Article by Ethan Kirschner Art by Allison Garcia
The wind is blowing, pulling hard, battering away at my body like it does snow. The particles that make up my image are streaming off of me, leaving faster than I can react. I feel myself disintegrating.
I am trying to hold it all together, to not disappear. But the wind is strong, and my form is weak. Tears flow down my cheeks, yet they never reach the ground.
I do not know when I became a ghost. It is a difficult thing to measure. For a long time, I felt grounded, feet flat upon the earth. Then one day, I found myself drifting in the breeze.
* * *
I am sitting on the floor, looking through the wire mesh railing at the cafeteria below. It’s not really a cafeteria, more of an atrium with folded-out tables to eat on. After the lunch periods are over, they will fold those tables back up and it will become empty. No longer any reason to stay there.
I am looking at a table where I used to sit. It lies just below the steps leading into the atrium, squished between a wall and another table. A large group of people are talking animatedly, eyes wide, backs arched, arms stretching across the wood. They appear to be very engaged with each other. I take a deep breath.
It was there, when I sat with them, that I became aware of my incorporeality. I was trying to participate in a conversation, to engage with those I considered friends, but it seemed no one was listening. So I stood up, intending to lean towards them. As I did, my body passed through the table.
I stilled, looked down at my legless torso. Nothing felt wrong, but everything looked it. I turned to the nearest friend. “Do you see this?” I asked.
No reply.
“Do you see this?” I waved my hand in front of their face. No reaction. I waved my hand in front of the next person, and the next. It was all the same. They no longer saw me.
Over the next few days, I did what I could to make them notice me, to no avail. I could not impact a single one of their senses. They never realized that I had disappeared.
I left.
Next to me I hear a screech, pulling me out of the memory. It is loud, piercing, high-pitched. At first, it may appear to be a sign of distress, but then laughter follows the screech, squeaky and unrestrained. The source is no horrified person, it’s some immature kids who think screaming at the top of their lungs is funny. I shake my head, continue to stare out the mesh railing.
I could leave. There’s nothing preventing me, after all. No barrier in my way. But then where would I go? I turn towards the screeching kids, watch their game. Insanity. In a pause, one of them looks me in the eyes, and smiles. My joints lock up as I feel the ground below me. Surprise and confusion pass across my features. Why does this kid’s gaze elicit such a sensation from me? Suddenly, despite my first impressions, I want to form a connection.
* * *
I am leaning against a metal pole, the cool, round curve providing a comfortable support for my back. It is nearly eleven pm, and the temperature is surprisingly ideal. Not too warm, not too cold. Just right. The moon is in the sky, hanging over everything. It illuminates my astral form.
I rest my head against the pole, breathe deeply, smile. The air is fresh tonight, a hint of the rain that happened earlier in the day. I can almost feel how saturated the asphalt is, a slightly humid warmth rising from its surface. Everything is calm, quiet. There is the soft brush of the breeze against my arms, the distant drone of cars on the freeway. It is these moments that I live for. These moments, when it seems the whole world has frozen, just for me to enjoy.
A roaring, guttural noise cuts through my pleasure, followed by the choking stench of thick car exhaust. I scrunch up my nose in disgust. Once the smell dissipates, I try to go back to relaxing, but the moment is gone. I look at the car. It is difficult to see, even under these parking lot lights. The night makes it blend in with every other car I have ever seen. It feels normal.
Unbidden, a face flashes up in my mind: the kid who seemed to see me. Following that day, I started returning to the same spot, hoping I wasn’t imagining things. Initially, he just looked at me sometimes while speaking, like he was talking to me, even when he wasn’t. Then after a few days, he spoke to me, directly. I wasn't sure at first, but I chose to respond. Immediately, we struck up a conversation. From there, things slowly developed, and before I knew it we had a friendship. At some point though, the relationship began to fizzle out. The wind grew stronger, pulling me away. Eventually, our friendship was all but dead.
It has been a while now since I saw him. The last time I did, he asked if I wanted to hang out. I said I’ll get back to him. I was unsure when I’d be able to make time. He nodded with understanding, then walked off. In truth I had been giving in to the wind, and only too late realized what it was doing.
I could find him again, I’m sure. I have his contacts. There’s nothing stopping me.
As if to undermine my point, the breeze picks up, beginning to blow instead of brush. I have to shift myself so that I don’t lose my balance while leaning against the pole.
I should reach out to him, shouldn’t I?
The wind blows stronger, lashing out at me. It tears away parts of my body. I try to hold them together, but its force increases too rapidly. I look around the parking lot. Can anyone see me? I send out a silent plea, but the wind shreds it to bits. Finally, it is too strong. I am pulled away into the night.
