The Ghost

There was a ghost at the bottom of the stairs. I could feel it grab at me, its fingers swiping the air around my ankles, every time I walked by the top of the staircase. Daylight hours and flourescent lights did not discourage it, which made it all the more terrifying. The ghost had been born into a world of lights. Bright, yellow, humming light. Red, blue, panicked, flashing light. Strong, weak, changing light, that flickered as shadows moved within it. All the way to the hospital the ghost followed me, and all the way home it dragged itself along behind me, its claws dug in deeply to the bone of my ankles. It thrived in sound, any sound, and in silence, any silence. The ghost had been born of silence but born into sound. Chaotic, terrified, screaming sound reflected back from empty, hollow, senseless silence.
One day, two days, three days later I would find myself laughing and then without a warning the ghost would be behind my eyelids. Every time I blinked its eyes stared into mine, laughing as I laughed, yet in mocking, not in unison. I would catch my breath, halt my laugh, feel my heart drop, drop, drop-

and then catch myself, just in time to make sure nobody else had noticed my momentary lapse into fear.


Some knew the story of the ghosts birth, some didn’t. Some knew only fragments, while others had numerous pieces put together. I was the only one with the full story, the full knowledge, the full truth. The fullness of it ate away at my belly like nervous, sickening moths cutting holes and turning what was once whole and beautiful into something was tattered and sick. At home the tension was almost impossible to move through. Walking, moving, thinking - all was difficult, all seemed different. Behind every word, every look, every movement, the ghost danced behind our backs, holding its hand over its mouth to stifle its laughter as it watched our attempts to rediscover normalcy. I believe it found us pitiful, indeed it found us laughable. Just a figment of our imagination now, but still powerful enough to stop a heartbeat when our intuition hinted that something, just something may be going awry. It laughed at me especially, as I could not sleep for fear of its face, could not walk down the stairs for fear it would steal me away into emotions I did not want to relive. It laughed, and laughed, and laughed, but not as I wanted to laugh. I wanted to laugh with freedom, with abandon, with utter carelessness. The ghost laughed with cunning, with knowing, with absolute power.

I sat on the couch, my back turned towards the ghost but I could feel its breath upon my neck. Sometimes, I would almost conquer the ghost, as I cautiously walked partway down the stairs into its domain, peering around the corner only long enough to assure myself the room was empty, that the conditions were not right for the ghost to come fully to life again. And then I would half walk, half run up the stairs, two at a time, holding my breath, feeling my heart pound in my chest and fear pound in my mind. Less than five seconds after my descent I would be back at the top of the stairs, staring down at the ghost, listening to it laugh at me, at my pitiful attempts at courage and heroism. Yet I was not motivated by courage or heroism: it was love -love and worry, that forced my feet down and then up those stairs.

Though the ghost thrived during all hours of the day, there was no doubt it was strongest once the sun had set and the darkness had settled itself comfortably into the walls of our house. Upstairs others were sleeping, while I had not yet entertained the thought, choosing rather to stay awake and therefore away from the time when I would be forced to shut my eyes and welcome the ghost in for a visit. The ghost grew at night too. In size and in strength. The early hours were it’s habitat, its natural environment, its birthplace. The early hours were when it celebrated its victories and outshone any progress that had been made against it.