{"id":414,"date":"2011-05-27T03:00:20","date_gmt":"2011-05-27T01:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethingwicked.co.za\/?p=414"},"modified":"2011-05-24T00:22:39","modified_gmt":"2011-05-23T22:22:39","slug":"1st-place-new-lease-on-life-by-liam-kruger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/2011\/05\/27\/1st-place-new-lease-on-life-by-liam-kruger\/","title":{"rendered":"New Lease On Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bloody<\/a>by Liam Kruger<\/h3>\n

1st place<\/em><\/p>\n

You know, in Jewish homes, there used to be a tradition of emptying out every dish, pot and basin out of the windows when somebody died.<\/p>\n

Calm down. Try and take some deep breaths.<\/p>\n

This was done to tell the neighbours that Uncle Abe had kicked the bucket. The spiritual explanation was that souls could be trapped by water, and keeping water under the roof prevented them from rising to heaven.<\/p>\n

I know it feels like you can\u2019t breathe, don\u2019t worry about it. Push through.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re not going to be able to talk for a couple of minutes, but you seem to be able to hear well enough. Why, look at that, your eyes are moving?high tolerance, I see. Don\u2019t worry about it. You\u2019re not dying.
\n
\nI used to live here too. Alone, like you. One of the biggest problems, I think, about living alone, is adapting to a world where everything is under your sole influence. Don\u2019t you think? After a childhood?an extended childhood?of feeling other people\u2019s warmth in the chair I just sat down in, there were few things quite as depressing as coming home after a long day of pretending to know what I was doing to find my crusty cereal bowl in the sink, exactly as I left it after breakfast.<\/p>\n

So, naturally, I was rather pleased when I found out that my new place was haunted. Just like you.<\/p>\n

The realisation was gradual; I blush to think of it now, but there must\u2019ve been weeks when I meandered up and down my hallway in various states of undress, probably scratching myself, as if no one was there. Wait, that\u2019s not quite right; no one was there. What I thought was that there wasn\u2019t anyone there, which is different.<\/p>\n

It was the little things that tipped me off, you know? Lights being on when I was almost certain I\u2019d left them off, beds being made or unmade, footsteps in the room next door?which seemed reasonable at first, because the walls between these apartments are paper thin, as you know. It was worse in my time. I could sit in the middle of my living room and hear the couple in No. 15 fuck or fight while the lady in No. 11 tried to telemarket from home. The footsteps were coming from a room in the apartment, though, a fact that only bobbed to the surface of my consciousness after I\u2019d figured it out.<\/p>\n

Obviously, poltergeist wasn\u2019t the first thing to jump into my head. The age we lived in, I was almost certain my flat was being broken into; I crept downstairs holding my umbrella like a baseball bat, or like I supposed a baseball bat should be held, every second or third night for about a week. Then I\u2019d sit in the dark for ten, twenty minutes, waiting for whoever else was there?because I could tell by the tensing of my bladder that there had to be someone else there?to leap out, stabbing or shrieking or however it was the burglars operated. The lack of sleep started getting to me, though, and I realised I didn\u2019t have anything really worth stealing, so I learned to ignore the sounds.<\/p>\n

Please stop rolling your eyes like that, it\u2019s distracting. I\u2019ve told you you\u2019re not dying.<\/p>\n

