Unfinished, but eh, what're you going to do? Still remember having a dream about an old man and a friendly ghost. I wrote down what I remembered and felt, and here it is! It's brief, but I think it captured most of the feeling well enough. I hope you enjoy!
I had bought the kit just that morning. The instructions were clearly printed, though incredibly too cryptic for my eleven year old brain to process too well. I blame it on the writing.
“Are you there?” I whispered in a trembling voice. It was the scariest thing that I had done in my young and uneventful suburban life. Scarier than shots at the doctor’s office, or running late for school, or hearing mom’s car pull up in the driveway before my chores were done. It was scarier than all of that combined.
I waited for a moment. The radio roared in a symphony of static. That in of itself gave me gooseflesh.
“Here.”
It was so clear amidst the chaos of the crackling waves. I jumped with a silent yelp, biting my tongue and rattling my teeth. I swore under my breath, just a little curse of “damnation” before I crawled back closer to the radio. Its blue light stared back at me, black numbers morphing into signals anew with each frantic second that passed.
But it seemed as though the ghost was patient. At the very least, it didn’t garble out anything else meaningful. I eyed the room. Nothing seemed out of place. No books had been knocked from shelves, there was no message swirling in the froth of my coco, and the action figures on my shelf were in their proper poses. All my lights were still on, and if I had my way they would stay that way. I glanced at my door. It was still open, just a hair, and I could hear my dad’s snoring pouring through the hallway. Safe, for now.
I
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It was time. Every bone had settled in for a final sleep. I did not have the strength to move so much as a finger, and every tip of my toes felt like they had been given an ice bath. I was dying and very close to death. I had come to terms with that fact. I did not fight to cling onto life to see another October pass me by in the autumnal solemnity that seemed to cast a spell on this place. I did not mind missing out on another Christmas, although I thought it a shame not seeing Jackers after his first winter concert. I didn’t even need a week.
A day, though, was all. One more day that would see me back home.
I knew that if I died right there, I wouldn’t get to be with her. I would be with all the others who had left their last breath in these spacious white rooms, in the company of many who still wandered these linoleum halls. I would be surrounded by souls while she would be all alone.
“... go home.”
The air around me grew stiff. You could hear a pin drop in that silence.
“Dad?”
“What was that, Dad?”
To say that speaking was painful was not entirely true. It was more like the feeling of numbness you get after sitting on your leg too long- that prickling, ticklish feeling that skitters up and down your flesh. It was uncomfortable, but I could bear it. I had to.
“Home.” I managed in a quiet voice. I could almost see the shadows of their heads turning beneath the red of my eyelids.
It was a quick trip thereafter. A few of them argued- my daughter Bethany, bless her, thought that there was still time. Still a chance I could pull through. I drank that day, after all, and I had even talked. What would moving me accomplish? Matt talked her down nicely. Everyone else could see it. They wouldn’t have called for a chaplain if they couldn’t see it.
A hard pill to swallow, to be sure, but a necessary one. I thanked the Lord when I heard the squeaking wheels of the CNA’s gurney. It wasn’t very often that someone was able to make a final request on their deathbed. It was a miracle, a sign from God, Sara had told everyone, and in that moment I was infinitely grateful for the piety of my daughter-in-law.
I could not tell you where we went to before I got home, nor the car ride over. My children moved me from the back of the van with careful hands, much softer than my own. Oh God, I could hear them crying. I imagined Matthew’s red face and the sheen of his snot above his lip, an older reflection of that little boy crying at first grade baseball practice after dislocating his finger. I could hear Bethany’s deep-voiced sobs behind the shape of a napkin. My sweet little girl.
The old familiar creak of the front door, then the softer squeak of the screen that followed when it closed. That musty smell hit me like a freight train. I listened to the hum of the old wires whirring in the walls, felt the muted vivacity of the old homestead.
Then I heard the click of a light. I smiled, a sweet draft falling over my chest and cheeks.
“Still haven’t fixed the wiring in this place?” Matthew spoke with some mixture of disdain and amusement. It was a very nostalgic tone of voice that I had not heard for quite some time, not since he was living here and I wasn’t swaddled in blankets for most hours of a day.
“You know that dad wouldn’t want us to.” I could almost hear Bethany’s eyeroll. A hand descended onto my shoulder and squeezed it lightly. “Isn’t that right, dad?”
The chill in the air stirred up a bit. Mary was laughing. I chuckled, too, though it came out as more of a cough.
The light dimmed for a moment. It was like catching my breath. So much all at once had left me feeling a bit light in the head. I blinked once. Twice. Three times. I could see again.
There was a shape I had never seen standing in front of me. I knew her instantly, as I had known her all my life.
She was shorter than I had always imagined, dressed down in a plaid skirt and long, frilly blouse. Long dark hair and eyes to match. Her face was what could be described as gaunt, though that seems like such an ugly word for such a beautiful person. Especially when she smiled.
I walked forward. The air around her was not cold anymore. It was almost warm- almost alive, in a sense- and the light she gave off was nothing short of heavenly.
“Welcome home, Bobby.” Her voice was her own, unfiltered by radio or television or doll, clear and crisp and soft as the droplets in the grass on an early fall morning. My heart swelled.
“It’s good to be home, Mary.”
