The Angry Ghost and Other Stories Read online

  The latter looked over and smiled at me though I was certain I had never seen her before.

  After our last meeting, I felt some caution in speaking to Siobhan again but they looked so happy that I smiled and wandered over.

  They paused in their laughter, rose to their feet and ran over, but for the taller girl with the auburn hair who rose and – rather oddly, I thought – walked away.

  “Hello, Siobhan; you look happy,” I said.

  “Oh, I am – now; I can go home whenever I want and my sister is with me and we’re always going to be playing together.”

  I saw the other girl look over fondly at her and though I considered myself as one not normally given to moments of sensitivity, the depth of the look of love I saw caused me to swallow hard. It was a look I had seen somewhere recently but couldn’t quite place it.

  But I was oddly reminded of my promise to the very old lady I had met.

  “Siobhan, I met someone in the churchyard a few days ago, and she gave me a message to give to you,” I said. “She said that ‘Mairead’ will see you again very soon.”

  Siobhan tilted her head looking a little confused and then she smiled and started to laugh. Her sister joined her and I chuckled myself, though more through politeness than understanding.

  Finally, she stopped laughing and said, smiling, “Don’t you see? She’s already here.”

  I looked around but all I saw were gravestones and some distance away, her taller friend who now sat at a distance on the wall and watched us – though her focus seemed more on me – or was that the presence of some residual paranoia.

  I returned my gaze to her sister who continued to smile at me while she tilted her head slightly to Siobhan and said – rather worryingly I thought – “I told you he was different”. She returned her gaze to me and nodded. I again wondered if perhaps with the absence of the tablets, I was acting ‘oddly’ to a level where others were noticing.

  I wondered for several more moments what she meant but then decided to ignore it completely as it would only reawaken paranoia – I was beginning to doubt the sagaciousness of stopping the medication. I remembered the doctor telling me that I was not the centre of things and so I should not see anything personal in a backward glance or a seemingly clandestine whisper.

  As they were both dancing around the gravestones I remembered the doll in my pocket but then looked up to find that Siobhan was already holding a little red doll in her hand… though it had no head. I held it for a moment unsure what to do with it realising that there were indeed two dolls and the one I held actually did belong to the old lady after all.

  Then Siobhan’s sister walked over. “I said I would not need it any more,” she said simply.

  I stared at her for several moments before turning and heading back towards the exit, barely noticing as I went the brightly coloured flowers on a newly interred grave.

  Scene 3: Rose

  Siobhan and her sister held hands and walked over to their tall friend and sat beside her.

  “Why didn’t you stay? He’s the only one who can really see us,” Siobhan said.

  “He’s not ready to see me – just yet – he’s never accepted it,” said the girl with a serious smile, too serious some might say for a nine-year-old. She chewed on the end of one of her auburn curls that cascaded around a gentle face.

  “Even so, I really feel he wants to see you,” Siobhan persisted.

  Rose looked down and there was silence for several moments before Siobhan whispered to her sister, “You know, he once used to talk to her… as he lay in bed… She would listen for hours… and then he just stopped… and her loneliness grew.”

  Rose looked at them and smiled, “But now I have you.”

  Her smile faded. “He has surrounded himself with an iron commitment to his belief that we don’t exist; it gives him strength… and sanity. I don’t want to shatter that conviction… he was always mentally… fragile – it’s all that keeps him together. If he were to see me… well, I don’t think it would be good for him – oh, and don’t think I haven’t noticed your attempts to guide him to my grave; it’s probably just as well you couldn’t enter the graveyard.”

  Siobhan looked down sheepishly. “I nearly got him there the first night but lost him in the fog. Anyway, he will actually ‘see’ you – no other can. Yesterday he held my hand – honest! Now surely there has got to be a reason why he is different. It’s such a wasted opportunity!”

  Rose looked sadly at Siobhan. “As long as he continues to deny my current… status, I cannot let him see me.”

  Siobhan and her sister rose and moved a short distance away.

  “Mairead, would you do me an… important… favour?” Siobhan whispered slyly looking over at Rose.

  “Anything,” her sister said keenly.

  Siobhan smiled.

  Scene 4: A Visitor

  That night, after a snack of cheese and biscuits, I wandered up to my rooms and lay on my bed feeling as though I were missing something – and asking myself were my thoughts really as coherent and rational as I believed them to be. I felt like a colour-blind man surrounded by rainbows.

  I had read how some autistic people can have severe problems socialising and can miss the most obvious things and yet be able to tell you – in seconds – what the fifty-eighth prime number is. My doctor had on record one such chap who had been told – based on his poor literary ability – how bleak his future was regarding any academic hope, only to go on to pass – with flying colours, as they say – a degree course on quantum physics. He was fourteen years old!