The realisation came when I saw that my books were disordered. I was nursing a nasty burn on my forearm from when the stove had unaccountably turned itself on while I was cleaning it, and my boss had instructed me to take a few days off. Our uniforms are short-sleeved and the customers don\u2019t like their food being handed to them by folks with nasty, seeping bandages. I said sure, and took my time looking at the books I hadn\u2019t read. I didn\u2019t really have time to read, back then, but I made sure the books were in sequence so that I would know where to find them, if I found the time. You\u2019re not a very big reader, are you? You\u2019ve got a row of empty beer cans where I kept my biographies. No matter. Anyway, it was when I found the Borges tucked in behind Grisham that I knew something was up.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t have any idea what to do about it, though. Would you? Of course you wouldn\u2019t. You didn\u2019t. I mean, I couldn\u2019t exactly go around the apartment waving a birthday candle and compelling my secret roommate with the power of whomever?I don\u2019t believe in that stuff. And I wasn\u2019t about to go for one of those blood-and-bones sangoma<\/em> exorcisms either?for one thing, I wouldn\u2019t know where to find one. Christ, do you have any idea how awkward that conversation would have been? I bristle enough as it is every time my brother calls a car guard chief<\/em>; and here I am trying to get a witch doctor to play Pagan African Superstitious Eye for the Sceptical But Attempting To Be Open-Minded Guy<\/em>. Not happening. Besides, it\u2019s not like anything had happened to warrant eviction. More on that later, mind you.<\/p>\n

So I did nothing, for a while. The impact on my life wasn\u2019t all that significant?I mean, I took far more care with heated appliances, certainly, but otherwise…I did entertain guests less frequently, but that wasn\u2019t any great change. On the rare occasions that I did bring a bunk-mate home, I was so intensely aware of being watched that my performance suffered considerably, so that well sort of dried up, figuratively. Literally too, I suppose. But, really, I welcomed the company, taciturn though it was.<\/p>\n

The solution to my problem?the ghost-in-our-house problem?came from my grandmother, which was as much of a surprise to me as anyone. She was staying in the spare bedroom for the weekend?the room you offered to that drunk friend of yours before you two inevitably ended up together in the master. One of ouma\u2019s<\/em> old friends was being buried in town, and she wanted to flaunt her continued survival where possible.<\/p>\n

Grandmother was terrified of the big city and all of the crime in it; I was almost certain she would be woken up by the scraping of chairs going on in the empty dining room, and start asking unfortunate questions. Luckily, any sounds getting into her room were drowned out by her snoring and, later, her alarm clock, which also failed to wake her. Still, my grandmother?like many other grandmothers, I suspect?claimed to have some sort of second sight. Apparently grandfather swings by for a chat every few weeks, and my parents\u2019 old house is haunted by a little Spanish girl.<\/p>\n

Naturally I wanted to know if she was picking up on any sort of presence over here. I didn\u2019t want the question to be too transparent, though, or else she\u2019d just have said yes to maintain her image. We were sitting in the lounge?my furniture wasn\u2019t as nice as yours but I think the couch was a little more comfortable.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m curious about who lived here before me,\u201d I hazarded, because my conversations with grandmother were awkward enough to sustain statements like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d she replied. \u201cI wonder how much their rent was, when the neighbourhood was better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell that\u2019s true.\u201d I watched the light fixture in the kitchen swing back and forth behind her. \u201cBut I was thinking more about their identity. Like how I could get to know about a person who was previously living. Here.\u201d<\/p>\n

She looked at me, a little startled, and stared for some seconds, eyebrows arched and lip pressed together. She looked around the room, carefully, as if on the verge of some great veil-breaching revelation, and said, \u201cI don\u2019t know, check the Googles or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

She shrugged and picked up a copy of People<\/em>, to start on the crossword.<\/p>\n

So I checked \u201cthe Googles\u201d I wasn\u2019t the online savant that you are, but it didn\u2019t take much more than \u201cdeath\u201d and the name of the neighbourhood to bring up a series of obituaries from the local paper. About half of these were families reporting the tragic death of their pets, a disproportionate amount of which were beagles named Snoopy. The human deaths were about as clich\u00e9d?KS, female, eighteen, died in a car crash on the way home from a matric farewell; GD, male, twenty-three, took own life; EW, female, sixty-one, passed quietly in her sleep after a long battle with cancer; and JT, male, forty-three, died of injuries sustained during armed robbery en route to hospital. It was all so unbelievably typical, I was convinced that I was going to be stuck with some dull working-class ghost…and then her entry caught my eye. I can see you know which one I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n

