The Morbid Ghost, pain and mortality

“Sit down, my friend. Have a drink?” Jerry held the vodka bottle poised over the card table. 

He knew vampires couldn’t drink vodka. He knew and yet he offered it to me anyway. No matter what I said to him, he persisted in giving me things I could not have.

“Why do you do this, Jerry?”

Jerry seemed amused. He leaned back in his tattered armchair and chuckled. He looked a mess, as most dead heads did. He looked both confident and defeated.

“I watch you. Maybe I watch you as much as you watch me because I know you watch me. Isn’t that what vampires do? You watch your prey, sometimes for years, even decades, and then you eat them for lunch. Oh man, I wonder how long you will watch me before I become a snack.”

I was irritated by his rambling. “What does that have to do with anything? Not that I’m partaking of such nonsense. What are you yapping about, Jerry?”

Jerry smiled. He wasn’t afraid of me, regardless of how much he talked about vampire moods, vampire tendencies and vampire characteristics. Jerry was fond of me and then he was curious as well. I know this because I can live in his brain. All meat things are easy for brain picking.

“I offer you things because I know you wish to be human. I know you wish to die. So, the worst thing that could happen, if you drink this, would be to die. Isn’t that what you want, awesome creature of the night?”

Jerry waved his hands in the air as if he could see a rainbow. Then again, maybe he could.

“I don’t know what I want, Jerry. No, I do know what I want. It’s simple and there are two choices. Either I want to die or I want to live beneath your basement.”

“Why? That makes no sense, man.”

I rose from my chair, the other tattered chair opposite from Jerry. All around me were stacks of comics, records and magazines. Perched upon each stack were brightly coloured bongs of all shapes and sizes. Thrown into the valley between those towers were piles of clothing that either Jerry had worn or were straight from the dryer, unfolded and neglected. Most anyone would wonder why I wanted to live beneath this rubble.

I walked around the room. I surveyed the posters which covered almost every space on Jerry’s lime green walls. I wanted to be here and I had no idea why.

“In all honesty, Jerry, to you, I have an unbelievable reason to be here. Months ago, right before I met you at that dilapidated white house, you know the one with the shattered window and putrid smell? Yes, right before then, before I walked the streets looking for the perfect place, the perfect person to help me feel human. I looked Jerry, I looked and I thought about so many things that my mind should have exploded. But vampire minds don’t break, they never break. No matter how much you try, were are fairly resilient. As I was saying, when I woke up from my slumber, I searched for someone like you and some place such as this. I woke in the earth, beneath the sands and I yearned to be human. I wanted to be a true human, not some wealthy ingrate with the belief that he would live forever. I wanted to be mortal, feel mortal and die like all of you. I wanted to live in filth, human-made filth that I could smell and I could detest, only as humans hated things. I didn’t want to observe from a distance like some mortals do. I wanted to live within the dampest hole beneath the home of a small person. Jerry, I insult you, this I know, but I would never be anything but honest with you.”

“Wow Stephen, that was both insulting and exhausting. You should write a book, man.”

“As I said, I’m sorry to have insulted you. I want to feel what you feel, Jerry.”

Jerry furrowed his brow. “I have one question. If you wanted to live in poverty, why not live in some village in a third world country?”

This angered me. Jerry had no idea how long I wandered the earth and he was getting under my skin. Every word, which fell from his lips was ignorant to me. It hurt my brain and yet, intrigued me all the same.

“What makes you think I haven’t experienced that sort of existence? I have lived in places you could never imagine. It’s just…well…”

“What, Stephen?”

