My roommate is a ghost

“My name is Iris, and you guessed it, my parents like plants”. She started fidgeting with her thumbs and hands.

The interviewer stayed silent and gave a soft nod to encourage her to keep talking.

“I am doing my PhD in Sociology, which is different from social work,” she rushed to say, because so many people were not sure exactly what sociology meant.

The job hunt was ruthless, dominated by a variety of unpaid internships.

“Anything with a salary or should I eat air and not live – would be convenient if I was a ghost actually”.

She needed to pay bills, and she ended up working as a waitress at a club downtown. She liked it there; good money. Besides, she was used to seeing drunk people, and she also felt safe, as the club had its own “security”. Three years passed like that, and Iris was promoted to chief waitress and then shift manager. She liked it.

Last night Iris made an internal assessment about her life goals. She was this close to quitting this PhD, which seemed endless and life-draining. She had long started to seriously doubt her dream to work in academia anyway.

“Do what you love”, what shitty career advice in a world that actually is more like “Do what you are good at and make enough money to pay the bills”.

“Anyway, ahm, I am looking for an affordable apartment, and I don’t mind having roommates. I am quiet, I don’t smoke, and I don’t have any pets. You can see from my payslips here that I make a steady income”.

Jeez, now she would start doubting everything. Terrific. She looked back at the interviewer and kept trying to get comfortable in her seat.

His transparent gaze didn’t help her figure out what he was thinking about. He had a polite smile. She could literally see through him, yet figuratively not. What a predicament. Oh well.

“Well, Miss Greene, you tick a lot of boxes. As you know, we are three roommates, and we have a spare room, as our fourth roommate passed on. The apartment is already furnished, as you see. When are you looking to move in?”

He was hovering over the couch, well, only the top part of his body. She couldn’t see any legs or feet, not that he needed them anyway. He was dressed up in a suit. Most of them were because they were buried with it. Where were the other roommates?

“As soon as possible. I saw in the listing that the room is already available.”

She lived on the couch of her best friend, Jane, after her breakup with Teddy, whom she had been seeing for almost two years. She was a workaholic, which didn’t help the relationship. Teddy owned their old apartment. He kindly offered to let her stay as a roommate, but she thought, “When something is finished, it’s finished, no charities are needed”.

This time around, it was not an early 20s painful breakup of getting drunk with gin, dancing to loud music, or staying in pyjamas every day. It was a breakup that looked more like a business handshake. The spark, the passion was lost, and love had become more like a platonic concept. At that point, she had started to feel attracted to pretty much anyone besides him. They had gradually grown apart and lost interest, and she thought this was her setting them both free.

“Okay, Miss Greene, I will take a moment to consult with the others.” Iris’s gaze followed him as he went to the kitchen, closed the door, and came back to the living room – living room, what an irony, eh? – about two minutes later.

“Congratulations, Miss Greene, I am happy to announce you as our new roommate. Now, some ground rules. You don’t go to Eric’s room after midnight; he is a guest in a seance, it’s a thing, and it can get weird”.

“Sounds reasonable, what else?”

Everybody’s got their own weirdness, alive and ghost alike.

“Samantha is our youngest, and she tends to be a bit… antisocial. She likes to leave items all over the common room; be patient with her. If she likes you, then you have nothing to worry about.”

“Okay, you mean, sort of an introvert?”

One less person to do small talk. Sounds great, actually.

He looked around and toward the kitchen, the sound of a cooking pan falling to the floor.

“You could say that.”

“And what is your…situation, if I may ask?”

“I’m the most social, you see, self-appointed leader, and friendliest. I get to take care of the people part. My birth name is Oliver, but friends call me Jasper. It’s… an inside joke of sorts. Always available if you want to have a chat or answer your questions for this life or the next.”

An ever-talkative ghost, oh the horror!

“What do you say to sign some papers to make the deal official?”

“Sounds alright”

***************************************************************

The move-in was fast; she had only two suitcases, a coffee machine, and a backpack to bring. One day she spent cleaning her space and settling in. Then back to her routine. She went on running in the morning, then groceries, then home for a shower and lunch, maybe a nap, and then work at the club, then sleep. And repeat.

For a full week, she tried to ignore the roommates, with the minimum interaction possible. Sometimes a few of her items would disappear from their place and appear in another part of the house, but she just placed them back. Whenever she was home, she observed them and their habits. Eric always had a closed door, Samantha was frequently in hiding, and whenever Jasper came out of his room, he would feel refreshed. Some seemed to either have jobs or wander around the park with other ghosts.

Some bills came in the mail that morning; the electricity bill was crazy high.

Then she had all sorts of questions for them. She found him in the common room.

“Oliver, er, Jasper, I was a bit curious, how do ghosts pay for rent?”

“Well, if they die younger than 70, the government grants them a ‘secondary pension plan’, which is basically the money that was supposed to be their retirement up to that point, or if too young, their family or friends gather a fund. Alternatively, if they are older than 70, they inherit any money left from close family members who have passed on. They had special bank accounts and all, and they had access with a spoken password”.

