Series:  Strange Tales   Story:  Ghosts   by M Kizzia   part 3

            “Oh, look.”  Mya spoke first.  There was a puppy on a leash looking right at them, wagging his tail and panting with his tongue.  It was a little Labrador and obviously very young.  Mya let go of Nathan’s hand to get down and pet the puppy.  She did not think about it, she just did it, and the puppy responded with a lick.  “Oh, cutie.”  She called it.  The woman on the other end of the leash was gabbing with another woman.  Mya did not care about that.  “Yes, cutie.”  She said, and she looked up at Nathan who was smiling.  “Come and say hello.  He won’t bite.”

            Nathan was reluctant to squat down.  He was very afraid for his knees, but as he did, he found that his knees were well up to the task and did not hurt at all.  That was as much pleasure for him as a chance to pet the puppy.  The puppy responded by lifting its paws to his shoulders and giving him a lick.  Everyone was smiling and happy until the woman jerked the leash.

            “Egbert, behave!”  The woman said sternly and she tugged a couple of unkind tugs on the leash until the puppy came to obedience at her feet.  The woman had a cruel streak in her and Nathan was surprised at how strongly he felt the woman’s cruelty.  He looked down at Mya and saw that her eyes were wide.  She felt it too. Nathan and Mya did not interfere, even when the puppy looked at them, sadly.  “Yes, Egbert is an old family name.”  The woman was saying.  “I promised my mother I would use it for one of my children.”  The woman laughed; or at least Nathan and Mya guessed that the sound was supposed to be a laugh.  The two women returned then to their inspection of the disaster, and since neither Mya nor Nathan were interested in going there, they said good-bye to the puppy and walked, hand in hand in the opposite direction

            “Poor Egbert.”  Mya said.  “He is going to have to live his whole life with that name.”

            “Poor Egbert.”  Nathan agreed.  “And with that woman.”  He added, but his mind was on other things, and at once he saw what he was looking for.  There was a distraught looking young man sitting on the curb, ignoring everything that was going on around him as if lost in deep thought.  Nathan stopped their forward progress for a good, long look.  The young man’s black hair appeared unmoved by the wind, though of itself that meant nothing.  He decided a comparison was in order so he looked back at the woman and her dog.  He was astounded.  The woman behind looked as real as any he saw in life, but the young man on the curb looked more real.  It did not make sense, but that was the only way he could understand it.

            Mya, who had been standing still and patient, got it at about the same time.  “He’s a ghost.”  She said.  Nathan nodded, and he was fairly sure that this was the ghost of the suicide bomber.

            “Hello, friend.”  Nathan interrupted the man’s thoughts.  Nathan had decided that he had no ill will toward the man.  After all, he had lived a long and rich enough life in his own small way.  He did feel strongly for Mya, however, that this man’s actions were decidedly unfair to her, young as she was.  That was why he refused to abandon her, he told himself, though the truth was he felt he needed the little girl as much as she might need him.  “Friend?”  Nathan almost reached out to touch the man’s shoulder, but the man turned suddenly to stare at them with dark eyes filled with fear and hatred.

            “Go away!”  The young man said.  “Why can’t you demons leave me alone?  Go away!”

            Nathan squatted, now that he knew he could do that, and he looked toward the man, eye to eye, though he kept his distance and made no further move to touch him.  “Can I help?”  He asked, feeling Mya squat down next to him.

            “Maybe we could help.”  Mya agreed with Nathan, and there was a slight softening in the man’s eyes as he turned a little to take in the girl.

            “There is nothing you can do.  It is done.”  The young man said through gritted teeth.

            “But what is the matter?”  Mya was very sensitive to the young man’s pain, though that was just a blessing of human sensitivity sometimes found in the very young and rarely found in adults, it was not a hyper sensitivity such as they both had felt in the cruelty of the puppy owner.  Nathan had to catch Mya’s hand to keep her from reaching out and touching the young man softly, as she had petted the puppy.

            “It is done.”  The young man said again, and then he shifted his gaze to the heavens.  “Why am I not in paradise?  They all said I would be in paradise!”

            Mya took the question seriously and responded with the only answer she could come up with.  “Maybe they did not tell you the truth.”  She spoke in her most encouraging voice, but Nathan had to move fast.  He grabbed Mya around the middle and pulled her out of reach just as the man’s face turned wicked, and his arms, with hands formed like claws, reached out to scratch her, to grab her, to hurt her in whatever way he could.

            “Leave me alone, demons!  They warned me about your wicked tongues.”  The young man shouted, but very quickly a voice of reason interrupted, coming from the side of the confrontation.

            “Surely you did not believe the slaughter of the innocents was your ticket to heaven.”  The voice said.

            “Liar!  You are all liars!  I will listen no more!  Leave me alone, you demons!  Leave me alone!”  He had his hands over his ears so there would be no talking to him, and he turned his face back to the curb.