“I lived in villages, I watched the natives fashion weaponry with little pieces of stone-chert, I believe. I watched the women and children playing in the earth, letting dirty water stream down their brown bodies. You should have seen it, Jerry! They were some of the first people here, in this land. I watched them for a long time, but then I scared them. I started wars among the tribes. You see, they believed I was a spirit sent from the enemy, and so I had to leave. I ran to the mountains where I slept in a cave. There, I was alone with my fire for years-absolutely alone. No animals wandered near me. In the distance I heard the wolf call and I traced its yearning. When I grew hungry, I hunted them, the wolves, but I was still filled with loneliness. Then, for still many more years, I lived on farms, in barns and beneath fields. Once, when I crawled from beneath the earth, I came face to face with a dead meat thing. I sat for hours watching the meat man, dead and neglected in the middle of that field…and Jerry, I wished it was me.”

“Wow man, you’ve been everywhere.”

Those are just places on this land. I have been to darker places than that on land across the waters. But I want to be here. I don’t want to live eternally alone, Jerry. I would be anyone but me. I would be you, Jerry.”

Jerry turned as if thinking of mortality, his human condition. His thoughts would have been interesting if I hadn’t heard it all before. Jerry turned and looked down between the chair and the small table beside him. He reached scrambling for a remote control. Jerry wanted me to hear a song and so he picked up the remote and pointed it toward a speaker in the corner.

“You want to be human but you’ve no idea what humanity is now. What you were and what we are is different, even when you breathed the air of meat men you were different than us. Here, I want you to listen to this, Steve, ole buddy. And I’m not pissed or anything. I’ve been insulted much worse than that. Listen.”

Jerry pressed the button and the emptiness filled the room. Inside the emptiness, a tinkling began. After a moment, music filled the room. I listened, and as the song progressed my mind absorbed the lyrics. It wasn’t altogether distasteful-it was like most music in the present era.

“What is this?”

“Doesn’t matter what it is, Stephen. All that matters is how it makes you feel. Listen close, maybe it’s your destiny. Maybe you are the king…the king of pain, my brother. Maybe you should keep living and truly understanding how devastating it is and how lonely it is. Keep watching us die, Stephen! Here, have a hit off this.”

Jerry pushed the joint toward me and nodded his head. I looked away.

“I don’t want that, Jerry. It will do nothing for me. In all this time, I have never touched those things, those vices of the human being.”

“Well, maybe you should. Hey, when “your meat men” are in pain, we like to numb the situation, know what I mean?”

 “Give me that!”

I snatched the joint dropping it onto the floor. My left Armani shoe crushed the marijuana cigarette.

Hey man! What you do that for?”

I stood and walked around the card table that separated us. Grabbing Jerry by the collar, I lifted him out of his chair.

“What is wrong with you? You should feel privileged to feel every moment of this.”

Jerry gasped. “Every moment of what?”

“Your impending death! You make me sick. You are so ungrateful for this gift.”

Jerry couldn’t understand and I could barely stand to look at him. It was plain and simple, I hate how spoiled the meat men are. When offered the greatest gift of all, they try to avoid it.

“Put me down! I thought you were my friend, man. Chill out!” Who doesn’t want to live forever?”

I slammed Jerry into his old recliner and walked toward the speaker in the corner. His infernal music was pushing him on. I lifted the speaker and broke it into pieces. No more king of pain, the music died in a whine and smoke curled up into the air. As Jerry yelled obscenities, I left the basement slamming the door behind me.

It was daytime and I would try again to end it all.

More Rubbish

I don’t know if I’m ready. I’m not ready, I’m sure of it. I guess I could pretend to be ready and that might work. Once, in church, a long time ago, the pastor told us to fake being happy in order to find happiness. It was kind of like having faith to search for faith, or something of the matter. In ways, it worked, and so I’m faking the readiness that I need.

On your mark, get set and go! Is that good enough for you?

Okay, so we have tried that exercise and now off to something a little more interesting-or not-probably not.

