A Ghost Story
Kelsey Rothenay

He had an accent that was unidentifiable, even to himself. He was born right here, right around the corner. "Dressed like some sort of European...or maybe Russian?" People would say, "Where you from?" Right here, around the corner. He tended to attribute his accent to the speech impediment he’d had in grade school, defending himself with a stiff smile, carefully choosing from the few words that he was comfortable with. He dressed as normal as possible.
But he was a foreigner, and he knew it. People assumed things out of the corners of their confused eyes. Or it might have been disgust mistaken for confusion. Or apathy disguised as questioning. People used to think he was from Boston; he’d had a problem with his "R"s. Weak tongue. But as he grew, he got farther and farther away. Soon it’ll be China, he thought through his fingers. He had a lip picking problem. That was to replace the nail biting problem which was to replace the knuckle chewing problem. Eyes down cast, attached to the air two feet above the ground. He rarely decided to focus.
He developed his own alphabet, the symbols derived from scars, birthmarks and freckle constellations. The pink ridged scar between the first two knuckles on his right hand, for example, was Obligation. The chicken-pock scar on his knee was Hope. The cigarette burn on his right hand represented intention. He got his drunk friend to burn off a wart one tired night. He had his reasons, we assume. This language was not a spoken one.
He also learned Morse code and sign language, and some day he’d learn Braille, or maybe binary. He had a special shelf in his crooked bookcases dedicated to non-spoken means of communication. But no one he knew could use any of these forms. So he tapped to himself over a walkie-talkie. The other was lost after he put it into a random mailbox hoping to make a friend.
Despite all this, he got married. She was the nurse he’d met in the emergency room when he needed five stitches in his shoulder. This scar came to represent Love, a symbol he hadn’t thought of including in his alphabet until that day. It was the deepest and most ragged scar he had on his body. There had been a lot of blood.
It didn’t take them a long time to grow old together. His alphabet doubled with the addition of her scars. She got him to talk a little, and he cooked for her. They watched each other in the bathroom mirror as they brushed their teeth at night. They only argued about real things. They took a ballroom dancing class in order to fully embrace their mutual awkwardness. This relationship was foreign to strangers as well, but more acceptable, because at least together, they seemed to make up an entire person. They made some friends. He didn’t cry at her funeral. He sat in the front row, picking at his shoulder. When she was cremated, he put some of the ashes in with the batteries of his walkie-talkie and tapped and tapped away. S.O.S. …---… …---… …---… …---…
At her memorial service, there was not a single photo in the collages that didn’t contain both of their faces. No eulogy was spoken that didn’t whisper his name with hers. He began to believe that he had died too. All of the eulogies were for both of them, even the ones from their parents. "I’ll always remember how Theresa and Harry danced together, how they looked each other in the eyes...they will be sorely missed." A tear crept down his mother’s cheek.
So I’ve turned into a ghost, he thought, blood seeping from his lower lip and picking fingers. The dead apparently don’t feel pain. But they do have nervous ticks.
He began to consider what to do this new power. Whom should he haunt? There was no one. Who should he spy on, remaining himself unseen? He couldn’t seem to get a hold on how to levitate or walk through walls, but he already had a firm grasp on how to move objects, and certainly how to scare people. He discovered this as he walked down the aisle to the exit in the back of the church carrying a stack of Bibles, people staring with watery eyes, full of surprise.
He soon stopped eating, because of course, ghosts don’t eat. But apparently, they do faint quite often. After about a month or so, his land lady banged on the door, "I know you’re in there Harry! Open up!" With no little effort, he pulled his chin away from his chest, looked at the door, and let his chin sink again, down to his knob of a collar-bone. He shook his head back and forth. This had always been his habit when he was confused, but now it looked like the beginning to a Pagan rain dance in which he would be the sacrifice.
"It seems like some people can still sense my presence," he paused, considering the ditch- faced woman who was trying to hear a ghost through the door. He resumed practicing his levitation skills, eyes squinting like he’d eaten something awful, and his flesh tensing like there was muscle underneath, he cleared his mind of floating images. One might think that he really would rise up at any second.
An old friend who apparently hadn’t heard the news, left him messages, "Harry, I’m worried about you, man. Please call me back as soon as possible. I’m stopping by tomorrow, okay?"
Poor Steve, he’ll find out soon enough, Harry thought as he let the loose skin on his face droop down, and then snapped it right back to help form a grimace that would usually accompany tears. But none came. He threw an indignant side-glance toward the dripping water faucet. He licked his cracked bottom lip, which was now ripe with infection, and peeled his white-dry tongue from the backs of his teeth.
Harry awoke the next morning to a banging on the door, and found himself crumpled in the middle of a cold kitchen floor, dust and spider webs sticking to the clamminess of his gray skin. He scrambled up on all fours when he heard the front door creak open. With shaking knees and almost blind eyes, he found the edge of the countertop and dragged himself up.
Steve peered in through the crack, a darkened room in mid summer. Then, with jerky apprehension, he walked into the center of the room where Harry stood. He looked around and saw a thick layer of dust that looked like winter, wondering how so much could accumulate in only one month. Everything seemed stale and forgotten, which in fact, it was.
Harry stumbled over to the torn green couch, imagining that he floated there. He picked up a candlestick, and began to inspect it as he waited for Steve to realize that no one was home, and leave. But Steve was looking right at him, so Harry quickly put the candle back in its place, worried that Steve would be afraid to see an object floating by itself, like something from a Ghostbusters.
Steve stammered and wiped a cold sweat from his forehead. He began to search for something in his armpits, and to switch his gaze repeatedly from Harry’s face to his own feet. Something welled up somewhere beneath Harry’s ribs as he watched Steve, who was so obviously terrified. He thought Steve would have a better sense of humor, and less fear of the dead, especially since he was so religious. "Where are your clothes? Harry, you look awful...you’re all bones. When’s the last time you ate?"
That’s strange, he seems to be looking right at me", thought Harry. He sat picking at his shoulder, un-focused. All blood rushed from his face as he thought that being a ghost wouldn’t be as bad if Theresa had become one too. He looked into Steve’s face, and wheezed "Can you hear me? I’m here."
"I know you’re here...we need to get you out of this house. I’m going to call your mother, okay?" Steve said between a forced laugh and a sharp gulp.
Harry just smiled, and let his body relax to the ground. At least Steve is a ghost, too. I wonder how he died...
Steve tripped silently out of the room, eyes tracing the rib bones of our ghost, like sand dunes that would soon be blown away, and shut the door behind him with a click.