How To Make A Ghost

The first thing I noticed was not the long darkness, or the peaceful oblivion, or the empty coldness predicted by so many works of fiction. It was the absence of my heart beat. The small, fluttering, fragile thing in its cage of bone that had been my most faithful companion since before I was alive, had died. The reliable, steady rhythm of my life ceased, and in its place throbbed blank desertion.

I curled into myself, feeling small and diminished and confused. Not afraid, strangely. Perhaps that particular emotion was controlled by biological means- chemicals and so forth. Which, obviously, I no longer had. So I was not afraid.

What I did feel was profound regret that my story must end so soon. Life is not fair but does it follow that death must be so too? My story had been short and not particularly exciting- it had had its moments I’ll admit but overall… not exactly the epic I had planned.

As it turned out however, there was more to come.

You see, because I was young the pull was not quite as strong as it might have been were my soul more worn with time. I made myself into a sullen weight of peevishness and refused to be born by the current. I sank back down into the world, slowly and obstinately. It reminded me of the way you can, if you concentrate really hard, manage to keep your feet on the ground when someone tries to lift you up, even though when you stop concentrating they can pick you up easily. Have you ever tried it? I never found out how it worked.

Obviously I didn’t manage to get all the way back because the body was incapable of supporting life any more- it was like a piece of clothing that has been ripped open- you can’t wear it anymore because it will just fall off. Useless thing. I never did like it very much. But it was an anchor of a sort and better than nothing so I tied myself to it and then… just sort of floated. I was tired. I am still not completely sure why I didn’t just let go. But hey, I’d just died. I was in a state of mild irritation and confusion. Allowances can be made.

-

One thing I do remember from those days of aftermath was that I spent a lot of time going over memories. In the absence of a brain I realised that I was going to have to go over all of my memories regularly if I wanted to preserve them, because obviously they now had no physical storeroom and if left untended would simply fade, like the memory of a dream slipping through your fingers at the moment of waking.

I went over my early years with a fine-toothed-comb, squeezing every last detail out because they were particularly important to me. I selected the important stuff out of the junk from my teens. I let most of that go though.

After that there was depressingly little life left to think over.

Then I just sort of drifted for a while. After the chaos of those last days, it was something of a relief to just be for a time. I don’t know where I was. Everything was sort of grey and vague. I just existed.

-

After some time, I started to wonder whether I would be able to make a new body for myself. The word ghost didn’t even cross my mind. But I reasoned that whatever I was now made of must be under my control, so surely I could manipulate it into a shape.

It was strange though; wherever I was, there seemed to be no concept of space or direction. I just existed, I wasn’t anywhere in particular. So then I spent some more time thinking and decided to try and get closer to my body. The closer I was, I reasoned, the further into the ‘real world’ I would be, where shapes can exist.

I didn’t have anything better to do.

-

What else do you want to know? It’s lonely here, and I often think about leaving and letting myself drift away. And one day I will. But I always wonder what I will miss out on when I finally do leave: more conversations like this for example. I would never have met you if I had let go before now. And wouldn’t that be a shame?

So yes, I’ll leave one day.

But not yet.