* * *
I find myself standing in a room, unsure of how I got here. It is a small room, perhaps a little over the size of an average college double, but it is stuffed to the brim with life. The wooden walls are old and faded, scuffed up from backpacks and bodies continually brushing against them. The carpet is soiled and dirty, its color muted by the hundreds of journeys that have gone over it. The couch is aging and weary, its dim yellow-green cushions oozing cotton stuffing with every person that sits down. The table in the center of the room is nearly overburdened, groaning under the weight of books and papers and projects and snacks and little board games. Around the table people are talking with excitement.
On the walls are posters of twenty different things — an anime, a movie, an album cover — all of which someone references at least once. There is a wooden cabinet, its doors partly hanging from their hinges, containing a motherload of VHS tapes. Some look official, many otherwise. On top of the cabinet is a wide flatscreen TV, a VHS player hooked up to it. Cascading from the back of the TV is a litany of cables. Next to the player is a stack of comics I have never heard of before. I go over and pick one up. I am immediately intrigued.
“Hey,” someone says suddenly, their voice ringing out loud and clear, “why don’t you come and join us?”
I turn around. I see you sitting at the table, waving me over. Everyone else follows your eyes. Some of them focus on a spot behind me, confusion characterizing their faces. But some of them . . . some of them don’t. I catch each of their gazes; there are minute facial responses. You keep waving. I set the comic down and come over.
* * *
The room became our place to hang out, to talk, but now you rarely appear. I wish I knew why. Sometimes, I see hints of your presence: a pizza box, a new book, the VHS stash in disarray. Sometimes, I see you here. But most of the time, I am alone in the room. When you do appear, I partly feel like I am talking to a void that is unable, and unwilling, to reply. You seem not to hear me. You seem not to see me.
I can’t have that thought. I mustn’t. Today I returned to the room, hoping to see you.
I do not.
“Hello?” I call out. “Is anyone there?” The room is dark and silent. “Hello? Please?” I am floating here, in this space, waiting. I look around. There’s a book from last year laying on the table. A movie I’ve never heard of is sitting in the VHS player. I pace, look out the windows. There is no one. Just the wind blowing stronger. It presses against the walls, threatening to break in. I shake my head. I need to distract myself. I start the movie and throw myself across the degrading couch, wait until someone comes.
It has been three and a half hours now since the movie ended. I have watched all the behind the scenes, all the director’s commentary, all the special features. Where are you? I look outside again. It is dark. The moon is covered by the clouds. Tiredness washes over me like a wave. I glance back at the couch. There’s no harm in sleeping here. I’ve done it before. I stretch out, and have a fitful sleep.
When I wake up you are here, with someone else, speaking. I bolt upright, my eyes squinting at the sunlight peeking through the blinds. I focus on your lips.
“-ody Problem, Dune, and Foundation. I really enjoyed them.”
You hold up a book. I walk over to you and look at the cover. As I approach I notice a slight twitch in your body. I can’t pin the cause of it.
The cover is blue with electric green text. Not among my favorite color combinations, but it’s certainly intriguing. There are massive, dark-blue orbs in the background, hovering over an equally dark-blue landscape. You set it down and continue talking. I pick it up and flip it over. Read the description.
“Looks interesting,” I say after a minute, “you mind if I borrow this?”
Your focus turns toward me. “Of course,” you respond. My mouth drops open. I nearly believed that you had forgotten me, that you considered our interactions a mere fiction of the mind created for some unknown reason. I find my insides twist as you stare at me, solidifying under your reassuring gaze.
Suddenly, your expression shifts. You look at your phone. “Shoot, sorry guys,” you say, “I have to go.” Then you get up and walk out the door. The words developing in my throat die.
I turn to the other person here, hoping I might be able to talk with them, but they also look at their phone. “I need to go too,” they mumble. I can’t tell if they’re speaking to me or themselves. Then they are also gone.
My mind begins to race. Where are you going why do you leave me will I see you again why can’t anyone see me?! The voices in my head are screaming, shrieking, overanalyzing every second of the past few minutes. My form flickers. I drop the book.
I hear it collide with the table, its pages rustling as it bounces. In a moment, it stills, and the room falls silent. A realization bursts into being: I am alone.
I curl up on the floor, tears soaking the carpet. Outside the wind becomes a tempest. The walls start folding in, creaking with every gust. The door and windows rattle in their frames. I look around the room again. There is no hint that you were here, except for that book lying on the table. I try to take deep heavy breaths, but I find myself struggling. If I can’t talk to you, then what’s the point of this room? My body shakes with rage, fear, grief. Tiredness. I look at the door. Why not?
