Turn Aside a While

flash fiction

So I'm sure you've heard, at some point in your life, about humans who call themselves Christians, right? You might have grown up in that, you could still be in it. I mean, even I know about Christians, and I have never been particularly human. In my position as Chief Ghost, an entity who does whatever kind of marshaling of human ghosts is possible, I have seen, and I have heard, and I have even passed through, many ghosts who say, in a whisper not carried on sound waves, "But I am Christian! This is not what I expected....!" They are often wandering ghosts, some of them, looking for a chapter-and-verse guide to life after human death. I let those ghosts float around a while, bathed in unexpected surroundings and previously unknown information, but not feeling any of it. Human ghosts are kind of like human lasagna, if you will, and they become aware of all the layers that they have inside themselves and are also part of eventually. Maybe, for a human cookery achievement, I should say ghosts are rather like that Hungarian cake called "dobostorta" the one that has at least seven thin layers and often twice as many. Well I mean, if anyone is counting cooked layers of things. Anyway, some human ghosts, erstwhile Christians, spend uncounted lengths of non-time looking for gods, martyrs, prophets and so on without realizing that some ghosts of those people, even the ghost of the human they called Christ, is as present, permeable, and moving as they are. Some of this kind of ghost, the kind who died as unwise humans, can get pretty rambunctious, and I must tap the shining gold font on a list that delineates the rules of ghostly behavior for them. I wait for them to say, "Amen." I am knowledgeable about several Christian attitudes without ever having been very human, or even alive in a human way. So I think, as eternity spreads its mantle over space hither and yon, my little nudges toward calm assessments are appreciated by all the human ghosts, both the others and those former Christians. We just can't have some prophet's ghost shooting around naked while under questionable alterations to his mind-self - and nothing is as naked as a rather high ghost seeking attention - we can't let him shout and upset the newbie ghosts, now can we? I have to tap the ghosting rules. There are, in a human's time spent alive, when looked at with a large enough view, literally thousands of Christian bibles, and each book says it holds The One Truth. Some of these books are still being written by little groups of living humans, sometimes by people who like to guide others a little too extremely much. Why, I see at least one living person now, sitting alone in a chilly room, forgetting to eat while writing a brand new Christian bible all alone. As Chief Ghost, which is a sort of being you might say is similar to a sheepdog, but not really like that at all, I just can't allow too much jostling of ghostly activities. Human ghosts are my lot, and I get serious about them as non-time evolves. You can sing what you like as a ghost, and absorb whatever floats your float-ing, but, please, do remember that final "Amen" and be seated a while. I will thank you when you can kind of hear me.

Author's Note

For Day 3 of FFM 2024 (Flash Fiction Month), hosted on WordPress and elsewhere.
This is 571 words.
"Turn Aside a While"