            “There is no reaching him at present.”  The voice said, and Nathan and Mya turned to see something they both expected to see and dared not hope to see.  Mya shivered and went straight to her knees, drawing a hesitant Nathan down with her.  It was not that Nathan did not believe in what he was seeing, but rather his rational, worldly mind was more developed, and after all, he had never seen an angel before.  He felt it, though, in his deepest marrow; that sense of awesome wonder, and not a little fear that showed in the trembling in his bones and in the pit of his stomach – that sense that he was naked in a way he had never been before and that sense came with the realization that not every corner of his naked life was exactly clean.  It made him lower his eyes, not that he could have looked into the golden glare of those orbs regardless of how much they smiled.  He imagined Mya, being seven, had far less filth on her plate, but then he did not know for sure.  It does not take some people very long at all to build up all sorts of wickedness in their lives.  Maybe she felt it more strongly and that was why she humbled herself first of all. 

            “Some people prefer to live in a box.”  The angel spoke and both Mya and Nathan could do nothing but listen.  “They imagine they have put God in a box and believe that they understand his eternal, almighty nature, but in reality, all they have done is box up their own minds and hearts.  You must pray for him before the box becomes as hard as concrete.”  The angel paused and both Nathan and Mya ventured to look up.  Perhaps they were drawn to do so.  The Angel was looking at someone beside him.  It was the old woman from the bus.  Nathan was sure of that, even if she no longer looked like the old woman.  She had become, well, it was hard to tell what age exactly; like she was ageless, young one moment but very old as well.  What is more, she looked all sparkly, like Christmas lights on a grand old tree, and the lights were blindingly bright even if they looked dim beside the glowing presence of the angel.  Anyway, her eyes were on the angel and she was smiling, even when the angel turned again to look at Mya and Nathan.

            “Do not be afraid.”  The angel said.  “For you there are two times, a time between and a half time.”  And then it was gone – the angel was just not there anymore, and the young suicide had gone as well, probably run off somewhere.  The sparkling woman turned toward Mya and Nathan.  Nathan was not quite sure where the woman’s eyes were focusing, so he could not be sure if she saw them or not or if her smile was for them or not, though he liked to think it was.  All he could say for sure was her sparkling presence got very bright for a moment before she vanished as surely as the angel.

            Nathan had tears in his eyes from the strain of all that bright light, or so he told himself.  Mya also had tears in her eyes, but neither of them felt sad in the least.  Indeed, when Nathan helped the girl up from the sidewalk, she seemed elated.  Her hands had been held palm to palm in the classic image of a child at prayer, and though she readily gave up her pose to take Nathan’s hand once again, she still seemed to be praying, so Nathan kept quiet.  Thus, neither said a thing as they walked the many blocks to the hospital.

Everyone dies in part 1.  My son thought that would make it a very short story, but that is where the story begins.

Series:  Strange Tales   Story:  Ghosts   by M Kizzia   part 2

            Nathan opened his eyes.  He was sitting on a park bench up on a grassy knoll, looking through an iron picket fence at a very confusing street scene.  People were running around, screaming, while cars and trucks were screeching to a halt in both directions and things, big pieces of things were falling from the sky.  Nathan felt the little hand in his hand and he looked down to see Mya staring up at him, her legs dangling from the edge of the bench where they did not quite reach the ground.

            “I think we are dead.”  Mya said.  There was no sorrow, no fear and no surprise in her voice.  She just simply said it outright like it was the most obvious fact.

            “No.”  Nathan quickly shook his head.  “We were blown free of the explosion, weren’t we?”  They were blown free to land perfectly side by side on a park bench?  He wondered.  Perhaps they crawled up on the bench before they became fully aware of what they were doing?

            “I think we’re dead.”  Mya repeated herself and she turned her eyes from his old face to the strange goings on in the street.  She was holding his hand, too, or rather her little hand was engulfed in his wrinkled old paw, but she seemed perfectly content with that and in no hurry to break free.

            “No.”  Nathan said again, but there was no conviction in the word.  He also looked to the street and realized that everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.  Pieces of the bus were still falling and bouncing very slowly off the pavement.  People were still screaming in long, drawn out sounds while tires were still screeching; and after a moment they both felt something low and loud in the pit of their stomachs which tickled as the pitch rose up the scale.  Mya giggled at the feeling while Nathan identified it.  “The police.  Maybe an ambulance.”

            “Too late.”  Mya said, a deep sadness echoed finally in the midst of her giggle.  She looked again at the face of the old man beside her.

            “We can’t be dead.”  Nathan protested.  “That would make us ghosts.”  He turned his eyes again to that innocent little face, but she looked away.  She straightened her legs and stared at her shoes.

            “I’m afraid of ghosts.”  She said.