  Was my mind seeing something complex but missing the obvious? Was I oblivious to the wood because of the trees?

  I thought of those I had met: Father Fitzpatrick, I felt, was impressionable by his religious leanings, and I wondered if the copious quantities of alcohol he had consumed over the years gave him some susceptibility to confusion.

  Siobhan; now she was definitely odd; a six-year-old who talked with an air of one much older; said she lives or lived in the graveyard – with Rosie – and knew things of her that she should not, and why would she say those things to me anyway? Was she simply someone needing attention and doing anything she could to get it?

  When things make no sense should we keep beating away at that spurious evidence, seeking out that rational solution, or simply accept things and their unlikely and tenuous occurrences?

  I still had inconclusive thoughts drifting through my mind when I succumbed to the arms of Morpheus.

  It seemed only a short time later that I came to – suddenly – and I sat bolt upright at the sight of a silhouette before the moonlight-enshrouded open window. From its shape and size – and the indistinctly vague suggestion of plaits hung over one shoulder – I determined my visitor to be Siobhan.

  I stared as the shadow moved towards me and then sat lightly at the end of my bed.

  I blinked several times; took some deep breaths; and looked up again. The silhouette still sat there and I could feel pressure on my toes.

  “A long time ago, my sister and I played,” she started. “We never got bored; we spent all our time together. One day as we played, there was a terrible accident and my sister… she died…

  Only those who have lost someone very dear can understand the immeasurable sense of loss one feels. But when that loss is felt to be as a consequence of one’s own action, then it can create a hollowness inside that swallows hope and sucks life until you are a husk of apology and self-guilt. No one will understand your grief as well as you, so you will suffer alone. It was my fault,” she continued. “She fell from a wall as I tried to take her doll from her. If I had let her keep the doll, she would have lived, but as it was, she died.”

  “Sometimes loved ones die without the participation of malice or wickedness. For more than seventy years I punished myself for my involvement in her de
ath. I never married and my life was one of loneliness and blame.”

  I momentarily tried to interject but was quickly cut short.

  “Young man, this is very important and you should listen well,” she said from the darkness.

  “… Mairead?” I whispered.

  “There are no second chances,” she continued, “and you cannot change the past. Your life is beautiful and it is the only one you have. It is too important to spend on sad reflections of someone gone – even one so close.”

  She paused before, “When I saw Siobhan again, I realised the loss of my life and the wasted time I had needlessly suffered.”

  Mairead turned her head to the window and I saw her eyes catch the moonlight and shine wet in the darkness. Her words hit me with such a profound power of sincerity and honesty that for a moment I could only stare at her.

  Then she turned her head and stared at me. “Now, we are happy again for we are together. I have no doubt that one day, you too will see your sister again. Do you really want to meet her with a life of pain and loss behind you? Would you really want her to feel responsible for your pain?”

  I thought for a moment and then looked up but Mairead was gone and only the moonlight intruded into my room.

  I must be more careful with my supper’s cheese intake, I thought – and slept.

  Scene 5: Rose’s Grave

  The following morning, I awoke and experienced an odd feeling of wellbeing – a mood of goodness and that all was well in the world.

  I knew something was different for I felt a strong inclination to perform a task I had always put off.

  I decided to visit the graveyard.

  I bought some flowers – Rosie’s favourites – and proceeded on.

  At the graveyard, I looked around and saw people – young and old – tending to graves both old and new. I saw that the sadness on their faces appeared the same whether for a recent loss or one from long ago; but there was another look on some of those faces that I had never noticed before; a look of acceptance – a look of ‘moving on’ – and those faces looked far more comforted.

  I walked over to Rosie’s grave and slowly bent down and began to gently lay the bluebells in place.

  It had taken me over thirty years to perform this simple action, but I felt surprisingly good that I was finally doing it.

  I heard light footsteps behind me.

  “I’m glad you came,” I heard.

  I didn’t need to look around.

  “Hello, Siobhan,” I said. “I’m glad I came too. For so long I hoped I could see my sister again, but I’ve accepted it; she’s gone. You know: I dreamed I saw your sister last night and she… well… explained some interesting things to me. Whether there is a life after death, I don’t know, but I’m certain that wherever she is, she would want me to be happy.”

  “I so agree,” Siobhan said, “but there is something… really important… that you really ought to know about me… us…”

  “Yes?” I said pausing and looking back at her for a moment.

  It was odd to see a six-year-old seemingly struggling with her thoughts.

  “… Oh, it’s nothing,” she said after several moments and – I thought – a little sadly.

