Walking the ghost

I saw a ghost today. Just your aver­age com­mon­place, mundane, work­aday, run of the mill ghost, walk­ing through a throng of shop­pers in the hazily pol­luted urban sun­light of a summer’s afternoon.

[I swear I would know that face anywhere.]

I don’t know where and how you are sup­posed to see such appar­i­tions. Films, lit­er­at­ure and those long-held myths passed down the ages tell us that it should be in the dead of the night: a spec­tral light float­ing on the air, never touch­ing the ground, rat­tling its chains and emit­ting an echo­ing wail that causes you to shiver to the very mar­row of your bones.

[It’s you, isn’t it? How long has it been?]

This ghost, though. This ghost seemed, to all out­ward appear­ances, to be much more sub­dued, not wish­ing to attract atten­tion to itself with any of the dra­matic yet hack­neyed ges­tures so beloved of its spirit(ed) com­pan­ions in the afterlife.

[Too long. Far too long. What’s been hap­pen­ing with you?]

I think this ghost was lost. It weaved its way through the people hur­ry­ing along this par­tic­u­lar high street in south-west Lon­don, walk­ing against a tide of human­ity that remained utterly obli­vi­ous to its pres­ence, with an A-Z clutched between its trans­par­ent hands. It glanced this way and that in search of famil­iar land­marks, and occa­sion­ally craned its neck in an effort to spot the route num­bers of passing buses. If it hadn’t been a ghost, and there­fore invis­ible to all those around it, I sup­pose it could have asked for dir­ec­tions. But no, even it had retained its former fleshed-out shape, it would never have sought assist­ance from com­plete strangers. I recog­nised its type, you see: a silence that spoke volumes about a shy­ness that could almost incapacitate.

[In a cer­tain light, you resemble her.]

I watched it from across the road — from my vant­age point rest­ing against a low wall — as it brought a tem­por­ary halt to its search for mean­ing­ful where­abouts, and took a seat out­side a cof­fee shop, hid­ing from the swel­ter­ing June heat by wedging its chair right against the win­dow, deep under the striped awn­ing. The ghost seemed con­tent, at least for a while, to watch the world go about its busi­ness. No haunt­ing, no cry­ing, no rest­less soul here, it seemed.

[In another light, you look exactly like him. Uncan­nily so.]

I wish I could tell you whether this ghost was male or female. I puzzled about that for far too long. Indeed, I stared at the spectre so hard, try­ing to fathom the conun­drum of its gender, that I was sur­prised it didn’t notice my intru­sion into its per­sonal space. I began to won­der if — some­how, without real­ising — I had become one of its num­ber; if I also had ceased to exist except as an unearthly vis­ion, as if that could explain why it seemed to gaze right through me. But then surely ghosts can see other ghosts? Surely they must share that com­mon bond, if noth­ing else?

[Did you try and keep in touch?]

The ghost began to cry — again, no wail­ing per­form­ance, only the jew­elled pendants of tears fall­ing silently onto the pages of scattered SW post­codes. Sud­denly, I could read its thoughts etched on its face. Not sup­posed to be here. This is all wrong. Where, how and why. Com­ing to life, com­ing back to life. But not here. No, it can’t be. Not now. Not like this. I could see it shrink­ing back from the con­fu­sion, the noise, the bustle of exist­ence unrav­el­ling around it. A met­ro­polis roar­ing, swal­low­ing whole.

[Tell me your name again. Please. Whis­per it.]

I knew it was time to step in, so curi­ously man­aging to over­come my nat­ural reti­cence, I joined the ghost at its table. Asked if I could buy us both a cof­fee. In ret­ro­spect, I don’t even begrudge the waste of money caused by the ghost — nat­ur­ally, not hav­ing a phys­ical frame to speak of — choos­ing not to drink theirs. After all, it’s not every day that you sip a cap­puccino with a cit­izen of the spirit world.

[I missed you, even if I didn’t always say it.]

We talked. I explained to the ghost where it was, whilst keep­ing my voice gentle, reas­sur­ing and low at all times. Curi­ously, it never told me where it needed to go. I just knew, some­how. Strange as that might sound. I con­sul­ted the twist­ing maze of yel­low and beige streets — still want­ing to impress, not wish­ing to con­fess to my help­less new friend that I am the most dread­ful of map-readers — and poin­ted to vari­ous loc­a­tions. But it was no good. Noth­ing but stares of the utmost bewil­der­ment were returned from across the table.

[I have to be going. I’ve stayed too long. Time’s up.]

I hailed a black cab. Tak­ing the ghost’s hand, I led it to the edge of the cracked and uneven pave­ment, opened the door, and stood aside as it climbed in. I was about to speak to the driver through the front pas­sen­ger win­dow, telling him where to head for, when I real­ised that not only did I still not have the faintest idea about that des­tin­a­tion, but that such inform­a­tion wasn’t neces­sary. This rest­less spirit knew exactly where it was heading.

[Write. Or call. Whichever. I’ll be here. Always.]

The ghost pulled down the win­dow and leaned out, beck­on­ing me to its side one more time. It pressed its face against mine and whispered to me, then breathed its fail­ing, fad­ing air into my lungs. Once. Just one time. Breath into my breath. A kiss of life. A spirit trans­ferred. I had to breathe back. Had to breathe back. Breathe back. Give. I gave. Some­where, on that Lon­don street, we merged for a second, for a moment in the fren­zied whirl. It felt like an instant that las­ted for an entire year, and even now that sol­it­ary breath is still rising and fall­ing and swirl­ing and ebbing inside me.

[Be see­ing you, then. Here and there. Some­how and somewhere.]

I’m left with a ques­tion. Do ghosts require every­day foot­wear? Because as the churn­ing diesel motor whirred into life and smoothly fer­ried its pas­sen­ger into the city’s arter­ies, I turned and looked down to see a pair of highly pol­ished black leather shoes neatly placed along­side the edge of the kerb. It made sense, even if noth­ing else did. Even if noth­ing else makes sense ever again.

[Don’t for­get, will you? As long as you don’t forget.]