Short Story: Dwelling

A Necropological Study

Roger had not been a ghost for many centuries, and he still hadn’t quite understood how to do the ghostly things. You see, most ghosts, save the mischievous few, exist in total ignorance of people. They hide themselves absolutely, which is easily done by being quite simply where the people are not. Open fields, abandoned houses and old unused trains are regular haunts for ghost society. The recent market surge in empty castles has caused quite a stir in apparition real estate, and ghost celebrities – who were certainly not celebrities when they were alive – dance lavishly and hold great parties. If they do happen to encounter a person, such as a curious child or a mindless cleaning lady, they glide elsewhere to avoid confrontation. A few more relaxed phantoms are quite stationary, and dwell in one home only as it moves from possessor to possessor. Roger, much rather, had recently moved into number 33 of some country lane. A young woman lived here alone, working and drinking wine. Very often she sat with her cat on the bed and smoked long bulbous joints. Roger loved nothing more than twirling his spiritual body through the smoke rings and dancing between its tendrils. He did this at a mature distance, as invisibility is not a total procedure.

One day however, frolicking as he was, he did a backflip in the air to avoid the pervading smoke when his bum knocked her wine glass from the bathroom table. The cat hissed in alarm. But the young girl, Jess, calmed the animal assuming in her heightened state that she had knocked the glass herself. Roger set to trying to clean the spilled liquid with the duvet. When Jess leaned over and saw the animated blanket she screamed piercingly. Petrified, Roger ran through the walls to the kitchen. He heard Jess thudding the steps downstairs, on the phone already.

“There’s a poltergeist, he was trying to get into bed with me!” she was crying to her father. Roger was confused. He hadn’t seen another ghost there, and certainly hadn’t sensed any promiscuous spirits for a very long time. He ventured back to the spot – with kitchen paper to clean the wine – and found no one. Jess re-entered, saw the floating kitchen paper and fainted. A week later, a pair of paranormal investigators arrived armed with useless technology and a camera. They promised to return Roger to his family, at which point he flew away as far as he could.

Roger lives now in a basement beneath a skyscraper. He sleeps most days. Sometimes for fun he goes all the way to the top in the lift with the CEO, then he jumps from the balcony and slides all the way down, pretending to die again. He misses the fear of dying. There are very few ghosts in the city, save those who sleep on the buses in the depots and take the guided tours, or the ones who hang around museums only to bicker with the guides who get it wrong. He once saw his wife, from all of those ages ago. She was sitting on the palace walls. At that exact moment, however, he was saving a wordless child from falling, so he couldn’t really go over.