Alan, A Ghost's Story

Alan, a Ghost’s Story.

Marcus B Johnson.  marcus.johnson237@gmail.com

The beach was about eight miles long. The waves of the Atlantic broke gently against the fine sand on that late summer’s day. The soft wind from the south was lively and surprisingly warm.

He was alone on the beach. As far as he could see, the families who had ventured down for some after school fun were long gone. The evening fell, and the sun sank behind the horizon. He gazed up at the moon that was already casting its full face upon the scene, lighting the shadows that dusk created. The sea reflected its silvery glow and was calming to a motionless millpond as the wind died and the tide rested.

Far in the distance, he thought he saw the beam of a car’s headlights sweep the sand dunes and then disappear as the vehicle turned and drove away.

The calm suited him, for he had been dead for nearly eighteen years. All that was left of his former self was a fleeting shadow that passed chillingly through crowds. His mind was just as active as it had been before his untimely death, but his physical abilities were restricted to wandering the earth, whilst humankind, for the most, merely ignored him.

He could not drive a car or control any mechanical device; in fact, he could pass his hand and body through almost any solid substance. Oh, would that have been an advantage during my lifetime, he thought to himself. He had no use for rest or the consumption of food or liquid. He did not need a roof over his head nor a chair to sit on. 

There were periods during his time as a ghost that he could not remember, blanks in his memory, moments when it seemed the senses which remained were blind and he could not recollect what happened during these periods. He just sometimes found himself in strange surroundings.

Today he had found himself in a room he recognised as being part of the house where he had once lived. He walked around the house recognising the decor, the paintings on the walls. He entered the long dining room and watched his family enjoy some festive meal, a birthday dinner he surmised. The kids were grown up, sitting with their various partners. His wife, though much older, was still on top form. He stood behind her desperate to speak to her, to put his arms around her and tell her that he was alright, that he missed her.

He left the dining room and climbed the narrow staircase to what had once been his bedroom. He gazed at the bed where he had died; he could not remember when or how, but he knew this was the bed where it had happened. He was surprised his wife had not replaced it. He went to the dresser. The same family photos were still there:  one of him in his youth with his arms round his new bride, a whole series of framed pictures from various trips they had taken together, photos of their three children at differing ages – Penelope’s pony adorned with victory rosettes, Penelope proudly at the pony’s side… She must have been only fourteen at the time. He wanted to pick them up and examine them more closely, but all he succeeded in doing was knocking them all over. He could no longer react in any way that made sense in the physical world.

The door opened, and for a moment he thought to hide, forgetting that he was invisible to all except those people blessed with extraordinary powers. They were able to see him, hear him and speak to him, but there were very few people so blessed. It was always a shock on the occasions when one of them approached and began to converse with him. Some said they could see his outline, others more of his features. They always wanted to know if they could pass any messages on to loved ones. He always declined, knowing his dear wife, Renee, would laugh and call them charlatans.

Then Renee herself entered the room and sat at the dresser. It was apparent that she could not understand why all the photos had fallen over. Perhaps the thought occurred to her that one of the grandchildren must have accidently knocked them over. She picked up the one where her young husband stood with his arms around her, and held it to her heart. A solitary tear fell from her eye. She held the precious picture closer, hugging it with all her strength, as several more tears dropped gently down her face and onto the floor “Where are you, my dear Alan? Where are you now?” She put the photo down to pick up a soft tissue to wipe the dampness from her face. Her late husband stood close to her, his emotions aroused. He felt great sadness; if only he could communicate with her, pass on to her how he missed her as well. Tell her he was alright but very lonely.

He stayed and watched her as she took off the little make-up she wore, pulled out the comb that held her long hair, and put on her nightgown. She took the photo and placed it on the pillow next to hers, his old pillow, then climbed into her side of the bed. Instead of reading, which he had always known her to do for a short period before she slept, she turned off the lights and pushed her head further into the pillow. He could hear her sobbing gently for a while, then the sobbing drifted quietly away, and she fell into a peaceful sleep. The moon shone through the open curtain, lighting up her face. The years disappeared; in the half-light, he could see his young bride, her long curly tresses draped around her face and over the white sheet.

He lay on the bed next to her, whispering soft words of affection, staring at the only woman he had ever loved, thinking of the forty-four years of happiness they had shared. She began to mumble in her sleep, as if she had heard him and was responding, saying how much she loved him, thanking him for visiting, asking how he was, where he was. He answered her questions and saw a smile light up her face. She tossed and turned away from him; the strange conversation was over. He felt a certain happiness, wondering whether he really had found a way into her dreams.

**  *

In the morning Renee came down early for breakfast. She wanted to speak to Penelope, whom she knew would be leaving for work at eight fifteen precisely. Penelope was their eldest daughter, who was working in the area and staying for the week, enjoying her mother’s loving attention and the quiet life away from her own children.

Penelope was already in the kitchen reading the newspaper that concealed her face.

“I dreamt of Dad last night,” Renee announced, “for the first time since he died.” She went over to the fridge to find the orange juice and took a glass from the cupboard. No response from behind the newspaper. “I say, Pen, I was trying to tell you that I dreamt of Dad last night.”

The newspaper was lowered, and Penelope peered over the top. “Was he happy? What did he say to you? What did he look like?”

“Just as he always did, slightly slovenly, a big smile on his face, his bald head shining with a few wisps of grey hair draped to one side.” Renee paused as if the dream was fading and her memory of her beloved husband with it. “It’s eighteen years since he died, but for sure he was not wearing glasses, not in my dream. He never went anywhere without those thick-rimmed glasses. I suppose that I was probably the only one who ever saw him without them.” 

