The void

I slammed the cabinet door again and she gasped. I watched as her eyes desperately searched around for something that could explain it, but found nothing, as always. I’m right by her side, but she can’t see me, can’t touch me, no matter how much I scream and trash around, believe me, I’ve tried.

But still, she reacts every time I slam the door. I can see she is scared, it’s not my goal to scare her, I should probably not do this at night if I don’t want her to be afraid of me, but if I do it during the day she doesn’t notice, or either ignores it. And I haven’t given up yet. The psychic that lived here some time ago had told me that any person willing to see a ghost will be able to, but they have to want to, so I need to get their attention.

To be honest, as I watch her scared eyes roam the kitchen looking for the ghost that slams the cabinet doors, I’m not sure what I would do if she suddenly saw me. Would she be even more scared? Would she run away? I have forgotten what I look like, it has been ages since I’ve been able to see my own reflection, and I don’t remember how I died. Is my ghost deformed by whatever killed me? Am I ugly and scary? The psychic had been nice about it, she drew me a picture of what I look like and it looked fine, but she wasn’t an artist and she was overly nice to me, she was probably lying. Anyway, that drawing is long lost now, the house was stripped and remodeled many times after she died. It doesn’t matter.

I guess if the girl could see me, I would ask for help, release me to whatever place ghosts are supposed to go, to whatever place the psychic was taken to. But she probably wouldn’t be able to help me anyway. I’m dead and I have no idea what is going on, how could she know.

She is going back upstairs now, the cereal forgotten on the sink, poor thing, I scared the hunger out of her. I don’t even know why I keep trying. I don’t follow her this time, I just stand where I am until the sun is high in the sky and I hear their voices coming from upstairs.

“No, you can’t, the girls are coming over and Michele is bringing an ouija board”.

If I had a beating heart, it would be racing now. I walk into the foyer and watch as the girl and her brother rush downstairs.

“I don’t care, I will keep them in the basement and you can do whatever you want on the rest of the house, deal?” Her brother extended a hand to her and I watched as she shook it.

Will today be the day I’ll finally be able to talk to her? Is she going to be willing to see me?

I don’t want to listen to the siblings’ mundane conversation, so I walk to the front porch and sit on the stairs. I have to think about all the questions I want to ask them, how should I ask for help? I don’t even know how they can help me, or if.

The psychic hadn’t been able to help me, she didn’t know why I was stuck here and I also didn’t push her on it at the time, I didn’t mind it much during those years because at least she was here, I had a friend. I watched her movies with her, kept her company on boring days, had long conversations about life, death and everything in between.

I watched her grow old, until eventually her kids moved in to help care for her. They were worried about her talking to herself, so I slowly stopped talking to her. I was excited for her death, I’m not going to lie, I was sure she was going to join me in this void, but then one day she had a seizure and her kids took her to the hospital and she didn’t come back, neither dead nor alive. 

Sometimes I wonder if she is stuck in the hospital like I’m stuck here. Are we all just stuck to the place we die, forever?

I have been trying to talk to someone else since her family sold the house. I lost count of how many families and secrets have gone through this place. Most people didn't notice when I moved things around, slammed doors or dropped things, and it takes me a lot of effort to do it, so eventually, seeing that no one seemed to seriously consider a ghost as the source of these disruptions, I would stop. But now she notices me, and she is wondering if I’m here.

It’s now or never.

I can see the headlight of her friend’s car pulling into the driveway and I hear her voice from behind me, greeting them.

“Oh my god, we are doing this!” She exclaims as one of the girls hands her the ouija board. 

“C’mon! I brought wine from my parents cellar and Lydia brought chips.” The other girl's voice is high pitched and excited, I follow them inside, this is happening. All I can think as they set the chips and drinks and the board on the coffee table is that this is finally happening and I’m not sure if I’m ready.

I don’t pay attention to what they are saying but I sit down by the table as well, and I only look up when they finally ask.

“Is anyone here?” The three of them have a finger on the center piece, their eyes are roaming around the room, like they are waiting for me to come flying in.

“Yes” I say outloud, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect.

“Is anyone here?” The girl asks again.

How am I supposed to do this? Do I manually move the thing? I try it, and it's surprisingly easy to do so, they gasp when I push it towards yes.

“Stop it! You’re moving it!” One of the girls wrenches her hand away.

“Lydia! You can’t move your hand, it doesn’t work if you do, put it back! I’m not moving it” the girl screams at her friend, but I’m able to move the piece regardless.

