When I was a kid, I had a pet ghost. He used to be my friend. He used to be my only friend.
He used to play the game of nothingness with me, he used to sing me songs when sleep never came in sleepless nights, he never showed me my road down the abyss. He was the ideal friend, maybe.
And then, one day we fought, we fought and we fought and we fought, till the sky above was on a fire. Forest fire, illuminating a hundred homes up in the sky right above our head. We fought some more. And then came rain. She drenched us both, him, with his shadow, me with my ego. And she took away our fight.
She took him, and left me, to be a new ghost.
I grew up. I decided being a ghost wasn't my perfect profession. I tried to be an astronaut, so I'd find him outside there, near the gates of something called heaven. But I never found that place. I tried to be a musician, but my music was a sound of today, not yesterday. I decided I'd become a celebrity, so that I find new ghosts. But there was nothing such as a ghost, only skeletal Diasporas with gas masks locked inside their head. So I finally decided to be a writer.
I write about my ghost. My pet ghost. My shadow. And sometimes, about me. All this while, I have tried to find him. I searched for him, I tried to leave him, I tried to forget him. But he was always there, right outside the garden fence of my consciousness, into the hollow cavity cove deep inside some desperate soul, rumbling out sometimes to prove his existence to me. He was out there, or in here, but we never were face to face.
Today, I finally decided to stop thinking about him, and there, now he is sitting right before me. He is sitting in that chair, facing me, his shadow wrapped around him like a mink coat. And that shadow is slowly extending its paws at me.
Different things scare different people. For some, true fear may come from beyond the grave, taking the form of shambling zombies and vengeful skeletons. For others, fear may be born from our own vanity, twisting us inside and out into mutated, murderous monsters. Still others may find fear's ultimate expression in the unknown sounds and sensations that lie just beyond our perception. And of course, for some reason, many of us are most afraid of the soul-crushing loneliness of a live lived without love. That, and little girls.
And me, I'm scared of my ghost. My pet ghost. A ghost who is now a man, and stares at me, a ghost, an unforgiven friend, and a forgotten lover.
He used to play the game of nothingness with me, he used to sing me songs when sleep never came in sleepless nights, he never showed me my road down the abyss. He was the ideal friend, maybe.
And then, one day we fought, we fought and we fought and we fought, till the sky above was on a fire. Forest fire, illuminating a hundred homes up in the sky right above our head. We fought some more. And then came rain. She drenched us both, him, with his shadow, me with my ego. And she took away our fight.
She took him, and left me, to be a new ghost.
I grew up. I decided being a ghost wasn't my perfect profession. I tried to be an astronaut, so I'd find him outside there, near the gates of something called heaven. But I never found that place. I tried to be a musician, but my music was a sound of today, not yesterday. I decided I'd become a celebrity, so that I find new ghosts. But there was nothing such as a ghost, only skeletal Diasporas with gas masks locked inside their head. So I finally decided to be a writer.
I write about my ghost. My pet ghost. My shadow. And sometimes, about me. All this while, I have tried to find him. I searched for him, I tried to leave him, I tried to forget him. But he was always there, right outside the garden fence of my consciousness, into the hollow cavity cove deep inside some desperate soul, rumbling out sometimes to prove his existence to me. He was out there, or in here, but we never were face to face.
Today, I finally decided to stop thinking about him, and there, now he is sitting right before me. He is sitting in that chair, facing me, his shadow wrapped around him like a mink coat. And that shadow is slowly extending its paws at me.
Different things scare different people. For some, true fear may come from beyond the grave, taking the form of shambling zombies and vengeful skeletons. For others, fear may be born from our own vanity, twisting us inside and out into mutated, murderous monsters. Still others may find fear's ultimate expression in the unknown sounds and sensations that lie just beyond our perception. And of course, for some reason, many of us are most afraid of the soul-crushing loneliness of a live lived without love. That, and little girls.
And me, I'm scared of my ghost. My pet ghost. A ghost who is now a man, and stares at me, a ghost, an unforgiven friend, and a forgotten lover.
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