Prologue

I think she must be afraid of many things, she carries on so. Mom looks over her shoulder nervously as she creeps into her own kitchen, brandishing a weapon-like spatula. She probably is afraid of the man who escaped from prison early this morning from the local jail. At least, that's what I say to myself as I sit cautiously on the couch. Who knows, in a town like this, she's probably heard all the rumors there are about this house being haunted. And I would bet money (if I had any) that she believed them all.
How silly.

 

A door somewhere opens and shuts, but it isn't in this house. I rub my temples, but my head doesn't ache. It never does anymore, and oddly enough, I miss it.

Then the door in the kitchen in this house opens and shuts, and I feel rather than see Mom jump a mile.

 

However, she relaxes when Dad plants a kiss on her cheek and sets his briefcase on the table.

"Why are you home so early?" she asks, her hands rising to rest on her hips.

Dad sighs, his eyes unable to meet hers. "I just couldn't stay," he says lowly. "It's just . . . too soon . . . I-"

Mom bursts into tears and rushes from the room.

 

Dad drops into a chair rather than following his wife, like he would have a few weeks ago. His head falls into his hands and I'm shocked when I see his shoulders beginning to shake. I stand up and slowly walk to him, my hand hovering inches from his arm, mere inches, and then I touch him, and his head jerks up, his eyes red. His eyes flash in confusion and he looks around the room.

His eyes look right through me.

"Dad," I whisper. It is strange to me that I still have a voice, because my father does not hear me. Then I remember: He isn't my father at all, no more than Mom is my mother.

 

He looks down at the bare tabletop, as if its cracked wooden surface could reveal the mysteries of the world. I leave him to his intent and sobfilled study of the furniture for number endeavors, like sitting in the attic and staring at the wall.

 

I slowly climb the stairs, stairs that are infamously creaky. Not a sound can be heard, though, not even when I stomp my feet. Nothing. Just the laugh-track of some sitcom in the living room, doing its best to drown out the sounds of Mom's weeping and the muffled sounds of Dad in the kitchen, breaking down at last.

 

I'd like to leave my house. I really would, but I haven't attempted it since I witnessed my burial. I kind of freaked out and jumped onto my casket, which, in turn, somehow freaked out the pallbearers, who dropped the casket, and my mangled body took an unheroic tumble. Dead bodies have a hard time being heroic, because no matter what the person did in his lifetime, the body does nothing in its death, because it is just that: A body. Nothing more. Just another inanimate object to be disposed of because it stinks and offends and depresses.

 

In that moment, when my parents and sisters saw my body hit the muddy ground (it rained hard that day), I realized that I was truly, really dead. This wasn't some bizarre misunderstanding. There lay a body, a body I used to inhabit, lying in the rain in my Sunday best, but I was not that body. I had never been that body. And I no longer had that body to hide myself in.

 

No. Now I just have a house.

 

I can never leave without losing the last few shreds of humanity I cling so tight to, because standing there in the rain that didn't touch me, I also realized that I seemed to be falling apart, like a dry-clean only sweater that you accidentally put in the washing machine. For a few seconds, everything is fine, and you're completely together. But it starts with a tremble. At first, you aren't even aware anything is wrong. But then, slowly, so slowly, a piece of skin starts floating away from your face. A hand wobbles in and out of sight. Raindrops begin filling the space where your left leg was just seconds ago.

 

Someone in the crowd of mourners gasped. A little boy I recognized as my friend Denny's sister's boyfriend's aunt's stepson, or something like that. Couldn't have been older than six. He pointed, tugging at the end of his mother's black dress, but she barely turned in my direction. The man with her did, though. He looked right through me, the first time that ever happened to me (at least in the literal sense). He said something to his little boy and took his hand, and the boy's attention went back to my body instead of my soul.

 

I just want someone to see me again. Just one more time. Just so I know that I still matter, just enough to be noticed. Not loved, just noticed.

 

If I could just leave this stupid house.

 

　

I fear nighttime more than any hell-born angel or creature who delights in going bump in the night, or however the hell that saying goes.

 

It's so quiet. That's the worst thing, even worse than the darkness. I can hear the silence of where my heart used to beat, I can hear the thoughts racing through my psyche. And that is all. I can't smell, can't taste, can't touch. There are only memories of things. Like a ghost pain in a limb long gone, I can sometimes catch a whiff of frying bacon, or the taste of the fresh air through a window right after a rain, or feel a hand ruffling my hair.

 

But none of it happens. There is nothing, not even fully solid memories.

 

So often I've tried to pull up something that might make me genuinely smile once more, just one more time. But there's nothing. I've looked at the photos hanging on the walls, and they do help to conjure up, you know, something. There's this one where my sister Helena, Denny, and his sister Emily and I are sitting on the fence bordering Denny's and Emily's home, Emily and I both holding the same dandelion, and, incidentally, each other's hands.

 

There's another one of me with Dad. He's holding up a fishing line with a giant river trout, its eyes still wide open and staring out vacantly at nothing, forever. It makes me sick and I can't remember why I ever liked fishing. But I do remember that, at one time, I loved it. It was a way to actually spend time with the old man, even if I knew he actually hated fishing and only did it to spend time with me.

 

So photos are ways to remember . . .

 

But what happens to you when you're forced to remember what you'd like nothing more than to forget?

 

Because then I remember the other thing, the terrible thing, the thing I've tried to make myself forget: these are just names and relationships I've created.

 

That boy isn't me. I've never met him in my afterlife, don't even know his name. His family hasn't lived here long and I never paid much attention to him.

 

I died over a hundred years ago, and that boy whose parents are weeping downstairs just died a couple of weeks ago.

 

They say a ghost haunts, but I think really we're the haunted. Haunted by the things we didn't do when we had the chance to do them. By the people we left behind. By the fact that we will never matter to anyone or anything again, but we will continue to witness other lives being constantly wasted.

 

If only they taught us that we should have lived life to its extreme in school rather than stupid f*****g algebra.

Author's Note

Hope the f-bomb near the end there didn't offend anybody. :S
Enjoy!~

Reviews

[Shep]

No I have heard worse or should I say I read WORSE? Any way great story you have hooked enough to move on to the next page. But I need too address this first. A common problem with first time writers. Backstory, backstory. Yes this a backstory, but missing the most important part. The word"I" ...who is"I" ? If you are writing or trying to rediscover first person writing. You need to tell the reader who "I" is. Last author I read was James Patterson his book Toys. Personaly I don't like him very much mostly because he doesn't care about his writingy in any of his books. You can always tell when a writer cares if read enough good novels like. Robert Jordon or brandan sanderson and even J.R Token And several others. But

Frist person has rules regardless if don't care for this kind of writing, if you introduce a person as "I" it is always a big no,no. Yet ou got me hooked enough to move to the next chapter. If you want an example I started one called Troubles. It still in its beginning stages, bur it may give you an idea. Personly I perfer thrid person writting and started a series called Whats Behind the Looking Glass. First and second book I have completed And have posted the first one and will soon post the second book soon. Come by and check them out.

[khalid]

excellent