CA, female, twenty-four, overdosed on painkillers and wine. It was a little contrived, yes, but there was something romantic about the wine. Oh, I willed my ghost to be her. A little bit of digging got you further here than I did?you found the coroner\u2019s report, clever duck, so you heard about the cigarette burns all up and down her arm, and the tattoos. I only heard about that later?from the horse\u2019s mouth, so to speak?but she seemed interesting, to be sure. A quick trawl through Facebook later, I had her name and her face. Are you on Facebook? I shall have to find out.<\/p>\n

Her online profile had become a little shrine, after she died. Friends who obviously knew nothing about the circumstances of her death were throwing condolences and eulogies at her unmanned profile now, numerous and sentimental as graveyard flowers. Like you, I ignored these at first, scrambling first through her photo albums, madly seeking some sort of tangible proof; here a generic beachside landscape, there a black-and-white deck chair, a pile of bottles next to a familiar corner, and?ah. A photograph she had taken herself, standing in this very bathroom, of her reflection in that mirror. She\u2019d cropped her hair short and had the camera placed in front of her protectively, like a talisman.<\/p>\n

It was her. It had to be her who was haunting me. And now I had found her.<\/p>\n

I found out more, over time; her Facebook profile, revealing even at a cursory glance, became like an encyclopaedia under my scrutiny. I know which books she\u2019d read, which music she\u2019d liked, where she\u2019d worked, who her co-workers had been. I bought the books, played the music and visited the mediocre restaurant with the remarkable mojitos. Is this not sounding familiar? The ghost girl\u2019s reconstructed life? Of course it is. I think you might\u2019ve been more desperate than I was, to convince yourself that the girl had lived here.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t worry. She really did.<\/p>\n

I have to hand it to you; you really dived head-first into the project. There were some aspects to the arrangement that I put off, even as I teased out the barest details of her life. I didn\u2019t want to be seen buying an Ouija board, I told myself. I think I was reluctant to try to communicate. Nerves, you know. Not you, of course; you went right out and got everything you might need to talk, didn\u2019t you? Not that you ever talked to her. I am sorry about that.<\/p>\n

When I got desperate enough to think it might work, we used the mirror to communicate. It seemed appropriate.<\/p>\n

I remember the routine well. I\u2019d turn on the shower, not even touching the cold faucet, just letting it get as hot as it could?waiting for the surface to steam up. It wouldn\u2019t happen every time, but it\u2019s a small apartment?there are only so many places for a ghost to be. I\u2019d feel that tingle in the back of your mind that we both know so well by now, and I\u2019d say \u201cHello\u201d. Fingers that weren\u2019t fingers would press themselves to the glass and write in a fluid, almost curling style?Hello yourself<\/em>.<\/p>\n

She was blithe, even as a ghost. Especially as a ghost.<\/p>\n

Would it be wrong of me to say I coveted her then? It wasn\u2019t like your relationship?and your relationship was sweet enough, with the awkward entreaties to undying love and all that. I loved her, of course, but I loved what she had managed to make herself into?mourned by people who hadn\u2019t spoken to her in months even before she died, beloved by people who had not been as fond of her in life. She\u2019d tethered all these hearts to her grave, with some pills and a bottle of wine. I was awed. It\u2019s no big deal<\/em>, she\u2019d written, and through the steam I was sure I saw a shrug of those angular shoulders. I don\u2019t mean to belittle what you felt, dear; I\u2019m sure you thought you loved her very much. She\u2019d have appreciated the sentiment.<\/p>\n

From here, I think, the story should become very familiar. I didn\u2019t leave the house very much, after first contact. I had money enough to last a while, so I stocked up on wine and candles, and that was that, for a time. I sang praises to the ghost girl, constantly in her company, talking and laughing at the gross world of the living.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think I ate for a week.<\/p>\n

Later, she told me that she\u2019d come to regret the suicide attempt. She still called it an attempt because, well, I\u2019m still here, aren\u2019t I?<\/em> She said that she\u2019d had time to think things over and, once she\u2019d done all the things ghosts can do?the big ones like flying, and the little ones like reading every book in the house without blinking?she began to miss the stuff of life. That spoiled her for me, a little, but it didn\u2019t really matter by then. I had become transfixed, wrapped around her gossamer fingers. Having felt the power she wielded, I can\u2019t bring myself to get angry at her anymore. You\u2019ll understand.<\/p>\n