With some effort, I push myself to my feet and stumble over to the door. My hand grasps the handle. Before I can reconsider, I turn it.
The wind takes advantage. It rushes in, bashing apart my face with the door. It rages against everything in the room, ripping apart the comics and decimating the furniture. I realize I am disintegrating faster than I ever have before. Before I know it my body is dashed across the walls, the cushions, the VHS tapes. The wind doesn’t seem to like that I am touching these things. It howls, and the whole room collapses, blown away like dust.
* * *
I am hovering over a chair, my legs crushed between it and the bottom of a table. I suck my stomach in so that my torso doesn’t feel equally crushed. In front of me is a wet meal sitting on a paper plate, the liquid slowly soaking through to the varnish of the table. I am holding a knife and fork flimsily in my fingers. I don’t need to eat anymore, but the action makes me feel alive again, if only for a moment.
I cut off a chunk of food and stick it in my mouth. I begin to chew.
I look at the juices seeping into the paper, slipping away, and think back on the past week, month, year. I can barely recall anything. There’s just a large blank space in my life. An emptiness. I look back on today. What did I even do this morning? An hour ago? The images are already fuzzy.
The piece of food nearly falls through my mouth. I catch it with my jaw, then push it back into position with my fork. It’s so hard to be corporeal, when your mind is telling you you’re not.
I try to focus on here, now, but my mind is already running, losing itself. I feel the wind start to pick up again, to pull at me. I wish there was a way to escape it, avoid it, but it seems no matter what I do, it always finds me again.
My form is disintegrating now, battered away like snow. I clutch my head, as if that will give me the strength to hold myself together. I don’t want to be like this anymore. I don’t want to be a ghost. Tears flood down my cheeks; not a single one reaches the ground.
“Hey,” a voice says, and the wind stills. It takes me a moment. That voice . . . sounds familiar. I turn my head. There you are, standing with your own wet meal soaking through a paper plate. You are looking at me, bags below your eyes, but mouth curving upwards.
“Hey,” I reply, my voice quiet and broken. My body is only partially present. The skin and muscles of half of my face are gone, revealing a translucent jaw and partial tongue. My chest is open, heart removed, though the blood vessels pulse as if it still remains. The entirety of my gut and lower spine are missing, my stomach dripping out from its cavity. My right arm fades into nothing just above the elbow. My whole left arm is non-existent except for the hand, which is grasping the fork with both fleshed and flesh-less fingers. Of my legs, only the left foot, right knee, and left portion of the pelvis remain. A single tendon floats where my right foot should be.
“You mind if I sit here?” you ask.
“Go ahead,” I say, and straighten what little of my back remains. “How are you?” I’m surprised I am still able to speak.
“I’m doing fine,” you respond, “a bit tired though. I have a lot going on.”
I nod thoughtfully. I know how you feel, though it’s a bit different for me.
“How are you?” you ask.
I pause my nodding. How am I feeling? Good? No. Tired? Yes, but not in the way others feel tired. Bad? I look at you, see you staring at me, waiting attentively. You are seeing me. I haven’t felt seen in a while.
I don’t feel bad.
“Fine,” I answer. “I’m having trouble focusing right now, you know?”
You smile wryly. “Oh yeah, I know.” We sit in silence for a minute, unsure of where to go next. You start to eat. Slowly, I re-gather myself.
“What do you have going on right now?” I ask.
You snort. “Where should I begin?”
You start talking, and I listen. I am enraptured. After a while, you ask me a question. I start talking and you listen. Before I know it we are deep in a conversation, and I am no longer floating above the chair. I am sitting on it, feeling the seat press against my thighs. I realize that I am no longer sucking in my stomach. I have let it out, and instead of passing through the edge of the table, the edge of the table is actually jabbing into it. In my hand, I hold the fork firmly.
Slowly, our conversation comes to a close. You glance at your phone. “Sorry, I have to go, but it was nice catching up. See you around?”
“Yeah, see you around,” I answer. You disappear. I lean back in my chair, a warmth moving through me. That was… nice. Invigorating. In a way I haven’t felt in a long time. At the edges of my senses, I feel the breeze again, though it’s not as powerful as it was.
I look down at my form. It still looks ghostly, ethereal. I can see the outline of my chest, my arms, my legs. I can see where I am, and where I am not, but I can also see the wood of the chair underneath me. The yellow grains flow forwards, cascading from the back of the chair over the edge of the seat in a gentle, rolling river. If I was corporeal, I shouldn’t be able to see this stream, these remnants of a life once lived. I am not a solid creature. Yet, in this moment, it doesn’t feel that way. I smile.