How Ghostly

Moving boxes covered my living room and cluttered my entry way. The radio played, an unfamiliar song filled my ears. I wondered how long it would take for me to scare the new tenet out of my house. Each time someone new moved in I always would get an uncomfortable, hostile feeling; as if a stranger came into your house and claimed that it was theirs now.

I felt the floor creak as one of the movers brought in a heavy looking box. “Ma’am,” he called out with a gruff, unpleasant tone, “Where do you want me to put this box? It’s the last of what’s in the truck.” The sound of slightly panicked fumbling could be heard from the back of the house.

“Oh, uh could you just leave it in the living-” Expecting her to finish her sentence, however, both myself and the mover heard a huge crash of what seemed to be bowling balls and elephants and a long string of curse words. I sighed to myself and thought, ‘what will be left of my house after she’s gone?’ I floated through my old oak rafters into the upstairs hallway, leaning against the wall, occasionally peering down into the living room. I wondered in my head what this girl would look like. Maybe she was the fat old lady who smelled like cats and shit, please dear God don’t be that lady. Or maybe she was a hoarder type, she did seem to have a lot of boxes. Again I silently prayed to myself that she would be at least a bit normal. The last guy had been a sex addict, and even though I had haunted him out of the house, there had been many nights that even an unrestful ghost like me wished he could have been exorcised.

I ran my hand through my hair letting myself rest against wall, but not too much or I would fall through the wall (a lesson I learned when I first was a ghost). “Sorry,” My ears perked up as I heard her voice once more coming closer to the living room, “Yeah, you can just set that with the other boxes. The ones over by the window, please.” The mover gave her a look as if he was questioning if she was going to be alright by herself. Looking out the window I had thought of the time my mother had chased me down the street as a small boy. She had seen me through the window strip myself ass naked and begin to cover myself in paint, and as mom said she didn’t even know she was running for me until we were halfway down the street making a spectacle of ourselves. I smiled to myself remembering how I had laughed as mom cried out for me. I could even hear her voice in my head yelling “Dammit, Simon!” as we ran. ‘I could have ran for miles’ I thought as I lightly gripped my chest.

I looked away from the window, tearing myself away from my memories, looking down the barren upstairs hallway. Downstairs I heard the heavy box being placed with the others as the mover began to take his leave. “Oh wait!” The lady cried from downstairs. And just as the mover turned to look in the direction of the cry, so did I. I looked down through the rafters as a brown haired girl, no older than 23, handed a 20 to the mover. “Here. Thanks for helping me.” She smiled. The mover took the bill from her hand holding it gently, looked up at her tipped his hat at her and closed the front door. She stood at the front door for a while, holding the brass handle in her small hands. The lady let out a sigh, her swiss chocolate hair brushing against her neck as the breath escaped her lips.

“Okay!” She exclaimed, which even startled me, and I’m a ghost. “Okay, Lucy what are we gonna do now?” She spun away from the door looking at all the boxes that littered the living room floor. I examined her face, her body, she wasn’t a crazy cat lady or what seemed to be a crazed sex addict. Just a normal college student. I thought that Lucy seemed to be a name that didn’t fit her looks. She wasn’t a blonde haired, blue eyed girl with a sickenly cute hairband and a polka dot dress, but a short girl with dark brown hair that reached her shoulders and wearing a plain t-shirt and jeans. Lucy’s eyes were almost a wild, electric green, I had thought to myself. As I was trying to analyze her I stepped closer to the old staircase unconsciously. The closer I stepped the older the wood got until, an ear piercing creak broke the silence. For some odd reason, I hid behind the wall when she looked in my direction. I confused myself with my own actions ‘As if she could see you, idiot. You’re dead.’ I kept myself hidden until I heard a small chuckle from the room below.

“Old house, weird noises I guess. Or demons live here” Lucy said with a half joking tone as she brushed off the noises and began to shuffle through the boxes. I began to feel slightly offended, but I knew there was no point in trying to argue with someone that’s alive that I’m a GHOST not a demon, two different things, totally different conversation. I peered around the corner to see if she was paying attention to me, she wasn’t. I watched her pull all of her belongs out of the boxes and start to place them around the house. As Lucy decorated she hummed along to the radio. ‘What happened to the good music?’ I scowled listening to whatever garbage new generation rap music she had been listening to. I had lounged myself across the upstairs floor watching Lucy as she danced poorly around the living room. I had found myself watching her with a smile because she was just too damn entertaining. But I then remembered, as she tried her best to nail pictures to the wall, that sooner or later I would have to drive her out. This was my house, I was born here, I grew up here, I died here, this place and this place alone is my heaven. And I wasn’t about to let some dumb college girl come into my heaven and start putting up some weird-ass ugly fuchsia mirror on my damn wall.

“What is she hanging on my wall?” I said to myself quietly as she happily hung up the ugliest mirror on the living room wall. “Why do you even OWN that garbage?” I scratched my head in utter confusion wondering if it was her bad taste or the new taste of her generation. As she finished hanging her beloved scrap metal on the wall she dusted herself off and stepped back, looking at her new living room. Aside from the mirror, Lucy’s living room was comfy. She had a couple bean bag chairs that sat close to the stone fireplace, she set a couple candles and incense holders on the mantelpiece. A couple family pictures lined the walls and cheap paper china balls were used as lighting in the corners. She had changed the old curtains out for newer ones that were more white and flowy, placing a few flower pots on the window sill.

