Your Ghost
Says the shadow: “I painted this mirror for you last night, just as you asked many moons ago. I am an artist of broad, frenzied brushstrokes when the night sweats seize me and shake me senseless.”
Says the ghost: “From this moment forward, every drop of you will be forever soaked into the pitch black. Nothing to see here, nothing to see. Isn’t that the way you like it?”
Says the shadow: “No longer will I stand here, staring back at your startled gaze, hoping to trace out a final solution in the lines of your still frozen phizog.”
Says the ghost: “Did anyone ever tell you that you have a haunted countenance? If you open your face much wider, your skin will split. If the wind changes direction, you’ll stay like that.”
Says the shadow: “For Lent, I am foreswearing every drop of my rancid bitterness and its sickening smell, replacing it instead with only the sweetest perfumed thoughts.”
Says the ghost: “Not a chance. I will soak your sheets and push you bolt upright at four o’clock in the morning, filling you with thoughts of what became of me. Yes, I could be mouldering, but what if I’m merely sleeping?”
Says the shadow: “There are times when I am grateful for the small mercies of short-term memory loss. Once forty dawns have broken and forty dusks descended, I may have forgotten the very fact of your damned existence.”
Says the ghost: “Show me the back of your left hand. Form a fist in my honour. You want to hit me, don’t you? You want to make me bleed, resorting to guts and animal violence. But what’s that? Is that my name scratched on your sallow skin? Who wrote it? Why has the ink not faded after all this time?”
Says the shadow: “Who are you again? Who were you? I never even knew you. Never even knew. Never knew. Never. And now I’ll never know. Your unmarked grave stays stony silent. It tells no tales, whispers no words.”
Says the ghost: “Shove your astigmatic eyes deep into the streaky glass and aluminium. Breathe in, breathe out. You won’t mist me over, I promise you. I am watermarked into your bloodrush and surging through your veins.”
Says the shadow: “Yes. Therefore, I am alive.”
Says the ghost: “Alive is as maybe. Yet your faded face is such a mess. Your hair is in a shocking state. Your body has seen better days. You are a shadow of your former self.”
Says the shadow: “Still, I can feel my heart beating. Still. It beats.”
Says the ghost: “Can I touch it? Can I feel the rhythm and pace of your mortality? Maybe then I will believe, as I sense you slipping the shackles in which I held you for far too long.”
Says the shadow: “Too late. Your fingers freeze me. You gulped down your pound of flesh, consumed me, and spat out the dregs. I let you eat your fill. The rest is mine.”
Says the ghost: “Maybe I can make amends. Forgive and forget and start afresh. Call me and let me explain. Let me bring my white light into your darkness.”
Says the shadow: “I am hanging on the line. Hanging on your every word, with my lips brushing the mouthpiece. But your voice is buried under antique dust. You are nothing more than crackles and static. You are robotic and drained of feeling. This call is concluded. There’s nothing more to say.”
Says the ghost: “So be it. Just humour me for one last time. Flick open those bloodshot peepers, cautiously and carefully. I want to show myself to you. I want to be naked. I want to be back as all skin and bone, muscle and mucus, heart and soul. Feast your eyes on every one of my physical imperfections. Let your gaze linger where it desires. Can you see me? Can you see?”
Says the shadow: “I see nothing. There’s no reflection, no lingering presence here. No whispering voice or softened footfalls. This corridor is merely dead air, empty as vessels. Just a hollow hallway, framed by mirrors at each end. No one in between. You have lost. You have turned bad, gone for good.”
Says the ghost: “Shall I sleep now? Shall I rest?”
Says the shadow: “Forever, if you can.”