“Voice control, huh?”

“Yeah, similar to Siri or Alexa that supposedly recognises your voice.”

“I’ve been here since 1923 and never missed a rent payment”, the suited being added with a smug smile.

“I thought this was a newer building”.

“Newly renovated. Actually renovated twice. First one was after the fire of ‘85, around when Edward, our previous roommate, ended up here. And lastly, last year, when I heard that this neighbourhood was up and coming, I was compelled to invest”.

“Aha”.

To pass on didn’t mean dying. For ghosts, it meant leaving this world to find peace, leaving all grudges, materials, or strong feelings aside. It was considered a success and a dream for many of them.

“So, you want to pass on before that money runs out?”

“At the moment, I focus on helping others pass on. Of course, I get what is left of their funds and grow mine”

“What a business model!” Iris mused.

“My own idea, discovered with a bit of luck. I helped someone, and thus, just before the light completely absorbed him, he authorised all their funds to be passed to me. Since then, it was something I requested from my next clients as moving on to leave their material belongings behind.”

Iris thought that Jasper would have to do the same at some point, but he seemed too fond of the world of the living to go anywhere else.

“Apart from housing and bills, what can you do with that money? I mean, you can’t change clothes in this form, can’t drink or eat, and can’t go to the barber.”

“I can pay for services, can’t I? I can pay to own things and look at them or listen to them, can’t I?” he seemed a bit insulted.

“Yeah, yeah, of course, sorry…” She had overindulged in her curiosity out loud.

He seemed to be composing himself. He regained his calm tone.

“Anything else?”

“The… electricity bill” Iris put the mail on the coffee table and reluctantly looked at her roommate.

“Yeah”, he looked at it as if it was something normal.

“It’s almost three thousand euros, Jasper. What the hell”?

“Eric freezes his room for his seances; Samantha opens all the electric devices and stoves and forgets them on. Sometimes she likes it when she makes the lights flicker; she thinks it’s a neat trick. I like to heat my room, so it feels like when I was alive. It is a bit pricey, indeed. What’s your point?”

Lowkey cool ways to use your free will. But, in this economy?

“You see, I like to save electricity and money. I didn’t spend half as much as each one of you did, so I believe we need to have a roommate meeting to discuss the arrangement.”

***************************************************************

It was the first time she saw all the roommates gathered up in the common sitting area. She had caught glimpses of Eric walking in and out of his room’s door; he seemed to be always carrying a book in hand, as translucent as he was; the two of them had exchanged no small talk, other than the awkward occasional nod to acknowledge each other’s presence. Now Eric was sitting at the side of the dining table across from the turned-off TV. Iris accidentally found out that those seances were for Eric’s book club, still trying to finish his unfinished business, it would appear. She had so many questions, but they were all irrelevant to why they gathered. She cleared her throat.

“Hello there. I wonder which of you asked that I bring this from the other room”, she pointed to the antique Ouija board she placed on the dining table.

“Hi dear roommates, good evening”, Jasper chimed in. “It was I”, then left a long pause. “I’d like to announce that our roommate gathering has now started”.

Iris looked around. “Is the board for Eric or for Samantha? That was what I meant, sorry. I assume it is because one of them doesn’t feel like speaking”

“‘Tis for me, mostly”, Jasper stated

“To do what?”

He placed his transparent fingers on the planchette. She just went with it. The item started moving.

GOODEVENING

“You literally just said good evening.”

“Yes, but now it’s official.”

Iris found it useful at that moment to do a slow breath in, and then out.

“Flex much? As you youngsters say, haha. First order of business, the book club. Eric, our neighbours are requesting that you guys scream at a lower register during business hours”

Iris kept her hands on the board. Eric’s hands helped move hers.

NOTED

“You mean 3 am?” Iris interfered. Had she not rediscovered the miracle of sound-cancelling earplugs, she wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night.

“That is business hours for Eric, Miss Greene”, said Jasper.

Samantha had the quietest presence of all. Had it not been for her old-fashioned, doll-like outfit, she would totally nail the look of a nowadays teen, with all the judging eye-rolling and disdain exuding off of her. She might as well have had a floating caption over her head, “Why am I here with these morons?”

“Now, second order of business, the electricity bill. Despite us indulging in modern delights being the usual occurrence, the bill has indeed doubled since last time”

Eric interrupted Jasper, “However, we have a new roommate; what did you expect? Plus, there is also the geopolitical turmoil of the news everyone has heard of. Gas and bill prices have gone up; it is to be expected”, shaking his head in confirmation of his words.

This was the longest Iris had heard him speak.

The friendly chatty (g)host interrupted Eric’s streak.

“However, the issue is not purely that. The number of appliances we possess has increased, as has the frequency of the occurrence. Who possessed the microwave the other day, for example, outside of the agreed hours?”

The board started moving, clearly by Eric.

NOTME

“I’m dead”, Iris burst out laughing.

“Same”, Samantha said, with a blank, distant look on her face.

This is not going to be easy, Iris thought to herself.

I should have known better.