on my hot flesh brought me back to my so called “reality”. I turned to face him.

“It’s ok, I won’t hurt you,” he assured me.

“You already have. You have almost killed me,” I spat the words at him.

He smiled easily. I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t know. Of course, knowing and caring are two different things. Yeah, he knew. Nope, he cared not.

“Such a lovely face. Shall we lie in bed for awhile? I can tell you stories and stroke your hair. I know how much you love that.”

Softly he said this, arching his black brows. He got close to me while he was speaking. His words were fog on my neck, forming droplets that slid down my chest. The thought warmed me up and cooled me down at the same time. That would be nice…a nice night in with the hubby. I looked into his eyes. Eyes….blood…know….no…no..

“NO NO NO NO!!” I screamed. “You want to steal my light. When you said “sharing“, you meant taking. When you said “live” you meant leech. And I let you. I let you in. I let you in my bed, and my home, and my heart. I let you take it. Thief, poltergeist, death!” I cried and yelled.

“I’m sorry. I love you. You saved me, you know.”It was about this time that I finally took the self-imposed blinders off. It was about this time that I figured out that pain personified is not so beautiful. Don’t get me wrong, pain is beautiful because it offers balance and initiates transition. But wallowing in pain, well, that’s just ugly and makes for a pruny soul. It was about this time that I uninvited my beautiful death angel out of my life, out of my bed and my home and my heart. It wasn’t difficult really. The movies aren’t always accurate. I didn’t have to know a special spell, or collect the hair from an albino platypus to sprinkle over his grave. It was as simple as realizing that what I let in, I could push out. What I agreed to let him do, I could refuse to let him continue doing.

 

“I think it might have been you that saved me, babe.” I whispered. I led him out of the bathroom and down to the front door. With each step, his skin grew a little paler, his lips took on their normal lavender shade. I opened the front door for him and gave him a gentle push over the threshold.

“You don’t need anybody else to get some light. You’ve been looking for it in the wrong places. I would recommend checking your inner workings. Maybe there is a shortage or something,” and with that I closed the door on my beloved poltergeist.

Keep the change

I thought to myself. I chuckled….still the same old funny girl I always was.

 

 

he said.That voice stopped my shrieking dance of doom and froze my feet to the ground. He pushed aside the jacket and it landed in a heap beside his feet. He was dressed in tattered blue jeans and a black tank top, I believe they are referred to as “wife-beaters” nowadays. Isn’t that a wonderful reflection of our society? Now is not the time for social commentary, I told myself. Regardless, he was very pale, with jet black hair that hung low into his face and almost completely covered his eyes. His lips were a very light purple. One would think that this would detract from his good looks. But I stood there, shaking slightly, trying not to pee my pants, and thought that he looked very attractive indeed. You know, in that dead guy on your couch kind of way.

 

“It’s ok , I won’t hurt you,”.

Reviews

[Heather]

Thanks TL...I went back and read it through and the order was messed up in a couple of places. Thank you for pointing that out...I had no idea!

[TL Boehm]

Nicely done. You definitely blended both humor and horrr in this piece. It was well written with great imagery. The only question I have would be that that last paragraph seems like it should be up with the beginning portion, other than this it was a great story.