“Not too shabby, not bad at all.” Lucy said pridefully, giving herself a pat on the back. I played with my hoodie strings, “You really love to talk to yourself don’t you?” I whispered to her as if she could hear me. Lucy then picked up the remaining boxes and walked into the kitchen swaying her hips to the sound of her music. Watching her walk out of sight I let myself fall through the floor and lounged on her new couches, looking at her start to clean up the cluttered boxes and tripping on small items and unfamiliar corners. I told myself I would give the haunting a day, let her set in, think everything is all okay all normal, then scare the living shit out of her. I smiled evilly to myself thinking of her crying, terrified face as she ran straight out the door and down the street as I had done back in my toddler years. As I shook myself out of my daydreams I looked back over to Lucy who was trying her hardest to put a bunch of wine glasses on the top shelf of one of the cabinets. As I watched her struggle to put everything away, a need to tease her came over me, a craving to make her cry out of frustration boiled inside me. The craving flowed through my veins like heroin, touched every aspect of my erthal being, it covered me like a cold, dark blanket.

“Fuck!” Lucy’s scream and the sound of the whole damn cabinet crashing down onto the old counters dispelled the blanket of malice that I had just grown accustomed to. Was this not the millionth item she’s dropped today? It’s not like she even needed a ghost, her bad luck haunted her already, Jesus. I had looked over to poor Lucy who looked on the verge of tears as she collected the shards of glass that surrounded her like fish in a pond waiting to be fed. The urge to see her crying face once again surfaced as I made my way towards Lucy. I stood over her looking down at her pitiful small figure. I watched her cry with frustration. I felt a pang of guilt in my stomach even though I had nothing to do with the cabinet crashing down to the floor. But even so, I felt a bit sorry for Lucy. She didn’t seem to be crazy, she just seemed to be a clumsy, quirky girl who talked to herself and owned a goddamn hideous mirror she treasures. So yeah, not crazy. I chuckled to myself, “Shit, you really can’t do anything right can you?” She lifted her head up from the rubble of her mistakes and straight into my dull brown eyes. Lucy’s face twisted in confusion, her brows furrowed. I knew she couldn’t have been looking at me, that wasn’t possible. I was a ghost, a spektor, a dead person. But she just kept staring into my eyes, her wild green eyes infected my whole body, vibrating my soul, and for a while I pretended that she really was looking at me. Pretending that I wasn’t alone after, but even I knew that wasn’t possible-

“Who are you?” Lucy said. Her words made my heart race, her teary eyes still looking at me in confusion. “Why are you in my house?” I turned and looked behind me, trying to see if anyone was in the room with us. “Don’t play stupid, there’s no one but you here.” Lucy said in a joking yet cautious tone. I then pointed to myself in a ‘You’re talking to me?’ fashion. “You’re talking to me?”

“Yeah, I’m talking to you.”

“And you can see me?”

“Why wouldn’t I be able to see you? But don’t dodge the question who the hell are you?”

“Uh, Simon.” I remember thinking, ‘Wow, you’re just going to introduce yourself? You just discovered that she can see you even when you are a LITERAL ghost and you just introduce yourself? Smart thinking, Simon.’

Lucy smiled awkwardly and gave a nervous laugh. “Okay Simon, how did you get in my house?”

“I live here.” I blurted out.

Lucy then seemed even more confused, if that was even possible. The two of us seemed stuck in a paradox, we forgot about the complete mess on the floor. “No,” Lucy said, “I live here.”

“Oh, I know.” ’Oh, I know’? Simon, what are you on?

“Oh, uh,” Lucy seemed surprised, “You know?”

“Oh fuck it,” I ran my fingers through my sandy blonde hair in exhaustion and irritation, “I’m, uh.” I gestured to my partially see-through body hoping she would pick up on the message. She didn’t. I cleared my throat awkwardly. “I’m dead” My initial statement seemed to shock her, so I phrased it differently once more. “I’m just a ghost, you know, the casual ’boo’, uh, just like poltergeist stuff.” Lucy looked at me for what felt like a half hour, while I stood there awkwardly. I especially felt out of place at that time, I didn’t know what to do with my arms, I began to grind my teeth, I was a ghost for God’s sake, I shouldn’t have felt nervous.

“So,” Lucy dragged out the ‘o’,”You’re a ghost?”

“Yeah, a bit.”

Lucy turned to herself shaking her head in disbelief as she scoffed to herself. “Of course, only Lucy goddamn Dewen would rent a house with a ghost living in it.” She seemed like she was already going crazy, and usually I would find this amusing and lovely, but I was just as confused as she was. I felt too alive in that moment, too human. All I knew is I needed to disappear and fast. And that’s what I did. I didn’t stick around to watch her face as I pulled my little disappearing act. It had been too long of a day, I felt exhausted and I didn’t even breathe, I couldn’t imagine how Lucy felt. That was our first day together.