It’s now moving into the New Year, oh whoop-de-doo. I have no resolutions, in fact, I have nary an idea, to be honest. This year may well be like the next, filled with wilted dreams and faded attempts to make monumental changes. I guess it could be a failure, yes. I do think it could. But, what if…

Nah, let’s not get hopes up. I have come to a place that is thoroughly unsatisfying. It is a place that keeps sadness close in order to avoid sadness. It’s like the opposite of finding faith with faith and being ready with readiness…or something like that. The whole idea is if you remain in the gloom then the gloom cannot hurt you.

To tell you the truth, I have no idea what I’m talking about. The thing is, my head is full and unfiled. There are thoughts racing round with no destination or reasoning. Today, I realized, once more, that I would die. I felt my death moving forward and there was no stopping it. I saw the pictures in the album today. In one picture, my grandmother was young, beautiful, and the next she was bent and contorted into something else. I watched my aunt transform this way. I will transform this way, will I not? Sometimes, I think I am exempt, that surely I cannot die. I see the world from within some safe bubble, watching others grow old and fade into nothing. That’s what we do, isn’t it? We fade into nothing and we are forgotten. Yes, maybe we are mentioned in a story or two, in a joke or a memory between sips of coffee. But for the most part, we will one day have no place here, and what of it?

It’s just a rock, right. In comparison, we never were anything to begin with. So, you see, I’m not ready to move on. I’m not trying to ready myself with readiness. I am trying to stay in the cocoon. I scream at the thought of writing, and I scream at the silence that envelopes me. I cannot give anyone an explanation that would suffice.

I know what the pastor said, and I understand. To believe in God, is to want to believe in God. If you want to have faith then you already have faith. If you want to be ready, then you must believe you are ready.

But I am still not ready and I cannot make myself believe.

Not today.

Ithe doctors find nothing.

The Morbid Ghost: Two dead girls

“My friends called me Pyra.”

“Why?”

“Because, I like to burn things, silly. Haven’t you ever heard the word Pyromaniac?”

“Oh, I thought your mother gave you that name. I’ve never heard anything like it before.”

Pyra, the girl with the long brown hair and bright hazel eyes, laughed and for a moment, half her body dissolved in the mist. She was flawless, and of course, she was pale. The outline of her body shifting with the wind and smudged like a damp oil painting. In fact, against the backdrop of the misty forest, she fit right in. Pyra liked the other girl, she was pretty. Pyra didn’t have many friends when she was alive, but she liked to tell everyone that she did. She didn’t even have many family members left among the living. When she decided to check out, no one was the wiser. There was nothing left, dying was just the right thing to do.

The other girl was a little like Pyra in resemblance. The major difference was that she was a classic beauty.  She wasn’t attractive in the modern sense-not thin and modelesque. Her being was full, curving into the backdrop. She was pale just as Pyra, and as the dark took possession of her form, it was evident that she was no stronger than Pyra. There was a mysterious quality about Pyra’s new found friend. Her beauty was something that belonged to another time, maybe even another place. Pyra watched her closely, trying to take in any unique qualities. The girl’s form blinked in and out with the pushing of the breeze, and her long red hair glowed in a devilish halo. It reminded Pyra of fire. Maybe this was why the girl was so intriguing. The redhead smiled and her dark eyes twinkled.

“So, you like to play fire?  What a peculiar thing to do.”

Pyra looked at the other girl, wondering if she could possibly understand.

“Yes. Of course.” Pyra said. “So, you never told me your name.”

The redhead with the dark eyes smiled faintly. She shook her head.

“I don’t remember.”

As suddenly as the admission, the redhead turned to look behind her. When she glanced back to Pyra, there was fear in her eyes.

“He’s here again, Pyra.”

“Who?”

“That vampire.”

Pyra’s form dissolved and for a moment the other girl thought her friend was gone. As quickly as Pyra disappeared, she formed again. The wind blew and Pyra’s face wavered.

“I hate that. I hate when that happens. I cannot stay long, I’m losing energy.”

“I know, me too.” The lovely redhead said as she twined the fingers of both hands together. She was horrified when her fingers past right through each other.

