Ghost Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
“Lying across my bedroom
floor, I feel the ghost still there with me.
Inside out and outside right, I’m going down like I’ve done before. I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. Touch me, feel me, need me. I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. Break me, save me, but please don’t forget
me. I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. ”
-- From the 1971 Eliza Vasin debut album “Mayflowers.”
No one believed Nancy when she said her coffee shop was
haunted. It wasn’t that no one believed
in ghosts. Plenty of people believed in
ghosts. It was just that no one had
heard of a ghost haunted coffee shop.
That just didn’t fit in with the classic movie horror plots. Was the coffee some spiritual violation of
some sort? Was the spirit still there
because it had unfinished business, and that unfinished business was getting
one last espresso shot? It just made no
sense to people. It didn’t seem
real. Nancy didn’t care how silly it
seemed. She really and truly believed
that her coffee shop was haunted.
The ghost was not a very proactive ghost. There were no major haunting activities
reported. No doors were slammed or
dimensional portals opened or possessions that needed exorcising. This ghost was a very dull and boring
ghost. There were tables rearranged and
chairs placed in new places. Sometimes
the cash register was moved to the other side of the counter. No money was ever taken. Just the register moved. One time the drink board had been rewritten
in a new handwriting with slightly different prices and menu options. It was a fairly unimaginative and innocuous
ghost.
Still, Nancy wasn’t happy with having a haunted coffee shop.
Nancy hadn’t been much of a ghost believer. When she was young she and her friends had
played silly little games like sitting in dark basements at night with the
lights off and the doors locked. It was
scary, but dark rooms with lots of shadows are scary to a little kid. It didn’t mean she ever saw a ghost or
believed in that sort of thing. Some of
her friends did. Some of her relatives
did.
Nancy asked around in an informal survey interview sort of
way. It turned out there were a lot of
theories as to why ghosts existed. One
friend believed that ghosts were a sort of soul energy imprint left behind when
someone died. Another thought a ghost
was sort of like a time traveler, phasing in and out of reality, lost in the
flow of space-time and unable to reconnect with their actual time period. Another theory was that Nancy must have had
some hidden traumatic psychological damage and this was a manifestation of
repressed memories.
None of these ideas helped explain why the ghost really wanted to
move tables and chairs around in a coffee shop.
A psychic told her that it was one of her ancestors reaching out
from the past. The psychic couldn’t tell
who it was or what they wanted, but for the right price, she could hold a
séance and try. Nancy did not pay a dime
for that service.
* *
*
“You’re supposed to
remember me. I’m standing right
here. Try, try, try. I know you, but I don’t remember. I’m standing right here. Remember me, remember you. I’m standing right here. Please, please, please, remember me…”
The song ended. The music
stopped. Nika lifted the needle off the
record. She stood in the empty room for
a few minutes and let the silence settle.
It felt good. She always loved
the silence. It was so relaxing. She thought too hard too often. It was a challenge to get her mind to slow down
and be in any one place for very long.
She hated labels like ADHD or ADD.
She preferred to simply think her mind was just overactive. Music usually helped that. She had really developed a thing for late
60’s and early 70’s folk and folk-rock music.
This was a song about a ghost that couldn’t be seen or heard or felt or
loved. It was so lonely it was lovely. Nika liked it because it was from the
perspective of the ghost. Not a lot of
people would write it that way. She
wondered what the song would be like if it had been written the other way –
from the perspective of the person that knew a ghost was there but couldn’t
quite tell.
Nika looked around the room.
She was tired. It was late and
she wanted to go home. For a second she
thought the tables were off, like someone had been moving them again. But that was impossible. The shop had been closed for hours and she
was the only one there. She was just too
tired. It must have been a trick. She rubbed her eyes and everything seemed
okay. Besides, if the tables were off
again, she could always move them back in the morning.
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