Chapter 3

Once my mother was taken away my mind went into shut down mode again. It now not only had to deal with being a ghost but an orphan as well. All my life I sought solitude and now I was absolutely alone and it terrified me.

Like my soul, the house was also left abandoned and it remained empty for years and years. No for sale sign ever went up and hardly anyone ever came to see it. I always wished the house would be sold and some new family would move in. A house, like a person needs life inside of it to survive and despite the fact they wouldn’t be able to see me, I wanted people to keep me company. I just wanted to hear voices again. People walking around, Signs of life. In a house as dark and dismal as this, one couldn’t not help but think of death continuously.

With nothing to do time passed as if it didn’t even exist. I took to staring longingly for days out of my bedroom window and down at the small town where I grew up.

The town is called Freedom. It was a small New Hampshire town surrounded by a lush temperate forest with a mix of delicious smelling evergreen trees and broad-leaved hardwood trees that were older than New England. I suppose our town was not much different than many other north American towns in the 50’s. Our pace was slow and our values traditional. Everyone tended to think, dress, act and encompass the same principles as everyone else. The men went to work and earned the money while the women stayed home and cooked and cleaned while taking care of the children. Everyone had similar cars and every lawn was picture perfect. We went to church every Sunday and the milkman came every morning. The downtown business district was the center of our small town life. Most stores, restaurants and offices were located there and had been owned and operated by the same family for years. The shops had plate glass windows and the streets had tree lined sidewalks and parking meters. On sunny summer days, ladies did their shopping and kids gathered in the corner drugstore. On Saturday night, the area was crowded with shoppers and people attending movies and dining at Mel’s. It was a place where it seemed like for the first time the American dream was a real and tangible thing.

 Over the years I’ve watched my little town grow from my bedroom window. More streets more houses, more lights more cars more people. Seasons changed like days as I watched kids walk to school, then to high school. I watched couples strolling hand in hand grow old together. I watched as the old shops along the main street changed hands over and over again.

Sometimes I would feel myself become insanely jealous of the lives they all took for granted but mostly I just felt incredibly alone. With only the odd curious teenager or double dared kid to come to our door step the childhood home I once felt so happy and loved in had come to feel more like a tomb.

I honestly never thought anything would ever change for me. After a while I had settled into the notion that I was going to haunt this abandoned house alone forever. When the house eventually crumbled to the ground from old age, I would be left to haunt the ruble.

That was of course all until one day everything changed completely, in a way I never thought possible for a disembodied spirit such as myself.

It was a grey day in the fall. Of course I had no idea of the actual date or even the year I just knew it was fall again. All of the Magnolia blossoms that I had been admiring since the spring were all gone and the sun didn’t shine nearly as bright or nearly as long. If I were to hazard a guess I would say it was sometime in mid November. I only say that because only a short time before I had watched the neighbourhood children skip from house to house dressed in their Halloween costumes. For year Halloween alo marked the most exciting time of year for the house and i. it was the only time anyone felt the need to give a spooky old place like ours the time of day. Teenagers who were successful in breaking in would hold silly séances in the parlor attempting to contact the spirit they only assumed resided her because the house looked as though it could be haunted. They didn’t know how right they were but I never gave them the satisfaction of showing myself or attempting to make any contact. I did enjoy watching them however. It was the only source of entertainment or human contact I ever had up until that fateful day in what i think was mid November.

That day, like every other day I was sitting at the  window in my room gazing out the window when a truck towing a moving trailer pulled up our driveway. Immediately my heart skipped. Whatever was coming was going to be exciting since anything could be more exciting than what I was already doing…which was nothing. Any break from the monotony was a welcome one.

What I was not expecting was my reaction when the driver stepped out of the truck and gazed up at our massive façade. Even from four storeys up I could see how unusually handsome he was. He had rugged, manly features and a tanned complexion from being out in the sun. I could tell from the way he moved and carried himself that this was not a man who was afraid of hard work. He wore a light jacket with a plaid design and worn out blue jeans. His hair was chocolate brown a hung somewhat shaggy around his forehead and eyes. In my day a boy who went around with such unkempt hair might have been considered a hoodlum yet it somehow in a way worked. When he hopped down from the cab he lit a cigarette and began to walk the perimeter of the house as he puffed away. I placed myself downstairs with my mind and began following him from window to window. I knew he couldn’t see me so I didn’t have to be discrete and I knew exactly which windows to go to in order to get the best view. He would kick the foundation of the house in places and look up into the cloud-hazed sun inspecting my house the way I assumed a contractor would. I could almost see the mental notes he was making in his mind and I couldn’t help but feel judged and somewhat ashamed of the state of my poor old house. I almost felt the need to defend it from his scrutinizing eye. A couple of times he got close enough and would get up really close to peer inside the window with his cupped hands shading the sun. Each time he did this my heart skipped. First because I was afraid he would somehow see me and second because his eyes were the most brilliant sapphire blue I had ever seen.  

