A Ghost Story

I'm still here.

In exactly the same place.

Although I never would have described it as being in a place.

The place that I'm in, the place that I used to think of as myself and still do, is in a dismal place.

When she made the incision, I thought that maybe if she cut at the wrists, that would let me free. But she didn't. Why would she? Why would it let me free? Why would I think I was attached by the wrist?

I wonder what she found.


I'm still here.

In the same place in the same place, for now. The cleanest place I've ever seen in my life. Much cleaner than where they keep the living people.

If she's a sympathetic kind of pathologist, it is going to be truly terrible for her when she dies and realises.

All the wrists she didn't cut.

How hers won't be cut and she'll be lying under the ground attached by the wrists, thinking of all the other people who are attached by the wrists to eternity.

Assuming I'm not the only one.


I'm still here.

As I can't get out, I assume that I have some kind of substance. I could do things.

Trip switches. Slam doors.

Creak.

WoooOOOOoooo.


I'm still here.

I was missing, presumed dead, I presume. With others missing, presumed dead. They certainly didn't know where I was.

I came back from the Dead, but I came back dead.


I'm still here.

I'm somewhere different now.

I've been socializing with a curious breed recently; pathologists, now undertakers. Those who are dominantly concerned with the dead, who have an excellent understand of post-death protocol.

I wonder how anyone becomes an undertaker.

I myself have very little understanding. There's paperwork unsigned (Eb major and cinnamon and paper), arguments unresolved (tannin and sugar and salt), love undeclared (potentially, in the future, there might have been).

I don't know what to do about any of it.

I live on thought now. And the anticipation of being even more inside than I am now.


I'm still here.

They had an open casket. People staring down at you seriously always makes you want to laugh. And if I'd started laughing in front of them, my God, that would have been hilarious.

It would be a strange thing to do with a living person.

There was a buffet, at my open casket viewing.


I'm still here.

There were two others, where I was missing, presumed dead, also missing, presumed dead, I presume.

I thought

Well.

I knew that I didn't feel anything except inside and unable to get out, but I did think that as I could still think things and as I've always assumed that being able to get out of what I was inside would be the very definition of dying, I thought there might be a chance.

Then it went on for longer and longer and I didn't seem to be dying any further.

It can't have been that long, though, can it? The open casket.


I'm still here.

After a less than spectacular death.

I'm intact within intact, I think, I feel. I seem intact to myself, and I don't remember anything being removed from the place I'm in, the place I used to call myself and still do.

I don't know why this has happened. I don't know what changed. I don't know what was removed.

I do know that there are people who have enormous depletions, physically and mentally, and it doesn't make such a fundamental difference as whatever unobservable thing was removed from mine did.

Intact within intact. I don't know what's been removed.

Well. Not that much, obviously.


I'm still here.

There weren't all that many people at the open casket. I didn't notice anyone unexpectedly missing, though. They seemed respectably devastated.

Devastated as newts.

None of them knew how to look at me, what expression to put on, the significance of decorum in this situation...I don't know. I never saw such expressions on people's faces in my life.

I think they all felt special, knowing that they were still alive while they were looking at me. Idiots. They're mayflies with 24 hours to my 20.

I hope those four hours choke them.


I'm still here.

If I could choose, I'd haunt libraries. Art galleries. People, other people, not myself.

Or can spiritual remains gain in wisdom? I seem intact to myself, after all, so might I still find my own expectations for myself, if I found a way out? Watching the world forever, as far as I can tell, unless someone cuts my wrists. How could I not learn?

Being apparently substantial, I could possibly haunt my piano.

I'm still here.

The casket's no longer open, so not much is going to change.


I'm still here.

I live on thought now.

It occurs to me that I'll never be able to hear what anyone says through six feet of earth.

I wonder what would happen if I were

Never mind.


I'm still here.

Dying does nothing to improve your cognition. Not mine anyway. I don't have a better understanding of concepts.

But I'm not going to assume that it's the same for everyone. It's tremendously unlikely. All that collective consciousness lying under the earth, decade after decade. I'm completely certain they're not all lying there inside ourselves.

There's not much metaphor to be had here.

There were two others where I was missing, presumed dead.

We all came back from the Dead, but came back dead.


I'm still here.

I wonder where they are.

I wonder who they were.

Are.

Were.


I'm still here.

I know it's common to think that funerals should logically happen before a person dies, that it's a shame we don't hear what people say about us.

My funeral was dull for everyone else. They sang hymns and waited to put me in the ground for the rest of

Until the flesh rots from my wrists, maybe.

I wouldn't say it was dull for me.