#pavonem

16: post a picture from the beginning of the year 

stone hug i couldn’t look away from this january! i was completely spellbound by this sculpture

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The temperature is always low in the far left corner of your living room. There’s a chair there, an especially comfortable one, but you know better than to sit in it. Your mother always taught you to be a good host, even if your guest isn’t one you can see. Even if your guest is probably just a product of drinking too much and never sleeping enough.

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Sometimes you see him, in the corner of your eye. Behind you in the bathroom mirror. A vague shape at the end of the hallway. You can’t tell what he looks like, not really, but you can make out some of his features.

You see red hair, once, glinting in the sunlight that’s making its slow way through the curtains. When he opens and closes various doors, you can almost count the freckles on his pale hands.

You see bits and pieces of his face. Half a smile. The edge of an eye.

You wish that you could draw so that you could pull the whole thing together into something coherent. But you can’t, so you just try to forget about it.

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It takes him a year to start talking to you. It only takes him half a year to start laughing at you.

You’re not sure it’s him laughing, at first. You think the house might just be creaking. Or that it’s water gurgling through the pipes. Eventually you realize that houses don’t creak just when you’ve embarrassed yourself.

“You know,” you say, after the second time he laughs at you for walking into the kitchen table, “I didn’t take you for a sadist.”

He laughs again. You want to call your ex-wife and tell her that a dead man has a better sense of humor than she does.

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Of course, you’ve talked to him since day one. Not about anything in particular. Just the same stuff you’ve been prattling on to yourself about since you were old enough to talk. Sometimes you remember your manners well enough to say good morning and good night.

One evening, he says it back, and you’re hardly surprised.

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You’re not surprised, but you are oddly happy about it. That’s not a feeling you want to explore.

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Sometimes you get a full sentence, but mainly it’s just fragments. He talks so quietly.

As times goes by, his voice gets louder. Or at least, you like to think so. You might have just gotten better at understanding him.

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You tell him about your daughter’s birthday, about the gift you spend hours picking out for her. You tell him that you’re suddenly terrified that she’ll hate it. You never get to see her. You don’t really know her at all.

You tell him about the TV show you keep watching even though it’s awful. You tell him about how you’ve never made scrambled eggs without burning them, how on your wedding day you alternated between sheer, blinding terror and manic happiness. You tell him that you’re very good at missing obvious signs.

And somehow, he tells you about his family, about how the tenants who lived here before you never mowed the lawn, about how being dead is like being alive, only softer.

You think that there are questions you should ask him, questions that any rational person would ask him, questions about the afterlife and all of that nonsense. But you don’t want to ask him any of that. You just want to talk to him.

God damn it, it doesn’t make any sense.

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You have to remind yourself to leave the house and talk to living people. You get coffee with your sister. You take your daughter to the playground. You have a terse, non-conversation with your ex-wife.

Your sister points out that you keep avoiding her gaze. You’re not used to taking in a person’s whole body at one time.

“You’ve ruined me for real people,” you tell him one night, and he doesn’t respond. You don’t know why. Maybe he doesn’t have anything to say. Maybe you started talking in the wrong empty room.

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He’s your friend, you think. Your best friend.

And that’s sick, that’s twisted, that’s wrong on every level. You can’t be friends with a dead man. You can’t love a dead man. It’s no way to live. It’s not fair.

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You start looking for a different home. You narrow your search down to new buildings. Fresh and shiny apartment complexes, in fresh and shiny areas. Before you decide on an apartment, you visit it twice to make sure it’s ghost-free.

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You ask him if this is the coward’s way out. He doesn’t answer immediately.

Finally, in the middle of the night, just before you fall asleep, he tells you that you’re the bravest person he’s ever met.

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On your last day in the house, you call your sister. You tell her to bring all her psychic friends over. You’ve got a ghost that needs to Pass On.

She comes over with three different mediums. You sit on the porch steps while they go about their business, and try not to gnaw off your fingernails. It takes hours, but finally your sister appears and tells you that it’s over. He’s gone into the “light”.

You have no idea what the hell that means. It’s sounds like a lot of nonsense. You just hope he’s happy. You just hope he’s someplace where you’ll be able to find him again.

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The next day, you bring your daughter to your new apartment and let her draw on all of the walls. The day after that, you make a point of chatting with every person you pass in the hallways. On the third day, you call your ex-wife, your mother, and your sister in quick succession.

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