We made love, eventually. I had gotten very drunk and the last threads of daylight were creeping out under the curtains. Without apparent thought, I found my hand sliding down past my navel. It struck me that I wasn\u2019t entirely in control of my hand stirring; that the nerves were jerking a little, like a frog with a current through it. You are, of course, familiar with the sensation; when your hand becomes someone else\u2019s glove, and when your eyes are seeing for someone else. There\u2019s that vague sense of panic, and the rush that comes with it. I\u2019m afraid I didn\u2019t have the same rush of virginal shame that you wallowed in, but there\u2019s nothing especially wrong with that. You came around. It felt good; when it was dark enough, the tongue in my mouth might not have belonged to me, for a few minutes at a time.<\/p>\n

Test-driving, it\u2019s called. She didn\u2019t tell me that through the mirror, though.<\/p>\n

Like you, I said that I loved her. And, like you, I was eventually asked to prove it.<\/p>\n

I think it was easier to make you do it. I hadn\u2019t been struck by any thoughts about the immortality of love?more by the spectacle, the ruined car-crash lives she\u2019d left behind, making a clean exit. It took convincing; she told me that we could escape the confines of the apartment, that we could be united in spirit; that I would never be out of shape.<\/p>\n

If the last one didn\u2019t convince me, it did make a difference.<\/p>\n

I think I should\u2019ve grown suspicious around the time that she started making very specific instructions about how to go about killing myself. I\u2019d wanted to go with hanging; that rafter in the dining room would have been excellent for it. Pills and wine in the bathtub, she\u2019d said, like me. Like you.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019d sat there, feeling my body grow numb and weak, as my muscles stopped listening to my screaming, panicked brain, and felt myself stepping out for a moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalm down,\u201d said a voice that didn\u2019t disturb a single atom, but which I could still hear. \u201cTry to take some deep breaths.\u201d My rolling, thrashing ghost eyes stopped for long enough to see her, perfectly composed down to the cigarette burns on her arm, floating a few feet above me and my body, which was twitching.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it feels like you can\u2019t breathe. Push through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She smiled at me and sank into my body. I can only imagine what the look on my face must\u2019ve been like. It\u2019s probably a little like the look on your face. Except it\u2019s my face, now, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

The first thing she did when she had control of my body was throw up. It seemed the dosage of pills and wine she\u2019d prescribed?which, incidentally, is the dosage of pills and wine I advised you to take?would be enough to push me to the edge, without quite killing me, providing ample opportunity for a somewhat more experienced ghost to step in, and take control, which she knew she was capable of, after those late-night test-drives.<\/p>\n

You mustn\u2019t be mad at me. It\u2019s not like you ever checked to ask your ghost\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

She told me about the Jewish tradition as she was washing her face?my face?in the mirror. About the friends that had decided they loved her after she died. About how it was time to re-connect, even if it meant using my body.<\/p>\n

I hadn\u2019t wanted it anyway.<\/p>\n

I do feel a little guilty, obviously. She had stolen my grand gesture from me; no online shrine, no mourning relatives. I suppose I\u2019ve stolen something from you.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t mean to deceive you, duck, but would you have fallen in love with me if I hadn\u2019t pretended to be her? Would you have given up this lovely body?well, nothing a diet won\u2019t make lovely?like I gave up mine?<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t moan like that, little ghost. There\u2019ll be someone else coming along soon. It\u2019s a nice apartment. I won\u2019t tell the new tenant about the scraping chairs, or the dripping faucets. You\u2019ll have a chance, like me.<\/p>\n

Then you can tell me how wrong I am.<\/p>\n

\n
Copyright \u00a9 2010 by Liam Kruger
\nSomething Wicked<\/em> has no affiliation with Bloody Parchment<\/em>, please direct all queries to the official Bloody Parchment website<\/a><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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