Ghosts in The Machine

When we're awake, do we dream? Can we see our memories play out before us? A couple from Pennsylvania think they know the answer, but one knows more then the other.

She asked me once about the ghost fragments I see when no one’s around. I tell her they're fine, never better. I had her believe that the self contained memories only haunted themselves and I slipped outta the jail before they noticed I was missing. I did admit, however, that at times one would stop by to say hello. If I were a truthful man I’d admit our memories were so much more than ghosts….to me they are still alive.

If i’m silent I can hear them. One stood along the pier and dipped her feet into the water before the memory passed away in front of me. And just like that the ghost was gone. Vanished with the morning mist. The second two I saw appeared and rolled through the grass to catch the last butterfly of spring. I watched its wings grace my nose as the ghosts flew through the field. The crisp morning air had that same scent of honey and nectarines as it did a year ago and I could still taste the fresh citrus that she pressed against my tongue. It’s the sweetest taste I’ve known second to her kiss, those glossy lips always made me stop for a moment to remember she’s only human.

She always admired the Amish simplicity and ironclad will to work. Had I ever seen them I’d know that the plain folk exist in a reality between Christianity and the ideal that sleeping in on a weekday is a good way to get kicked out of heaven. I’ve only seen them on the TV where they tout their beards and suck up to the bishop in hopes he will turn a blind eye to their cell phones. On Sunday morning the ghost popped up on my porch with a raving finger and a loose tongue about how my lack of a job had almost cost us the house.  Her normally pale skin flushed with anger as she chased a ghastly figure of myself to an interview with the local grocer. It’s the same job I’m doing today only its easier to live off minimum wage alone. Sometimes I pass the old house just to see how our ghosts are doing, but the new family moved all the furniture and I can’t see them through their large leather couch. It’s better off that way. It helps me forget.

Some believe a writers life is that of great wealth and compensation but she saw the ugly truth first hand and hated me for it. She saw when I was so depressed that I forced myself into a corner that can only be dug out by the blank slate and an overabundance of caffeine. She asked why the hell I sit in front of that screen for so long instead of grabbing an easy paycheck with a newspaper. The other Ghost bowed his head before the screen . "I do not write because I want to, I write because I must. I've gotten so damn frantic trying to make a living  and keeping the banker from putting us into foreclosure for the last year that everything I've ever written is useless...but If I quit now then I might as well have never been born.”

Two weeks before that I sold a short story about an epileptic in the community play to a journal in Philly for around twenty five dollars. I spent most of the money on the ride up there, but the scenic tour alone was well worth the trip. She was a freelancer who landed a gig with a mom and pop joint that handed out little pamphlets every Sunday morning and needed to stay home to tighten up an article. It wasn't a fortune but it kept the grocer at bay each week. Besides, she liked the owners, an older couple in their 70's who've ran it since 1964. She said I should be more like them but I don’t think so. Their the grandparents who squeeze the cheeks of their poor grand babies and give them flappy skin before they reach the ripe age of six.  Not to mention they are far too old to even figure out a keyboard let alone a cell phone. It’s the only joint east of the Mississippi to still use a typewriter. She liked that aspect. The simplicity felt like home but I can’t be that. I’m not a simple person. My computer suits me just fine.

I take the train to Maryland whenever I can to reach out to new journals and editors who might pay for my work. Sometimes I drive but it’s so mundane. There’s something majestic about the rails that can’t be captured through anything else. The first time I rode I sat my pen on the paper until I got vertigo and spent the last few minutes in the bathroom hurling up God knows what. I look up of course and see the hospital where I was born, it’s a rather large facility on the outskirts of Frederick. I pass my old house and see the ghosts dance in the first rain of spring. It’s one of those moments I wish I can hold a camera inside my head, but the memories move on. I think I do as well. Can’t really be sure.

The call that changed all of this came in on a late Thursday evening. The woman on the phone was a bit frantic and rushed as if she had this hole in her throat and couldn’t breathe right.

