My apologies for not getting anything posted last Friday and Monday. Real life intruded. Without further adieu let us return to J is for Jogah.
Later that night after supper, and an evening spent watching game shows on TV, Jeffery struggled to claim the sleep he needed. As he lay in bed staring at the ceiling he went over the conversation he’d had with Bill, each time circling back to his statement they could not hurt him. He would have liked to believe it, but he knew Bill had been lying to him about that point. It wasn’t physical pain these errant spirits could bring. What they brought was something far more terrifying. A perpetual gloom that would shroud your soul in endless despair. He had experienced that firsthand in the apartment.
Boys being boys, it wasn’t long before he tried an experiment. He had grown so accustomed to the old lady’s presence that she didn’t even bother him anymore. He understood that they were merely ghosts, and ghosts couldn’t hit you the way another person could. One night in the old apartment he stood in the way of the old lady’s ghost as she glided through the deep shadows of the kitchen on her nightly visit to the sink.
Why she was visiting the sink was beyond him, he didn’t believe a ghost could drink or get thirsty, but what did he know, he was only seven at the time.
He almost stepped aside as she got closer but closed his eyes and held his ground as she came to him. There was no hesitation on her part, and he suspected her spirit could not see him, yet. In hindsight he wished he hadn’t done what he did. As he lay in bed he relived every emotion, ever feeling every sound and sensation that washed through him as she closed with him.
The first thing he noticed was a slight tickling at the base of his skull as the short hair on the nape of his neck slowly stood at attention. This was followed by a deepening chill as she reached him, a chill that grew as her essence began to mingle with his own. As it did goosebumps spread across the length of his arms him, his shoulders and down the center of his back following the line of his spine.
His mind filled with memories that were not his own. Brief flashes from her past slid across the screen of his mind. Her saw her as a young child in school, struggling to pay attention to the nuns in class, her knuckle sore from the beatings they took every time her attention wandered. Spring had arrived with the joyous singing of the birds, and she wanted to go outside and experience everything the season had to offer. Yet she was trapped in a dreary classroom, crammed into a small room with twenty other children whose only desire was to escape the hard lessons few believed would serve them in their life after graduation. He saw her meet a young man and fall in love with him. Their hasty marriage as her young man was called off to war and their joyous reunion when he returned safe and sound while so many other wives and parents only ever saw a flag draped coffin.
They built a life together, raising a family of three boys and two girls. Two of the boys were called up by the government to do their part and she learned the sorrow of a parent outliving their child when the oldest returned in a flag draped casket.
Weddings followed, along with the births of grandchildren who brought a measure of joy to her and her husband as old age crept up on them. The loss of her husband, and the home they raised their family in when the money started to run out. Moving to the apartment in the city had been the last straw for her and the carefree young woman who had become old and slow, deliberately stepped away from this life. In the wee hours of the morning she took a handful of sleeping pills, washing them down with a glass of water from the kitchen sink. Hence the reason for her nightly visits. It was like she had been cursed to relive her final moments for eternity.
As the 0ld woman’s ghost emerged from the other side of him, a small part of their mingled essences became trapped with the other. Afterwards Jeffery was filled with a craving for blueberry muffins, something he had never eaten before. Aside from that it appeared his encounter had left him no worse for wear until the following night when she returned. As the moon slowly rose above the city skyline she came gliding into his bedroom, passing through the door as if it didn’t exist and stood beside his bed looking down at him with sorrowful eyes.
He had taken something from her and she wanted it back.
Now, in the present, he lay in bed staring at the door, waiting for her return. Sometime after midnight he drifted off to sleep and awoke to a new day to what sounded like a million birds singing beyond his bedroom window. It was the first good night’s sleep he’d had since his little experiment, and while he was hesitant to celebrate, he felt it best to wait and see what happened.
To be continued!
Richard Schiver 