Henry`s Ghost

A young boy has decided he is just too hungry,he leaps up and speeds out of his bedroom and down the stairs,bolts through the living room and into the kitchen seeking snacks.Finds nothing.In a flash he has retraced his fleet footsteps back through the living room and past his father,Henry, looming large above and taking up more space then usual in his large padded coat and going out shoes.

There little dog,Palo is barking and jumping on furniture excitedly hoping he is going somewhere too,although it is cold blank day.Henry tells him to give it up whilst discussing something with the boys mother,Pauline.

The boy,John speeds toward the front room ignoring the commotion on his hunt.Seemingly in one quick dash the front room is observed,found barren, abandoned,and John about turns once more heading out again to the living room but is brought to halt by the presence of his father,Henry in the hall way in front of the door.

John has been noticed and horror heaped on horror eye contact is being expected,he looks up briefly, gives a nod,only to find Henry staring quite intently back.Unprecedented! His father has just requested he hug him goodbye.Dumb terror strikes through him at the out of nowhere, out of order unthinkable and undeniable need he just saw in his father.Need?! It was over in a flash as he was already mid way through his desperate lunge through the living room doorway now.Although winded and shaken he shouts out a loud "BYE!" in recompense.

This alerts his mother who dashes to his father half out the doorway now ,to see what was wrong,nothing much apparently but John, once clear of the living room stops to spy from the safety of the conservatory.

They`re parting seems to take much longer than usual,he can only see his mother`s back but suspects something is wrong,it often is.

Finally his mother,Pauline turns back into the living room,spots him. John whirls around and flees out of earshot of chastisement as fast as possible across the patio and along the wall down behind the garage where to his suprise he finds his father mowing the lawn.

"What are you doing here?"

"You are supposed to have gone out..."

Getting no response he tries again very loud'

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!"

"I`m not" replies Henry pausing oddly "doing anything"

"That wasn't weird" he thinks out loud.But doubts Henry can hear him over the mower.His father is being unusually quiet.John suspects a row with his mother has taken some weird course that now invloves figthing about mowing the lawn.That would be one heck of an about turn from the age it seemed like they just spent parting at the door,not unheard of for them though.Although if they were talking at all it was usually a good sign.

John is spooked, weary,wary he is being wound up and bored by the stonewalling,this is all too many things for him,confused and momentarily flustered he breaks, demanding loudly;

"WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?!"

John doesn`t wait for an answer he storms off back up the patio toward the house, carefully watching the intent little black eyes of his dog,Palo staring in recognition at Henry behind him and he sees the eyes suddenly become blank,looking at where Henry was and then around the garden uncomprehending and then up at him questioningly as he passes, holding onto his hissy fit, although fear is rapidly replacing it .
Pauline blasts this away with an agitated;

"Who do you think YOU are shouting at!"

"Him" John replies giving a nod back toward the garden

"Didn`t you hear him mowing?"

"Who?"

Pauline heard and saw nothing,but was now concerned about John.Henry had just gone out.She told him he was mad.She had done the mowing that morning anyway before he could,so what was he playing at?John realized with a sigh there was some aggravation coming over the mowing.

When Henry returns and has no knowledge of being in the back garden at all a cycle of questioning,honesty testing,sanity testing,sanity doubting and joking starts up and repeats for several days at a time.John hopes they will eventually get bored winding him up.Phrases like loony bin and funny farm go through the circles of being threatened with,predicted to end up in and joked to belong in.

A little over two weeks later Henry dies unexpectedly in a car accident.

The following morning John is woken by his mother shouting at him from the garden.He gets up only half knowing his father is dead and runs down the stairs almost expects to find him standing next to Pauline in the garden.He is not.

Pauline stands on the lawn behind the garage,looking like she is struggling hard to understand something;

"DID you do this!"

"What?"

THIS!" she points at the lawn

"What is wrong with it?"

John knows he hasn`t done anything and wouldn't even know how to ruin a lawn even if he thought to.

"Did you mow it?"

"What?"

"Someone`s mowed it, did you mow it?"

"no"

"Well who did it then?It was all the same length yesterday."

"i don`t know"

"I didn`t hear anything.Did you?"

"no"

"Well who did it then?"

John sits opposite her on the on a low stone garden wall,trying not to show how exhausted he feels now,his knees unexpectedly weak.

"He must have done it before the crash"

"He didn`t" His mother insisted .

"He didn`t have time"

"Well he must have done who else would do it -maybe he just didn`t tell you because he didn`t finish it"

"He didn`t have time! "Pauline shouted,upset.

John knew he would not have started it and left it unfinished without telling his mother and he had not had time.

"When was the last time you saw him mowing?" Pauline asks

John knew it was the time he was supposedly out;

"and that is the bit i saw him do.Just this bit behind the garage.Why didn`t he finish it?"

"What`s going on?" she asked

"That`s what i asked him"

"Is this where he was stood?"

"Yes" "He was stood exactly where you are stood...But why would he come back to mow the lawn!?"

"He loved mowing the lawn"

Pauline looked more than ready to cry but John suddenly felt like laughing.

"Why mow just a bit of it!"

"Why mow any of it!!"

"Why didn`t you hear it!"

They began shouting questions at each other as if it would put off the grief.Needing answers they knew they could not get.Getting nowhere just getting upset.

John walks away and his mother eventually finishes the mowing.When she comes back in the house he asks;

"Why did he want you to do that?"

"So i`d miss him" she sobs

"Why did i see him doing it two weeks ago?!

"So you`d remember him."