Walking With Ghosts

So you are walking on your childhood streets again. Nothing strange
with that, since most of your relatives live there. But what are you
doing there? Even if you know that it is a very normal thing to do,
returning and doing visits, you have the feeling that something is
wrong. Newer and luxurious houses have been built and you may wonder
how that happened. How is it that the boy, who seemed a bit slow,
nowadays lives better than you will ever do? And why is it that it has
to feel like that? You shiver and try to shake off that feeling that
your visit took place several years ago, that you already then were to
old for any changes, to old to start over again. But you can't get used
to it?


The woman is small and grey and she looks fragile, but her
gaze is as firm as it used to be. The old school mistress look is as
demanding as you remember it, but what used to make you resolute,
causes despair instead. The sand glass has run out of time. You feel
like crying. Then all of a sudden she seems to float, a decimetre or
so, above the ground. And when you, a few seconds later, confused turn
around after her, she is already gone. A ghost.


The walk continues and to encourage yourself you say to
yourself that even if this village, at a first glance, has changed,
above all expired, nothing is completely unlike either. The newest
block of flats, for example, have the same kind of pastel colour
balconies as the old block of flats, which was built twenty years
ago.


Then you meet another woman. This lady was once a colourful
woman in her best age. Now her face is struck by a haunted expression.
Even when she comes closer to let you know how happy she is to see you,
she looks haunted. You avoid seeing her in her eyes, and come up with a
lie when she asks why you have come back. You think you would
disappoint her if you said that you had come back to stay. Not because
you are you, but because she had hoped more from life outside. She had
hoped that you who took the step to leave the village would have been
accepted in the world outside. You don't know why you have come back.
And you know for sure you have no resources for this kind of
expectations, at least not now, and you say that you are in a hurry.
She says that she understands. Then she wishes you good luck. Then she
cracks up in a compulsive smile that grows and grows until she falls in
pieces right in front of your feet. And you know that there is no
return to your childhood village.