And a Ghost is Born

Ever so delicate. The air, that is. Glass like in feeling but that is yet another reason to let it go. Is it easy doing this? I do not know. I do not have the privilege of understanding any other way. I enjoy the quiet when it is over. A helping hand, I guess. Any other reason would be just as fitting.

Sitting alone on my bench I am watching everything go by. There she is, at the edge of the train platform. There is a comatose in her eyes. Like all the others, looking down and away from herself. Holding onto her own shoulders as if they are any stronger for it. I’m sure she knows what she’s doing. A mother’s embrace slightly misplaced? A lost soul looking for a meaning in it all? Something cliche like that? Ah, like i need to know. She has it figured out.

Blonde hair and a slight frame. Blending in with the rest of the crowd like any other day. On her way to a coffee shop or to meet someone new? Someone she has no business meeting. Another letter to mail? I don’t know. I don’t need to.

Sprawled out on her arms are blank lines inked in a dull red. It’s another bandage covering the cat scratches she always laughed off. Hiding in her coat is something else. A letter to be read out loud at some point or another. A farewell wish. Wishing her loved ones a final goodbye. Any other reason to have this letter is more than she knows to be enough. A stranger runs into her by accident and whispers a soft apology. She only nods in his direction and places soft hand out as acknowledgment. No other words were exchanged, but they both understood each others intentions just fine enough.

It’s not my place to put any other meaning to these simple human interactions. It’s a bane and a grace that I do not know the reasons. I want to understand the meanings and small intricacies of the human language. Their soft smiles and the clicking of tongues in disapproval. They scratch at their own wounds and would much rather feel the pain over and over again in a vain attempt to not forget. These wounds fester and the flies rub their legs together over the fresh blood. Yet they continue to cut deeper into their own flesh if only to give someone else a small drink.

A train screams by slowly as it opens its doors. The crowd around her moves slowly in and out and she is left alone again. Just as fast as it had rolled by, the train was gone again in another fit of screams and wailing. The only evidence that anything had ever happened were the wisps of wind clutching at her hair. Something had disturbed the space around her and she has no idea what it had been. She looks behind herself and finds nothing.

Another crowd soon gathers together to await for the train. They all look the same, these humans. Warm souls with a grainy shell of skin. Living and breathing the same air and I know they are different. I have yet put a finger on what it is exactly that makes them different from each other. She is not unique in this aspect. At least from my perspective.

A scratching and turning sound rings through the platform again. Another train is on its way. She looks out to the distance of the source of the sound. A glint of longing crosses her gaze as she clutches her chest. She steps closer to the platform. No one is watching her. Toes tipping over the edge of the yellow painted concrete. The sound is coming closer and with it the bright lights. Rounding the corner before it is visible, crying out to those standing by to stay clear. An instinctual fear would tell anyone else to back up.

No one is going to stop her. No one sees her and no one ever has. A nobody with no body of her own. The laugh of a child that has never taken a breath echos into her ears. It’s so loud and no one is listening. The grinding gears of the train drowns it out. There is the wind that pushes and pulls and there she is. Leaning forward and allowing the weights of this world to pull her into the earth. Hardly hitting the track before the train swallows her. A hungry and unforgiving beast, it eats her whole. The crowd walks on and the metal monster leaves.

I walk to the edge and look down. There is a puddle of human matter and there is her. Among the tracks, twisted into the cold metal that has no ability to transmute her back to the ash she entered this world as. A lock of golden hair tangled around her lips that are stretched out into a scream that holds no sound. Even with her deformed and broken body, she is still beautiful.

“Is this the final stop for Greendale?” A hushed voice asks behind me.

“I don’t believe this line runs there,” I answer, turning to her. “But this is our last stop.”

She is standing above her own corpse. Spitting images of each other but she is the one that is whole.

“What happened here? Who is that?” she asks.

I don’t have the answer. I never do. I hold out my hand to her. She hesitantly takes it. We stand there, in this place, for a little while. I loosen my hand and hug her. She grows limp and cries.

“It’s me.” she whispers “Is that right?”

Another question I do not have the answer for, never do. She closes her eyes and we fall back into the earth. Floating down head first to the dark. There is usually nothing after this, for me at least. As we sink deeper and deeper, she clutches onto my collar. I fade away at this part and leave them in the dark. I stop, but they keep floating down.

To where? I don’t know. In her arms is now a baby. Cooing and giving signs of affection. She whispers a human name and disappears. And I cry for them, not knowing why.