            Nathan did what he wanted to do, the world be damned.  He dropped the girl’s hand and put his arm tenderly and lovingly around the little girl’s shoulder, hugging her as he spoke.  “I won’t let any bad ghosts get you.  Hush.  Everything will be all right.”  And they watched for a long time while police cars, ambulances, fire trucks and tow trucks all showed up; while men and women did the work for which they were trained and the innocent pedestrians backed away but stared long and hard at all of the broken pieces scattered in the street and along the side of the road.  They watched the traffic start again, slowly, and it seemed forever that only one lane was  moving at a time, and the cars and trucks went very slowly besides, not to be careful of the workers in the street, but because they, too, wanted to gawk at the scene.  Last of all, there were cameras and reporters who came to make a record of it all for the evening news.  That was when Nathan let out the sigh he thought he had used up, and he looked down again at the little girl beside him.  She was looking up at him, her face a little closer to his than he imagined it would be, and she lifted her hand to touch his face once more, even as she touched him in the bus.  Nathan stayed silent and did not move, letting the girl examine his ancient eyes.

            “You’re not as old as you were before.”  Mya concluded.  “You don’t look as old as my grandmother anymore.”

            Nathan took his arm back and Mya sat up while he looked down at his hands.  He still saw the wrinkles and the age spots, though perhaps not so bad.  The power of suggestion?  Surely his suit was as wrinkled as ever.  He looked at the girl and noticed her legs were not dangling so much.  She could touch the ground with her toes, but then he told himself that this was the way it was before, only he had not seen properly.  He rubbed his eyes a little and spoke.  “Your grandmother is in the hospital?”  This time it was a question.

            “Yes.”  Mya said as she slipped her hands beneath her tight covered thighs in order to let her legs swing free.

            Nathan looked to the sky to judge the time.  The hospital was a long walk, but curiously he felt up to it.  Certainly he did not feel up to trying another bus.  “I know how to get there.  Would you like to go there and see her?”  He asked.  He thought they could reasonably arrive before dark.  “I could go with you.”  He added, in case she did not catch the implication.

            Mya looked up at him once again and nodded.  “Mother says Grandma is dying.  Maybe Grandma could help us.”  The girl made no explanation about what she was thinking, but she also made no move to get off the park bench, so Nathan stood.  He got up like a well practiced old man, expecting his knees to scream, his lower back to protest and his stiff neck to make itself known, but none of those things happened.  To be sure, Nathan felt a little frightened when he realized that he felt nothing at all.  The forever pain, arthritis, agonizing stiffness and constant struggle against gravity were all gone.  Maybe they really were ghosts.  He tried not to think about it too hard, reaching instead for Mya’s hand.  He needed her reassuring touch.

            Mya looked up and readily put her hand in his, realizing that she needed his touch as well.  “You are a very nice man.”  She said, having decided that he was a kind, older gentleman.  She trusted him, and even more importantly, she liked him.  Mya never knew her grandfather very well.  She was only three when he died, but she thought that this man might be like him.  She felt safe when she was holding his hand, and so she took it readily and they began to walk, side by side, to find a place where they could get beyond the fence and back out on to the sidewalk.

            Nathan was growing in his concern about what exactly was going on.  He was walking easily and without pain of any kind.  It was not that he felt he could run or dance or anything like that, but his lack of pain appeared to be the last nail in the coffin, so to speak, and he said as much at last.  “I think we’re dead.”

            “I know that we are.”  Mya said without so much as lifting her eyes.  She was thinking about something and probably thinking about many things, and there was a little tear in the corner of her eye.  They had come to a gate in the fence and stopped so Nathan turned to the girl who was now taller than his wrist but not yet as tall as his elbow, and he put one hand on each of her shoulders and bent down a little to garner her full attention.

            “Now, how do you know we are dead?”  He asked, and he tried to smile his most reassuring smile.

            Mya said nothing.  She simply pointed at her feet and Nathan looked down at two perfectly normal shoes.  He started to shake his head before he gasped.  He had forgotten that she was lame, a cripple with a misshapen foot.  He had forgotten about the funny shoe which had evidently been designed to help her walk.  He looked at the girl’s feet and honestly could not remember which foot it was.  Both shoes looked identical and normal, and Nathan had no doubt the feet inside were normal, too.  He let go and took a step back.  Mya looked up at him and almost showed some fear.  Her eyes said, please don’t leave me alone.  Please, I don’t want to be alone.

            Nathan caught the look and returned one hand to pat the girl gently on the shoulder.  “Let’s go see your grandmother.”  He said, and then he turned toward the gate and tried hard not to hesitate.  He was not sure if he could open the simple latch, being a little afraid that his ghost hand might pass right through the solid metal.  That would have frightened him perhaps beyond repair, so it took a great deal of courage to get his fingers to reach out.  When he took hold of the latch, he let out his breath and heard Mya do the same.  The gate easily swung open, and then Nathan stepped aside “After you.”  He said, graciously and raised his hand in an inviting gesture.  Mya smiled for him.

            “Thank you.”  She said, trying very hard to sound like a real lady, and they stepped out of the gate and back into the real, everyday world, Nathan being sure to close the gate tight behind them.