“Pyra, my hands!”

Pyra was silent for a moment. She thought she heard the girl say a vampire was in the forest, but she couldn’t be sure. Energy was deceiving sometimes and dead words were not real anyhow.

“Did you say a vampire was near?”

The girl was still moving her hands and letting them pass through each other and through her own face. She reached for her tattered gown and her hands passed through that as well. She panicked.

“Pyra, what’s wrong with me?”

“It happens to all of us. There’s no need to be alarmed, you will get used to it. So, about the vampire?”

“Yes, he lays in that field, there, behind that stand of pine trees.”

Pyra laughed and it sounded like soft fabric rustling against skin. “Vampires aren’t real. Besides, how would you know he was a vampire any way?”

The other girl did not speak. She turned to look into the distance to her right. Her body faded as her face contorted with horror. As she turned back to Pyra, her eyes looked painful.

“My name is Marilyn. I think it is, anyway. I saw a picture in the trees. It was an image of me and I saw my mother beside me. She was looking at me, and she was saying Marilyn. That’s what it means, right. Isn’t my name Marilyn? Pyra, please, that’s what it means, right?”

Pyra couldn’t hold the energy much longer. The buzzing had already started. For just a minute, she wanted to touch the other girl, she wanted to console her, but that was impossible.

“I think so. I think you’re Marilyn, but I hate to assume without proof. Besides, that vision could mean something else. Your mother could be asking you about Marilyn. Honestly, it could mean anything. I don’t know.” Pyra stopped for a moment and rolled the possibility over in her mind. “Although, yes, I think… Maybe we should just call yourself Marilyn anyway, so that I can call you something. It wouldn’t hurt.”

“Maybe, okay, I’m Marilyn and you are Pyra. So, I have a question.”

“Yes, Marilyn?”

“You tell me that I will get used to that strange thing with my hands?  So, where are we?”

“You’re dead, Marilyn. I’m sorry, though, I don’t know where we are!”

“I’m not dead, Pyra. How can I be dead if I am here, conscious and without heaven? Yes, I feel like nothing, and I’m floating around between trees and shadows; and fields and the dark sky. I am not dead at all. How can this be death? It has to be something else.”

Pyra was confused. The girl was strange, she said the damnest things. How could she not understand the mechanics of death and the after-life. So many people spoke about the in-between and the fact that it was possible that death could mean roaming the earth forever in torment. I mean, the girl seemed smart enough, but her idea of unreality was torturous.

“Marilyn, why is this so bad. Isn’t it better than to be nothing at all? We can see things and we can still interact with others like us, when we find others like us. Maybe you haven’t gotten used to being dead yet. You see, from the moment I saw those trees and those dark hollows past the field, I knew I was dead. I know, because I remember the city streets and my home. I’ve never been to a place like this. Then there’s the obvious, I have no form. In fact, I thought I was in hell and that any moment the demons would welcome me into their fire pits. I thought it might be nice, really. From the first moment of darkness, I was okay with it. It’s okay here. You just have to get used to it.”

“NO! You don’t get it. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I feel it, I know it. Can’t you see, I cannot exist, not like this…not like anything where I have no solid form. I don’t want to think anymore about this god awful place! I want to go home!”

“Where do you think you are? Maybe this is earth, and maybe not, Marilyn. I don’t think you can go home.”

“Pyra, where is heaven? I dreamt of heaven, I remember that at least. I remember the church and my…I remember my mother, but I remember nothing else. There is just this strong yearning for God and he isn’t here!”

“God doesn’t exist, Marilyn.”

The other girl was motionless. Her form wavered and turned into static, then wavered back into a smooth film. She began to heave. A soft whimpering escaped her lips as her eyes squint shut. She was fading as well.

“You’re lying! You’re a liar! Can’t you see, I’m trapped here, not allowed into heaven yet. I have to find a way to die! I want to die, really die! I think, maybe, we are both in a coma or something. Don’t you think that’s possible, Pyra.”