Something about him had instantly caught me. It’s almost as if I’ve been dreaming of him my whole life and we had only just found each other now. It’s true what they say. When you meet The One you just know. For some inexplicable reason it becomes the only thing you have ever been completely sure of in your whole life. I was never so sure of anything when I was alive and though I was scared to think about it I knew that nothing would ever be the same again. As if I were somehow saved already, just by him being here.

For some reason at the moment it never dawned on me that it was impossible for me to fall in love. I was a ghost. Love and family and friendship were all things that happened to the living. It required someone to see you and love you back. Without life I was just a fly on the wall to this man. I could watch him, I could care about him but I could never love him. Not in the true sense.

 When he came back around the porch to the front door I was thrilled when I heard a key slide into the lock. Teenagers used to come in through a broken basement window but I could not even remember the last time i saw someone walk through the front door. It meant he belonged here. That he meant to stay. The house and I were no longer completely alone.

 

I followed closely as he made his way through the house. While he studied its layout, I studied his clothes; I studied the soft lines in his face, his thick bottom lip touching his thinner top one. I studied the way his nose was so straight and narrow coming to a rounded point with two perfect nostrils. I studied the way he walked with purpose, with confidence. I quickly began to love the way he would push his long hair back off his forehead by running his finger through it and I began to wonder what lay behind the thoughtfully look each time he did it.

A loud ringing sound broke the decades of silence and the man reached into his pocket. He touched the screen and put it to his ear. “Hello?” He said. I had a hard time believing what he was talking on was a phone but it sure seemed like one. “No this is Ben Jackson, Dave is my father I actually have his phone.” He paused for a response and said “Yep for sure. You can reach him at his office number.” Another pause, “No worries. Bye.”

At least now I had a name to call this man. Benjamin. Such a strong, intelligent name. I liked it almost as much as I liked him.

Once Benjamin had explored nearly every room he went back outside to his truck. With a sinking heart Benjamin got into his truck and began backing away. I suddenly realized that might die all over again if he left and I never saw him again. I wanted to scream to him and lock him inside with me. But, even before the sorrow of his leaving could fully set in the truck turned around and began backing up. He was positioning the moving trailer so the opening was closer to the door.

For the rest of the afternoon I watched as Benjamin unloaded his moderately full trailer and brought them into the house. There were a couple garbage bags full of clothes, a well used chair, A large flat screen looking thing as well as a similar looking smaller one. One he put on the dresser in the first bedroom which is where he had decided he would sleep. And the other smaller screne he put on the writing desk in the corner of the bedroom. The one on the desk also included a futuristic typewriter which he put in front and a small device with two buttons attached to a wire.

It wasn’t until long after evening set in that Benjamin finally had the first bedroom suitable to live in.He dusted and vacuumed with an impressive machine. On the bed he put on some new sheets he had brought with him. He then put the old sheets in the garbage bags which his clothes were in and which were now hanging in the closet. The larger screen I learned was a futuristic television. When he was finally done for the day he turned it on and sat on the bed while he drank a beer and ate some pizza that he asked the pizza parlor to bring directly to the house.   

At night I gave Benjamin some privacy and I went back up to my bedroom to reflect on the day’s events. I had never had a longer day in all the time I had been dead. And for the first time in a long time I had something to look forward to the next day. I had a reason to leave my room.  

 

 

Author's Note

Thank for Reading!

Reviews

[Madeleine R. Spalding]

I do agree with HayleyLemore in that dialogue can be a beneficial tool to break up long text, and I know that since your protagonist is house-bound and unable to converse with anyone, that makes it difficult to find a place where you can add dialogue. But I think even more unique internal dialogue could give us as the readers a better sense of who the protagonist is. Is she sarcastic? Is she witty? What is her sense of humor? You communicate well to your readers how lonesome she is and how isolated she feels, but I found myself wanting to hear more of her thoughts and reflections. I found myself wanting to know what her dreams and aspirations were. She liked to read before she died--did she fancy becoming a writer? A poet? What were her life goals? As a ghost, is she at least still able to read the books that are in the house?

Maybe this is just me, but the description of the "rugged" stranger seemed a bit too generic, like a prince from a Disney movie. I think if you gave him a few quirks--moles, glasses, what have you--that would make him less generic and more realistic (although I know this is a piece of fiction).

I look forward to reading more.

[HayleyLemore]

Her mind went to 'shut down mode'. Could this be more 2014 slang rather than 1958? Perhaps it could read 'my mind shut down'.
I am enjoying this very much and love the idea. However I tend to use a lot of dialog. I know there is no need for dialog in your story, but as I view the town - perhaps, Cecilia could float around and listen to people talk. And maybe even they are talking about that dreary old house along the avenue, or something to the sort.
When the boy kicks the foundation I just want to say, "Hey, stop kicking my house." Or sarcastically, "Don't hurt your foot, stupid." But of course he couldn't hear my voice and it tapered off to the wind.
Oh boy, now its getting good. Onto the next chapter.
Could you possibly check out the first chapter of my book Alvina and Jed? I just need to know if it has enough pull to draw a reader in. I think it does but have never gotten true feedback.