“Are you a ghost?” asked the Man who was not a ghost.
“I suppose so” answered the Ghost who was once a man.
The Ghost who was once a man had appeared silently and without fanfare while the Man who was not a ghost had been scrolling on his phone.
The Ghost was far less interested in the Man’s presence than the Man was in the Ghost’s and the Man stared while the Ghost looked slowly and methodically around the room. Does this spectre haunt the small, damp flat I pay rent to call home?
Certainly in the six months the Man had been living here, he had not been made aware of a ghost by the landlord, a neighbour or the Ghost itself. Slouched, splayed and vulnerable in baggy shorts and an old T-shirt, the Man asked “Are you here to haunt me?”
“I only wish to see the room I spent so many happy years in,” answered the Ghost, expressionless and ethereal.
“Will you be long?” asked the Man, “it’s just that I’m expecting company this evening.”
The Ghost was older looking than the Man; shorter too but with better posture, clean shaven with hair neatly parted and wearing a dark suit, white shirt buttoned to the neck and polished shoes. “I have already left and I am yet to arrive. Here I am; I am not here.” When the Ghost spoke, the Man felt desperately inconsequential.
The Ghost began slowly pacing the room, running ghostly fingers (there was really no other way to describe them) over invisible furniture that existed now only as a memory. The Man cleared his throat, sat up and asked “How long since you were last here?”
“A lifetime ago” replied the Ghost, without a hint of irony. When the Ghost was close enough to touch, the Man reached out a wavering hand and held it in mid air. His hand passed through the Ghost and the Man understood his own insignificance. For a long time, or no time at all, the Ghost and the Man, the former walking in eternity and the latter stumbling through his linear narrative, shared a silence.
After the event, (it was over almost as soon as it had begun; perhaps even sooner for the Ghost) the Man who was not a ghost rubbed his stubbled chin and reflected. He wondered how the Ghost who was once a man had died and if it would have been impolite to ask. He wondered if there was a God. He wondered what begins at the end of our universe. He wondered.
And then the Man remembered. He remembered the guest he was expecting. He remembered the omelette he planned to make. He remembered the kitchen bin needed emptying.
Matthew Anderson
touristonearth39@gmail.com
See also here for his Anything I’ve Scene podcasts on Spotify.
