Ghosts still speak, though who knows why spirits stay. Is it the suddenness of death that leaves us here? I never heard of anyone being haunted by cancer patients. Who knew what the deal was years before they went? Not the major ghost stories, anyway. So maybe it’s about getting your business taken care of, crossing all the T’s and dotting the I’s. That way people can get everything squared away real quick, so they won’t have to wonder if they left the oven on or locked the door, or what have you.
I locked the door, checked the oven, and finished business a while ago. Maybe I left the lights on. That must be why I stayed.
***
On March 30, 2007, I checked the news for the last time. After grabbing a cup of coffee to help me along with my last paper of the semester (of my life, really), I bypassed the inevitable work in favor of scrolling lazily through the headlines on CNN.com. If I remember correctly, I had been on a news downer for a while, forcing myself away from the headlines just to keep my sanity. But I always went back into them in the need to be aware of everything. Looking back, that awareness thing—really overrated.
Well, it was always nice to try to lighten the mood with the fake news. Fun little facts in between the real deal. They’re perfectly tailored for people like me, placed in so we won’t feel so bad about being constantly attentive to disaster. The U.S. accuses Syria of giving aid to insurgents? Well, the tallest man in the world just got married, so how bad can all of that be? A riot ensues somewhere in Mexico— all the while another article informs me of the world’s biggest hammock, somewhere else in Mexico (imagine, crowds swarming in outrage and police lining themselves up, ready to shoot and kill to defend the world’s biggest hammock).
On that day though, the little glimpses of nice news were too few to save me. North Korea prepares a rocket for a possible “satellite launch.” Another bomb is set off in some European hotel. The only interesting story is about pandas in the zoos needing “panda porno” in order to mate, and really, how uplifting is that? If pandas need porno to get off, then what kind of fucking place are we living in? Iran is building centrifuges in order to enrich uranium for nuclear power; if they felt the desire to do so, they could build a weapon between 2010 and 2015 according to—
Thank God, Newsman, if you hadn’t been there, I might not have recognized the constant likelihood of my doom. Hell, I was already on the path of embracement when I quit you. You made me all set and buckled in, even without knowing for certain the procedure. I don’t know if I want to thank you, Newsman, or punch you in the mouth.
The last current event of my past read: 500 Arrested in Copenhagen Riot. Imagine, the most peaceful place on earth rioting just like the rest of us animals—the very thought makes me shiver. Scandinavia was the only outline I had of something passive and un-newsworthy, so what does that say about our chances when that goes down the tubes?
My hands shook, and then my vision shook. I saw the flash, and I knew I was gone, we all were. Not knowing how long before it would reach me, I set myself into bed for a final time, and not too long after, the walls of my apartment tucked me in.
***
It’s always sad when I encounter ghosts that don’t even know they’re ghosts, running around like there are still things to do, people to see, lives to live. It’s just silly. Like this guy at the bar. While sharing drinks with this guy, I’ve been polite about pointing out the obvious. I play down the fact that I’m skinless, three years cold, lying in my ashy apartment instead of this god forsaken bar, and he tells me about his brand new shiny baby.
My memories of being drunk during life must not have faded away yet from my soul, because I am shitfaced in this collective memory we’re both sharing. That must be why I can’t play the game anymore, so drunk as shit, I try to break it down for him,
“Pal, I’m sorry to tell you this...you seem nice, real nice...but ghosts...ghosts can’t have babies.”
I lean down to touch a leg of the stool I’m sitting on, for no reason really, and mumble, “That would just make them baby ghosts…you can’t just have…baby ghosts just—,” I tilt my head all the way back, slack-jawed because it feels good that way, and set my hand on the bar to mimic the action of walking with my skinless fingers, “—have them runnin’ around all over the place. Don’t work like that, it just don’t.”
Now he thinks I’m drunk. He doesn’t know it don’t work on me now—that it’s only a liquid. The spirit is beyond the effects of liquids. But he’ll learn. So I tell him of the bomb, I tell him about the flash, and I see the feigning interest on his face. As if I wouldn’t notice him making a point of saying “one for the road” to me when ordering his next drink, hitting me with questions and tapping the bar with his fingers.
I call his bluff and tell him that I might not be omniscient, but that it didn’t make me stupid. I know he’s testing me with these questions testing me like everyone likes to do when I hit them with truth. I’m about to tell him he’s no longer my bar friend when he asks me why anyone would hit Buffalo.
“Haven’t you seen the sign? It’s An All American City...You hit this one you hit ‘em all...all of America...All America City.”
***
I can’t remember going home. My spirit must have just hopped itself through time and back to the eternal resting place. The memory of my apartment is the same as its always been, messy, dusty, with a “new” pool of vomit in the corner, but if I cross my eyes just right from the place in my bed I can see it in its actuality: ashy, collapsed around my eternally sleeping body, a side wall from my apartment tucking me into bed. Every “new” morning my head rings like the first day the bomb was dropped, the pain of the big day all around my body. Who knew that the A-bomb affects your stomach the most before evisceration? The things the dead can’t tell you.
At some point I must get up to eat, if my liquidated stomach sets solid for a bit. But for now it hurts to move out of my resting place. I didn’t expect to have to eat after it all happened, but I guess ghosts work differently than the real deal dead. I never came in with a manual, so I took a whack at the nourishing problem. Now the cupboard’s full of chicken noodle. I figure it’s food for the soul.
