Ghost

This is a story which came to me, based on the song “ghost”, by Jonah Blacksmith

It’s been a while since we last spoke. The last time I heard your voice, saw your face, and felt your touch. Now for most people these things can occur all at once, but for me they have happened in turns all the time over the last year. It’s getting hard to remember what it feels like to be with a person you love, where all of these things are happening simultaneously. Or how it is, feeling them, without your interrupting.
And the crazy thing is, that I didn’t even love you. Not really, not like I have loved other people. But you are the one who decided to stick.
We had only been dating for a quarter of a year, when you got sick, and two months later I visited your hospital bed. The next day I found it empty. And the day after that, you were stroking me gently across the chest, the way you always did before.
Then you would comment my beard, and how it has become a tat to long for your taste, from behind me. You’d say how my shirt wasn’t my color, and my pants made my flat a*s look good. Occasionally you would tell me how my hair had grown out pretty, so I cut it off, leaving it at a length at the top that couldn’t be connected to a bun, the way you liked it.
Last night I swear your soft thumb wiped away my tear, but I couldn’t be totally sure.
The wind is coming in hard from the west, blowing my short hair annoyingly in front of my face. The tips of it is now long enough for me, to be able to tuck it away behind my ears, holding it back temporarily at least.
Leaves are kicking my shoes as I move across the road. I try to walk on top of the white line in the middle as much as possible. Using all my concentration on doing just that, using what is left of my brain activity on forcing all the cars horns silent, and taking angry hands of me. Eventually the force of my brain is not enough, and so I fall from the force of a push, to the pavement hitting my head ever so hard, a new clinging sound drowns out all the shouting.
I ignore your hand as you reach out to me. You always laughed at me when I fell before, so why help me up now? At once you disappear from my sight as soon as I get up, and your voice replaces your presence, because if I don’t no one will. I laugh a short cut, frustrated laugh, at the sound of your voice replicating my own words, replying to the question you asked me, about why I kept coming to the hospital.
I brush of some leaves and dirt from my pants and keep walking down the street.
How could I love you? You were always just a pain in my life, acting like you were fixing me, and I you somehow. But if I had loved you, wouldn’t I have cried when you died? Wouldn’t I have contributed to your funeral, instead of leaving your long-lost aunt to the awkwardness with the priest. It was the worst funeral I have ever attended. The words the priests mouth shaped, could not if possible have been more fake, and cliché. All those nice things your aunt apparently remembered about you, sounded nothing like you. So, I laughed sarcastically at the back of the church until they threw me out, all in snot and tears.
Idiots… mourning you. You said it yourself, that you didn’t want anybody mourning you. And then I’m the a*****e for not doing just that. But if it makes them feel better about themselves, then perhaps they should. Isn’t that why we all do everything? To make ourselves feel better? That’s all you did anyway. Only always selfish deeds, she only did something if it made her happy, not if it only made others happy.
I kick at a rock, pretending it’s your heart, cause it’s about the same size. No matter what size rock I find, it’s always a part of you somehow. Because that is what you did to me. You connected yourself to me, in a quarter of a lifetime, and then never left. A pang shoots up my foot, making it pump warmly. Then I feel a softer blow on my arm, I recognize as a friendly reminder from you, which makes me smile a little.
On the corner of the street, where all sides end, in one big traffic clock, I stop up, waiting for the neon man to turn green. Beside me, stands an elderly woman, with hair as white as Snow Whites skin, and clothes as black as her hair. She looks like the definition of a contrast, if it weren’t for her pale blue eyes, looking distantly lost.
I reach down, after her wrinkled hand, thinking it belongs to you, and gently folds my fingers in between hers. Hers are small, thin, and wrapped with dotted skin, standing out very pale against my skin. At first, she doesn’t do anything, her gaze still completely gone. Then it’s like she wakes up, a smile spreading across her face, as she looks down at her hand, then up at me.
‘Oh! Reginald is that you!’ she then exclaims, with a voice more naïve then a child’s. ‘I didn’t think I would see you until Thursday!’
Just as I’m about to smile back at her, before my eyes start turning on the tears.
‘Oh, please don’t cry dear.’ She says with a gentle voice, like have she used those words more times then most mothers do. ‘I know you didn’t mean what you said that day. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.’ She then adds with a smile, as her hands reaches my face, and strokes my chin softly.
I get pushed away from her with hard firm hands, and all I can see is a set of full red, screaming lips. They are moving like crazy, right in front of my face, so I can feel the woman’s shouting breath on me, but not hear her words. Then as soon as the man turn green, they walk slowly across the street, the red lips only producing soothing words now, as to comfort their grandmother, or whatever their relation have been.
You laugh at me, and I decide to stay put until the next time the man turns green, watching the elder lady walk away from me, with small insecure steps. I can’t help but want the image of you like that in my head. All old and fragile, nothing superior or confident about you. Just you, dying of old age… I can’t help but laugh at that image. You, dying of old age. You never did laugh when I did die though…
I push you out of my mind, not wanting the sound of your voice in my head, if I can’t get your touch, and sight also.
It’s not working though. It never does. But I figure I can at least try if nothing else. Because no matter what, the alternative of you being on my mind twenty-four-seven, is worse than anything. As the only thing you seem capable of doing is criticizing me, just like everyone else. It’s like all I hear is laughter at my expense, and my ears cannot cut off the sound. It’s drilling itself into me and manifesting itself in my bones, making them laugh instead of cracking when I bent over, or crotch down. I once spent a whole day with headphones on, the volume on as loud as possible, to drown the sound of you, hoping I could finally shut you up. But the doctor said my ears were just fine, and the only thing it did was make my mom cry, and dad shake his head.
A warm feeling forms itself in my left hand, making it curl in on itself. The feeling is so familiar it shouldn’t be giving me chills, making my whole left side shiver. But still it does. I close my eyes, letting my imagination mix itself with memories, and falling face down into it’s inevitable trap. I walk blindly out on the uneven road, letting you lead me into the right direction, with one arm stretched out after your steps. I can feel the air from people moving uneasy away from me, fizzle around me. Feel the looks of people questioning my sanity, on my body.
You squeeze my hand, letting me know to lift my foot higher, to avoid tripping over the curb.
When I open my eyes again, you are in front of me. And a tear escapes my eye. You’re laying in your hospital bed, covers up to and covering you shoulders. A bibbing sound, which made me crazy at first, and unable to sleep without later, is filling in the silence. You look like s**t, to say it mildly. Your cheeks sunk into your face, your eye sockets sunk in, even further. You hair, is a dusty, dried black, your nails a cracked purple. It has been a while since I told you, I wouldn’t be coming back, only to find myself here again. The last many times I saw you, all life had left your eyes, left them matte and dull. But now, they are shining.
Not in a pretty uplifting way, but in an up-giving, tired kind of way.
I walk over to take your hand, the bruise from where I hit you a few weeks ago, when I told you I hated you, has still not faded completely. Now it’s a shattered, dotted yellow patch on your cheek. The only colorful thing on your body. You don’t look, surprised that I came back. Not angry, as I’d expect. But relieved. I take a step towards you, and suddenly the hospital is gone. Instead I’m finding myself in a skating hall.
The place we first met, first fought, first broke up, and got back together. Two of those things happening on the same day.

Author's Note

I apologize for the grammar in advance.