#tsgiml

She walked over to the window and reflected on her sunny surroundings. She had always loved wild Cape Town with its unsteady, unlucky umbrellas. It was a place that encouraged her tendency to feel angry.

Then she saw something in the distance, or rather someone. It was the figure of Dr. Drakken. Dr. was a charming knight with tall eyebrows and pink abs.

She gulped. She glanced at her own reflection. She was a violent, courageous, cocoa drinker with moist eyebrows and handsome abs. Her friends saw her as a bitter, bad banker. Once, she had even revived a dying, chicken.

But not even a violent person who had once revived a dying, chicken, was prepared for what Dr. had in store today.

The snow flurried like swimming elephants, making She calm.

As She stepped outside and Dr. came closer, she could see the fluffy glint in his eye.

"I am here because I want a pencil," Dr. bellowed, in a cold-blooded tone. He slammed his fist against She's chest, with the force of 4816 toads. "I frigging love you, She Ghost."

She looked back, even more calm and still fingering the cursed gun. "Dr., I am your mother," she replied.

They looked at each other with stable feelings, like two mighty, mouldy monkeys chatting at a very energetic engagement party, which had R & B music playing in the background and two grateful uncles jumping to the beat.

Suddenly, Dr. lunged forward and tried to punch She in the face. Quickly, She grabbed the cursed gun and brought it down on Dr.'s skull.

Dr.'s tall eyebrows trembled and his pink abs wobbled. He looked stressed, his body raw like a bewildered, broad banana.

Then he let out an agonising groan and collapsed onto the ground. Moments later Dr. Drakken was dead.

Drakken’s fist tightened around his red sheets. The tears coated his fingertips slid and disappeared into the cloth around him. His breath hitched, filling the silent room with its sharp sound--its taste of freedom all too brief, repressed by the intense control Drakken attempted to maintain. 

The throbbing, erratic pound of his heartbeat that thumped within his ears was replaced by a faint, eerie voice that had grown all too familiar. It carried a melancholic tune as it drifted into the vacant room and left a sort of longing that touched Drakken’s heavily guarded soul. He stopped, acutely aware of her entrance into his room--his safe-haven--her voice darting wildly as she drew closer to his trembling frame. 

She was the last person on earth he wanted to see.

Hear?

He loved parties and celebrations and, just, well, living—a state-of-being that he still got to enjoy. To say SheGho was a little jealous would be an understatement, but she would never admit it. Regardless, his party hats and noise makers and streamers that littered the layer like some twelve-year-old TPed his furniture annoyed her to no end, but, like the “obedient” ghost that she was (not like she had a choice), she would watch him have his fun.

So, when Drakken dragged his body, as if his very existence weighed upon him, into the cold confines of the lair he loved so much, SheGho knew something was wrong. It was his birthday; his damn birthday—a day to celebrate him. He should be thrilled.

But, instead of baking a cake or obnoxiously singing an off-key version of “Happy Birthday” or laying a party hat on the coffee table for SheGho to “wear”, he sat on the couch. He did nothing but slowly sink into the inviting crevices that whispered his name as the piece of furniture engulfed him in its soft embrace, nearly swallowing him—and whatever was left of his happiness—whole.

He was lonely.

His lair was haunted by a literal spirit of a conniving woman and he was still so goddamn lonely.

If there was something that SheGho hated more than parties, it was seeing Drakken like this. She wasn’t entirely sure why and, truthfully, she didn’t want to know. But what she did know was that, in the depths of her being, she absolutely could not bear to witness the depressed state of this dejected man.

Celebratory parties were bad enough, pity parties were a whole new level of discomfort.

Assessing the situation, it was safe to say that SheGho was ill-prepared. As if she already forgot earthly customs, she had the audacity to show up without a gift, or even a few encouraging words to lift him from the depths of the couch. Annoyed with the situation and herself, SheGho turned to the one habitual technique she knew would penetrate Drakken’s barriers of despair.

Ripping off a destroyed page of her notepad—one full of questions about the movie Drakken made her watch the night before—SheGho inspected the new, fresh piece of pape for a moment before scribbling the few words that may not have been “encouraging” by any sense of the word, but would mean something to the mad scientist, nonetheless.

“Happy Birthday, Drakken.”

She dropped the notepad in his lap, startling him out of his stupor. Quickly, he fumbled for the paper, nearly dropping it in his clumsiness, which elicited a small eye-roll from the ghost. She should’ve seen that one coming.

Her displeasure for his antics only lasted mere moments as the first signs of joy slowly engulfed his somber features. Delighted by her message, he smiled. And, in return, so did she.

He didn’t mind her presence. He could tolerate her anger, torment, and laughter. But taping over his pre-recorded episodes of Captain Constellation was, ultimately, the last straw and if he could kick her out of the lair, he would’ve in a heartbeat.

Unfortunately, for both of them, this was a curse that even Monkey Fist couldn’t break. So, they were stuck together like an old, married couple who were heavily regretting their vows.

In his attempt to quell her mischievous habits, Drakken hid the T.V. remote in obscure locations and hoped that she wouldn’t have access to the television while he was in the lab. This didn’t work. Then, he tried to bring the remote with him, but she somehow got ahold of it while he remained preoccupied, and none-the-wiser.

Every scheme he had planned to thwart her evil-doings failed. She was always one step ahead and, as tricky as she was, he could never outsmart her.

It was only natural for him to be upset over the situation—after all, he recorded Captain Constellation for a reason—but there was still something that didn’t sit right with him, and it was not birthed from his frustration.

He threw in the towel and let SheGho have her victory. She recorded her shows, which occupied the majority of his DVR, and she’d consume them, slowly, while he spent his days working in the lab. But, when it came time from him to take control over the television, there would be a startling lack of her presence. Some nights, she’d sit on the opposing end of the couch—as far away from Drakken as possible. Other nights, she’d be gone. He never knew where she’d run off to.

To his side, a shortened pencil levitated—its lead pressed upon the lines of a notebook, just enough for the substance to leave trails along the paper.

Nah.

He smiled. Good.

“Would you like to take part in my latest scheme?”

Though he did not have the faintest clue as to what she looked like, he imagined the entity that stood behind him encapsulating his shoulders in her translucent embrace, as if to say yes, while peering over his shoulder at the clutter of schematics that littered the table.

Leave it to Dr. Drakken to bring a ghost back to his lair. At least she was a friendly ghost.

Under normal circumstances, the abrasive clamor would have alarmed him--would have forced him out of the comfort of his chair to save the airborne devices from settling into their new home on the hardened floor of his lair. But these weren’t, what he’d consider, “normal circumstances”--not since that she-ghost. . . thing decided to follow him home. 

“Must you always destroy my toys?”

A brief pause, a period of quiet tranquility, was far too brief--interrupted by a piercing scratch of metal-on-metal, followed by a familiar BANG as the mini-model of his hand-held laser scattered to pieces on the floor. 

Late nights to early mornings, fail schematics to trashed plans, a hand-held laser exploding within his calloused fingers, she understood why this self-proclaimed Dr. Drakken was such a cranky-pants pseudo doctor and, on most occasions, his irrational behavior vexed her to the core. 

She rested her cheek in the palm of her hand. Then again, what would her afterlife be like without him? Boring. After all, what would be the point of wandering the face of the earth for eternity if she couldn’t share part of that eternity with another?

She watched the lights glisten in his eyes as a slight wheeze of his crying lungs sounded into the microphone. He seemed unbothered as he continued to belt the chorus to whatever Oh Boyz song he had chosen that night. She wasn’t sure which one it was--they all sounded the same.