But Pyra felt sad because she knew Marilyn was wrong. Pyra didn’t understand how she knew, but she did.

“I can’t hold it any longer, Marilyn. I will have to find you again when I have more energy. Listen, you have to accept the fact that you are dead.”

“I’m telling you, I think we’re in a coma! Don’t’ you think that’s possible?”

“No.”

Pyra disappeared, and in a moment, she was still gone.

AMY LEE - "With or Without You" by U2

The Morbid Ghost

I thought I was the strangest thing in existence. I guess I was wrong.

I will try again I guess, try to find the other side of things, the far reaches of existence which meets non-existence. In this cold room, I will lay down and dream of the other place. In my cold room…

I stay in my cold room, deep beneath Jerry’s basement. Yeah…Jerry, he’s my meat friend. He shares stories with me by the fading light of the afternoon, on the little back porch-the square concrete block with two lawn chairs. I like Jerry. I think he is the best meat friend I’ve had since the 60s-since Jim. I like him so much, that I trust him to keep my secret, and he does. Jerry goes out during the day, works his job at the comic shop, and comes home to speak with me before I leave. I haven’t forgotten what happens to meat friends, they die. When Jerry dies, I hope he leaves grandchildren to keep me company-ones who are like him. This is all I ask if I must continue, no money, no riches. I hate the life of extravagance, and so I want to live underneath Jerry’s basement for eternity.

Why?

Because nothing matters except trying to keep my mind occupied.

"I like talking to you, Stephen. Does that sound gay, or something?"

"I find your flesh intriguing...and, I like talking to you as well."

"Why, Stephen? What does that mean, anyway? Is my flesh that much different than yours?"

"Yes. It's fragile but honest."

"You pay attention to details, don't you Stephen. Tell me what you're thinking."

"I'm thinking about the sound of you voice, Jerry. I like the way your teeth clack when you get excited. I like to watch you smoke weed and drink vodka. I like the way your flesh changes when introduced to something alien. I like your poetic voice. It reminds me of someone special who is dead now."

"Wouldn't you rather hang out with some rich bastard on the west coast?"

"No Jerry. I like it here."

 The rich, they grow bored. I don’t want to be bored, because time doesn’t run out for me. I want to pretend like I’m a suffering meat man because I am suffering on the inside, somewhere where the meat no longer exists.

Jerry thinks I’m the strangest thing he’s ever known.

 Time gets longer and longer and death has a pleasurable ring to it, doesn’t it? If it wasn’t for Jerry, I think I would have hired someone to kill me.

 I would like to kill myself, but I don’t think I can. At least, I have no idea how to do it. I’ve tried to do it the way the movies say, but it never works. I just end up lying in some field surrounded by waving grasses, it’s like a do-over. I feel like I’ve put another coin in the machine. It always comes back to the tall stands of grass and empty fields-large pines rimmed with golden sunlight rays. Every time I try, I wake in the middle of nowhere, far from Jerry and far from the answer. After years of this, I still have no answer as to how I get here. One moment, I’m walking outside and the next I wake with churning bees in my ears and cold earth beneath me…and her voice.

She’s moving in the tree line, and she comes to me while I lay in that field of waving grasses. She’s dead already, but she wants to die.

She wants to die much more than I do.

I think she’s morbid. I think she’s the strangest thing I’ve ever known.

The truth of the matter August 18, 2015

She's screaming. My arms, legs and the deepness of my torso hum with her buzzing. I feel the tingling sensation pulse and push at my skin. She's screaming. She screams every day and every night as I take my meds, she screams even louder.

I cannot sleep. I see outside but I cannot escape. The worm curls within, growing. I wonder will it explode inside me.

She's screaming, clawing and grasping the bars of my prison. I cannot sleep, she won't me sleep.

I won't let her sleep.