She looked around at the kitchen where they had spent so much time, watching the children grow up, sitting quietly together after the children had all left to seek their own ways in the world, enjoying the peace of their later years and their growing mellow concern for each other.

The joys and happiness of the past still reflected off the tiled walls; they were still etched in the broken handle that he had glued together so badly, after Jeremy their youngest had snapped the plastic as a small child. She glanced at the door that led out to the small covered yard, seeing him bringing the coal in from the shed that housed the supply delivered twice a year, watching him filling the coal-fired boiler that once provided their only source of hot water and heat, watching him empty the caked ashes that had built up from the previous day, feeling the love that she had felt as he struggled to support their growing family.

“I often think that people we have lost stay forever in our dreams,” Penelope ventured quietly, rather pensively, thinking how much she missed her father and his unconcealed affection for his family and the joy he had of life, the happiness that he exuded at all times, his uncompromising attitude of kindness to everyone he knew and met.

Alan was standing in the far corner of the kitchen enjoying this unusual view of his previous life. He wanted to see his garden of roses. He had planted more than three hundred over the years that they had lived in this old house at the end of the cul-de-sac. He seemed able to control his location and perception of movement now, something that he hadn’t been able to accomplish so well before. He wanted to see the roses, and so he did. Without the sensation of leaving the room and going outside, he found himself apparently just standing amongst the vivid panorama of beautiful full-petalled flowers. He couldn’t sense the heavenly scent that he knew must be hanging over the garden, but he was overjoyed just to see the abundance of beauty that surrounded him in his own creation. 

Renee was in her mid-eighties but physically still in the best of health. She never had a day of illness; there was just this absolute hole of despair in her heart, an utterly broken vessel. Sometimes she just wished that she would be taken, taken to be with him again. She knew that their love was unbreakable and stretched beyond the confines of normal reality that he would never go beyond the limits of the next existence that he would wait for her. She wondered how he was coping with this tedious wait and hoped that it was not uncomfortable for him.

At eight fifteen as predicted, Penelope had left for her office, leaving the house empty. Oh, how empty it felt to Renee. The echoes of the past were slowly dying, the sounds of the children running about in playful chaos long gone, the covers of his old Frank Sinatra LPs gathering dust. Alan had never moved on from vinyl to more modern mediums, and she never played the records herself for fear of damaging them. But now she missed the quiet music, Sinatra’s classic tones. She missed the shared bottles of wine as they had sat together on the soft sofa that graced the wide lounge. She missed the man that had been part of her everything for more years than she could remember.

He stood there watching her, seeing her familiar dallying around the well-used furniture of the lounge, the cushions lifted and pummelled back into shape, all the silly mementoes that they had collected over the years picked up and the surfaces under them needlessly dusted. The rusty metallic sculpture of the owl, the small pieces of bone china she had collected from the nearby porcelain factory, the pieces of Lladró acquired from the frequent winter visits to Spain and the distant Balearic Isles.

That’s what life was in the end, just a collection of memories – the little mementoes just enabling devices that brought them flooding back. When Renee finally joined him, they would just become ordinary things again unattached to any recollections, devoid of humanity and probably destined for use as children’s toys.

He watched her sink finally into the old leather chair which had always been his, the lined red leather showing signs of its accumulated years, the colour faded on the arms, the right wing still soiled from the constant pressure of his head. He remembered the hours he had sat there reading his paper, nodding off in the sun that shined every bright afternoon through the French windows that led into the garden and his precious roses. The garden would be awash with colour from early spring till late autumn, the house filled with glass vases of the most beautiful flowers, the scent liberated and flowing throughout.

He watched his love as she caressed the worn arms of the chair, as she lay back and felt the firm cushions of the buttoned back hold her in its grip. Her eyes shut as she searched her mind for the memories that brought him back to her. He knelt by her side, looking up at what remained of her great beauty, seeing her dark brown eyes closing softly. She fell asleep, her light breaths slowing as she became immersed further in the depths that led to her dreams.

After a moment, he ventured a word or two, anxious to learn if she could really perceive his presence amongst the myriad images of her sleeping mind.

“Hello my sweet darling.”

He saw her smile; felt that she was acknowledging him. He tried again.

“I love you so.”

“And I love you too, my darling man.”

“I miss you so terribly. My existence is just a void without you, just ages of emptiness. All I do is wait for you to join me.” His words passing as pure thoughts.

“And all I do is wait for the moment we can be together again. My life is just a chain holding me back from my love,” she murmured, the words passing easily between them.

He saw her eyes begin to blink and then open. They were full of sad tears that edged slowly down her soft old face, the mellow creases guiding the salty water to her parted lips. She felt them with her tongue and reached for the handkerchief that she kept permanently inside her turned sleeve. She dabbed at them softly until they were no more, and then she turned towards where he knelt, reaching out her hand till it touched his. He looked up at her and watched as her spirit lifted itself from her body. Her head sunk down onto her chest and remained still. He stood up and took her hand in his; their eyes met and neither spoke. He walked with her through the glass of the French windows. The sun was at its height, shining piercingly from a cloudless sky. He stood with her amongst the field of glorious roses, the colour a mass of absolute beauty around them, and unlike before he was able to acknowledge the delightful scent. He held her close to him and together they passed from this world with all its imperfect allure to a place where love is held above all as the reason for existence, where there is no dissent and only happiness remains.