God wouldn’t allow this, would he?

At first it was hard to recognize her through all the head bandages and medical machinery. Tubes and needles and clamps of all kinds sat on the inside of her skull, the likes of which brought back nostalgia of cheap horror films and booze at the dollar store.

No emotion. No movement. The only sign of life was the yellow flower I placed in her hand a moment before. The slight wind from the window blew the pedals off of the stem and the bright colors filled the air around her. It was the most action that room had seen in quite a while. The way they landed upon her face reminded me of an open casket funeral in which the corpse is decorated with vivid colors and made to look almost angelic. Watching something beautiful slowly wither in dead silence is emotionally devastating, like turning off the audio when the main character is losing his battle with cancer and the TV doctors wail and the machines shake but all you hear is the gentle tick of your grandfather clock counting down the seconds.

Nobodies sure of what happened. The surgeon thinks she had a seizure and fell against a rock on a walk through the forest. They had to perform emergency surgery twice to save her and they still don’t know when she’ll be stable.

Outside the hospital there was this couple crying. The woman bled mascara over his nice winter coat and he mouthed words I don’t feel comfortably rehashing. If another man were with me to watch I might think they’d be reenacting a soap opera for an audience, it had that intensity. Within moments they gained a small crowd around them as if they were a one act play duking it out on the streets of Broadway. For several moments I thought about calling out to stop it but hesitated because I’d be such a damn hypocrite. Instead I turned to her, still wrapped up in bed, and dropped my little bag of raisins before taking a seat at her side. I whispered in her ear which is stupid because she isn’t awake, but I have the feeling she heard me. I told her that I’m sorry for everything and that it’s my fault. I don’t really know what I was apologizing for but I felt pathetic and it was the least I owed her. Maybe if I took her advice and applied for a job with the carpet cleaners she wouldn’t have left home and landed in the ICU. They pay good money I hear. Twenty dollars an hour is plenty to live by.

The doctor came in half an hour later and to my surprise spoke quite good french, which is strange because we’re in America and doctors here don’t generally speak in foreign languages.

He avoided eye contact with me as the nurse’s gloved hands guided me out of the room. She told me that it’ll be fine, they just need some time alone for therapy. ‘Therapy’ generally doesn’t require a full ER staff.

Two days ago all that happened. I mope around the house in my grocery uniform. Haven’t changed it since I returned from the hospital. Her car still sits out in the driveway waiting for the agency to posses it. My daily cup of coffee doesn’t taste as good or give me as much energy as I wanted, but I don’t need to worry about falling asleep in the first place. I haven’t seen her since then and I don’t expect to for a very long time. Then she comes in the door. Her hair flows down her shoulders and comforts me with a slight hope. I try not to look at her but it’s too hard.

“Why won’t you talk to me, darling?” she asks.

I set the cup down. My stained lips tremble with a bit of fear because she stands before me.

“There isn’t anyone to talk to anymore. When I told you goodbye I meant it, and once you left there was no turning back.”

“You believe in second chances, don’t you dear?”

“It doesn’t work like that. Why are you here?” I ask her.

“This is where I live. Where else I would be?”

“I saw what remains of you for the very last time this morning. They buried you near the creek and there’s no telling me otherwise.”

“But man is much more than flesh or blood, is he not? Darling?”

“Don’t call me that, you used to be my darling and then you left me. You're just a ghost in the machine. A rogue memory gone wrong. You died, honey. Get outta here and take the damn car with you!”

She leaves.

In three months time I see her a total of six more times. Each one of them play out as a memory. A year after her death she stops by one last time to tell me goodbye and to ask me a question.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“How are the ghosts doing? Are they well?”.

I smile a bit and mimic a laugh. Of all the questions she chooses to ask me this.

“The doctors tell me that you’re better off this way. It seems to be that whenever I think of you that’s when you show up, darling. You’ve been a memory even before you left. The ghosts are fine. Never better. And you should get some rest, you look awfully tired.”