Ghost

The weather seemed cold, but only cold enough to send a shiver
through anything living. Anything else just stood there, in its
lifeless silence and eternal stillness. The unliving still existed
here, but only to set the scene of which the living looked upon. This
place was based on the dead being watched by the living, even though
the living were often too wrapped up in their own silly lives to
acknowledge the feeling that penetrated anything that came through this
place. Though the air carried the slight chill, the sun could still
penetrate it. Though it lit everything in its path the sun ignored the
chill, and anything else that may have existed there. Even the sun
didn't want to touch the untouched. For nothing touched them. Nothing
wanted to. So they were ignored to such a point, that they could no
longer be seen, only felt. For no one wanted to know about the dead,
because the dead are not meant to walk among us, right?


Maya was walking. It was a normal day. Normal to her anyway,
and she looked pretty good considering she usually looked a wreck. She
wore a dark, long navy coat with fur around the sleeves and along the
bottom. It had a large hood which also had fur, and anyone walking
along would have thought she was a very small cone shaped Eskimo. At
least she was warm and snug inside there. Her hair was left down today
because she didn't have time to do anything with it. But it still had a
slight wavy curl in it so it bounced slightly with every step, in and
out of the hood as she went along. One got the impression that she was
a girl on a mission. You could imagine her ploughing her way through
mountains in her path while keeping the same muffled look of
determination. But with this determination came a sense of sorrow or
even despair. But she didn't know why. That was the strange part. That
was why she liked to write, especially in her diary. She did every day
without fail, and she had got through several diaries already, every
muffled or muted word flowing onto the paper through her pen as if her
brain used it for a way out. For some reason when she counted her
diaries, they never seemed to increase in number. She always lost
things. She had a memory like a sieve.


Maya looked into the sweet shop as she passed. She loved that
shop. She used to go in there every day with her mother when she was
little. She remembered her mother rapping her coat around her
shoulders, which was green at the time. Maya used to get so cold; she
used to feel everything when she was little, every little breeze and
every little ray of sunlight. She remembered going into the sweet shop
and feeling the almost tangible warmth that engulfed her as she stepped
in. She wanted so feel it again, so she stepped toward the shop in
earnest. A second before her foot entered the shop, se braced herself
in anticipation. But as she got inside, she felt nothing. She even
loosened her coat to let the warmth in. She felt the same. Then she
looked at the young lady at the counter and saw her shiver slightly.
Then Maya looked up at the shaking, creaky old heater above the door.
It was barely creating a breeze. No wonder the shopkeeper was cold.
Then Maya considered, maybe she wasn't so sensitive to the cold
anymore? She wasn't a child. Children are more sensitive to the cold,
right?


She decided to forget this, and she turned her attention to
the rows of chocolates in front of the counter. She found herself
instinctively walking towards them and smiling slightly. All those
shapes, all those different fillings remained the same. She remembered
her excitement as a child, the jumping up and down because she couldn't
wait, and the ecstasy when she tasted her favourite. She was about to
ask for a bag of these when the lady walked quickly out. Then she
returned with a thick red cardigan. She brushed past Maya and grabbed
the stool by the door, positioned it under the heater and stepped onto
it, then started banging it with occasional grunts of annoyance. Maya
would usually find this funny. But she considered that banging the
thing wouldn't make any difference. She was about to make a comment
when the lady stepped off her chair and ran back behind the counter.
Maya took this opportunity to get some chocolates from her but the lady
just grunted again and went through the door behind the counter.



"Hello?" Maya whispered, "Hello? Could you help me?"
But the lady didn't reply. She had disappeared behind the swinging
doors. Maya prepared to call out to her but quite suddenly, the wind
outside began to howl and scream. Maya spun around on her heels. The
trees were all stretching to the left of the window and she saw several
people fighting against the wind. It was quite a shocking sight. Their
hair was blowing as violently as the lines of thin trees, and they were
all pulling their coats around themselves and squinting. Maya hadn't
realised she was stepping slowly towards the door. She heard the
swinging doors bang viciously behind her, and the wind kept howling.
Small rocks on the ground were flying sideways and hitting the
struggling people like bullets.


A man had managed to make his way to the shop door and he
leapt in, missing Maya by about an inch. He fell nastily on the shop
floor and winced sharply. But Maya couldn't move. She had seen him
somewhere before, she knew him, but she couldn't help him?