The other girl brings her hand back to the piece and they all take a deep breath.

“Are you the ghost that closed the cabinet door last night?” She asks.

I move the piece around the board a bit before bringing it back to yes, to make sure she knows.

“Are you evil?” I chuckle. Of course she would ask this, why do people talk to ghosts like we are not human? As if an evil person would simply say ‘yeah, sure I’m evil’.

I move the piece to no.

“That’s a stupid question, if it's evil, it won’t tell us” one of the girls says and I nod in agreement, ignoring the pang I feel at her reference to me, I’m going to focus on what’s important here.

“Can ghosts lie?” The girl asks right after, not paying her friend much attention.

I move the piece to yes, I won’t lie to them, but I could if I wanted to. Now that I think about it, maybe I should, even if just to have some fun.

“Why are you here?” The third girl asks, and god I wish I knew.

To talk, I decide to say, and they speak the words outloud as I spell it.

“Oh god, I’m getting goosebumps” one of them says.

“What is it like to be dead?” The girl asks me.

I haven’t really given it much thought, I’m so stuck on this void that I don’t particularly spend much time thinking about my feelings over being dead, but I know I can’t take long with my answer because they might think I left, so I go with my most pungent feeling.

“Lonely” they repeat as I spell it.

“Oh this is so creepy, I don’t want to do it anymore” the same girl from earlier says. Why is it creepy? Because I’m dead? Will they think anything I say is creepy? Will they even take me seriously?

“Stop it, Lydia, sit down” the girls start arguing. This is frustrating, I thought I had a chance to finally talk to someone, to ask for help to end this suffering. I had hope. And as they fight I think that the only reason I haven’t gone completely crazy until now is because I’m already dead. 

Suddenly, the lights turn on and off multiple times and the girls scream, cups of wine spill on the carpet and I hear her brother and his friends laughing somewhere else in the house.

“I’m going to kill you!” She screams and rushes out. Her two friends stay at the table with me, they look scared and they don’t speak. I guess this is it, I might never speak to another person again, this realization had been looming over me for a while now, but I hadn’t let it settle in until now. There is nothing I can do about it, I’m alone and stuck, forgotten, already faded into nothing. I don’t remember my name or my face or even my life properly. This house has been a prison for god knows how many years. The girl comes back and they want to ask more questions but I don’t want to talk anymore, so I leave them there. I walk up to the girl’s room and lay on her bed. It’s despairing, the death of hope.

I wonder if I’m in hell, I’m not sure if I did something bad in my life and I'm being punished. Maybe this will eventually end and my spirit will be taken to some other place, but there is nothing I can do about it. I will be alone until I’m not, I will be stuck until I’m not and I will be unseen until I’m not, and I’m not going to try to do anything about it anymore. I cannot control this.

I close my eyes and tune out the world around me until I eventually hear her talk directly to me.

“Hi ghost, I don’t know if you can hear me.”

I open my eyes and she is standing with her back to the bedroom door, right in front of me. Her eyes are searching the room like they always do when she is looking for me. She is wearing different clothes and I wonder for a second how much time has passed.

“I have been thinking about our conversation and I’m not sure if you are mad at me for leaving the game, but I just wanted to say that I’m sorry you feel lonely. I feel lonely sometimes too. I hate it. I have friends and people to talk to, but sometimes I feel like we speak different languages. I don’t know, maybe I’m just too weird to fit in anywhere… Anyway, I always hoped that dying would be peaceful, but now I feel sad to think that loneliness follows you into your grave too, I guess it's true what they say that we all die alone.” She is fidgeting with the hem of her shirt and her eyes are now trained on the bed where I’m sitting, but she doesn’t see me. I want to speak but I feel like she might hear me and I don’t want to interrupt. It has been a long time since someone spoke to me, especially like this.

“Anyway, I kept thinking about you, I know you are here somewhere but I can’t see you, I understand how lonely it is to feel like you are screaming your lungs out and no one hears you. I wish I could see you and talk to you, maybe we could make each other’s life less lonely”

“Thank you” I say out loud and her eyes snap to me. I feel a sting of electricity run through my being at her gaze. She gasps loudly and takes a clumsy step back, smashing into the door.

“Are you scared?” It's the first thing that pops into my head. I don’t want her to be scared, I don’t want her to run away and I don’t want her to stop talking to me. 

Slowly she shakes her head and smiles and I think that maybe this void can have glimpses of life after all.