Maya wanted to leap down and help the man but she found her
mind had no intension of doing so. She knew the man needed help. Why
couldn't she help him? A silent frustration was building up inside her,
and yet she showed no trace of it. She couldn't. She was compelled to
stay there, to simply stand there like a lifeless statue. She couldn't
feel anything at all, until she felt the faint prickle of something on
the back of her neck that felt suspiciously like ice.


Maya turned. Everything outside was covered in ice. No more
wind surprisingly, not even a single movement in the air. Maya's eyes
widened in shock. Slowly, her eyes fell towards the floor. She couldn't
look up. She simply stepped forward, watching every step of her feet,
and the ice as it cracked in spider's webs across the ground. She knew
she was outside because she couldn't see the familiar brick red kitchen
tiles anymore. Her breath seemed to echo in her head. Then she realised
something. It made her stop dead. She knew this. All of this. The wind,
the ice, and that man?


Maya suddenly turned and ran back. She hadn't realised she
had gone so far. She slipped on the ice twice on the way to the shop
door but she kept running. The door was only a faint light in the ever
thickening black mist but she found the door and leapt on the ground
beside the now unconscious man. She grabbed his coat and turned him on
his back slowly as if she were handling prized porcelain. She put her
hands on his lifeless face, and very slowly ran her fingers along his
forehead and down his jaw. Her hands were shaking. She felt a word in
the back of her throat, and it took her a moment to let it escape her
lips. Then it did, no louder than a breath.


"Dad?"


Her breathing was erratic now. Tears were building in her
eyes and were soon flowing freely. The tears dropped soundlessly on her
father's cheek and it took a moment to realise that they weren't there.
She traced the place on her father's cheek where the tear should have
landed, when father's eyes squinted slightly. Maya looked at the closed
eyes of her father and a small laugh escaped her. But nothing else. She
had to see his eyes? she had to see his eyes?


His eyes opened as abruptly as she felt the world around her
swirl and howl in a blur of silvery colours. She could feel everything
now, and every absent memory flooded back and hit her like bullets of
razor sharp ice. She saw night time, swirling lamp posts that were
dashing by and the high pitched screeching of car wheels. Several horns
went off, deafening sirens were crying all around and she felt herself
being flipped around like a limp rag doll. The last thing she felt was
something piercing her back. In the distance someone was screaming.
Then everything halted. The last thing she heard was the creaking of
bending metal. Just as she realised the screaming was coming from her,
everything fell.


She was looking at her father again. His eyes were looking
confused. He opened his lips but Maya put a finger across them.



"Shhh," she breathed, "everything's okay Dad."



A single tear fell from her eye, and she could almost see it
in slow motion as it fell like a wisp of wind. Her father blinked. She
stood up, watching her father stare upwards directly at her face. She
looked like a winter angel, with her hair framing her face and the
piercing icy blue light that came from behind her. The fur around the
collar of her coat caught every last crystal of light and created a
gentle glow on her skin.


Her father pushed himself up slightly, without ever taking
his eyes off Maya, not even to blink. With a small smile, Maya blew
away like a gust of wind into the air, and her father felt an icy
tingling throughout his entire body that made him feel strangely warm.
For a long while he kept staring. He began to feel the air warm
slightly, and the mist cleared around the shop. The ice outside started
to drip and everything went shiny. He just stared.


"Goodness gracious! It's cold out!" said the shop keeper as
she swept through the swinging doors. This only distracted him for a
second, and then a look of confusion spread over his face. He heard the
footsteps of the lady echo inside his head as if he couldn't quite take
it in.


"What are you doing down there? Are you okay?" said the lady
with a note of concern. She gently touched his shoulder and he jumped
violently.
"It's okay," she said slowly, "let's get you up now, are you
hurt?"


She pulled at his arm and he stood, wobbling slightly, but
still staring out the door.


"No," he said, very unaware of what was coming out of his
mouth. The world seemed so far away. Once the lady was sure he could
stand on his own she stepped away and laughed quietly, and grinned in
confusion.


"You look like you've seen a ghost!" she said, and walked
round to his side, "look, as is there anything I can do? You don't look
like you're okay."


At this, he seemed to rouse himself, "I'm fine," he said as
he turned around shaking his head, "I'm absolutely fine."



With the look of a man that was suddenly at peace, he walked
out of the door and into the glorious sunlight.