  I returned to my flowers and I heard her footsteps retreat, but then after a couple of minutes return again.

  “Hello again – forgotten something?” I said, still focussed in my harder than expected attempt to arrange the flowers in an orderly way.

  “They are lovely flowers… my favourites,” said a different voice, one somehow familiar.

  I stopped, resisting an unbearable urge to look around. “Yes, they are quite beautiful,” I said. “My sister loved bluebells although…”

  “… They always made me sneeze,” she finished.

  To the memory of ‘Rosemary’, my childhood friend.

  Flowers and Butterflies

  Scene 1: Wet and Muddy

  I took a deep breath and sighed.

  What little light there was came from a full moon high in its zenith; its cast reflecting in the silver sheen of rainwater on every surface of trunk and branch within the forest that lay before me.

  Water ran slowly down between my shoulder blades and I shivered. I sighed again and headed further into the woods.

  I felt I shouldn’t complain. After browbeating the Boss for such a long time, I was finally given my first opportunity to help someone in dire need. The Boss had been thorough and I knew exactly what I must do.

  But I felt as though I had drawn the shortest straw.

  I was to save a Rebecca Johansson – I did not know what she looked like but knew where she was – or at least I thought I did – until this shittin’ weather started up and obliterated my rehearsed route.

  She did not know me but would be needing me very shortly. It was imperative I find her – and soon.

  I should have found her an hour ago, but the darkness and the rain had made things difficult for me. I tried not to think about how I would explain my failing to the Boss – he was never the understanding type.

  As I started up a steep incline between two enormous trunks, I could see a mist starting to move through the forest towards me, obliterating what little I could see.

  I looked up at the sky, the moon now no longer visible, or the bright light it provided.

  Bugger! I thought.

  This was certainly not my night – nor that of Ms Johansson either.

  But this was my job.

  At sixty-eight, it was clearly a bad move for her to hike through this wilderness, with neither company nor provisions. The latter turned out to be superfluous, however, as it wasn’t the lack of food or water that was her current cause of pain and distress; but the blood flowing unchecked from her femoral artery where a wooden spar had stabbed her through the thigh. This had occurred as she fell the last twenty-five feet from a slippery crag.

  Although the branches broke her fall, one was not so obliging.

  So, I continued, swearing and cursing, to forge my way onwards, tripping over roots, ducking under boughs and branches and otherwise crashing blindly through the foliage, all the while getting wetter and muddier.

  After all, it was my job to come to her rescue.

  Scene 2: Still Wet and Muddy

  Then, finally, there she was.

  I knelt down and gently cradled her head and held her close.

  I had found her just in time. There was barely any life left in her.

  However, her eyes were open and she looked up at me and straight into mine, which I found rather disquieting. The Boss had said that sometimes they see you, though more often… they don’t.

  I slowly moved my head left and right, and her eyes followed – she sure as hell saw me right enough.

  Then she smiled and I swallowed hard. I was actually finding this surprisingly painful. I had been told that I might experience this emotion and I should be prepared for it, but I had ignored the concerns and had given no real thought to it. After all, once their lives were over, they simply needed to be put to rest. It was a common enough process with some 150,000 passing each day.

  It was that straightforward – it was that easy – or so I had thought.

  But sitting here in the cold, wet mud – even my wings were no longer white – I saw, or rather felt, this woman’s memories of her life’s experiences.

  As I held her, I too became party to her fourth birthday: she was holding in her small hands a book full of pictures of brightly coloured flowers with equally vibrant butterflies alighted thereon. Then, I watched her dancing in her prom dress with a boy from the sophomore year and a moment later, I was a reluctant bystander witnessing her rapturous union with the same boy – then later, her husband.

  I stood as a spectator watching her proudly showing off her firstborn to her parents and the
n, I stood silently beside her at the graves of those same parents.

  I saw her looking fondly at her granddaughter as the little girl awkwardly turned the pages of an old book where the flowers now appeared faded and the butterflies listless; then her husband was lying in a hospital bed looking tired and old.

  Sometimes ebbing gently and sometimes crashing mercilessly, I saw her memories clinging to her body and I shook violently as I was thrown from the dizzy heights of her life’s joyous moments to the pits of her loss and anguish. I wiped my eyes from the raw emotion as I was pummelled by the extreme intensity of feeling and passion, and wondered how on earth humans were not torn apart by it; love, hate, jealousy, lust, anger – how did these humans survive?

  It was sad that they had never fully understood the importance of the memories and their link to the living once their owners were gone from this world.

  I thought again of their mistaken beliefs about souls and spirits living on. They were close, but wrong nonetheless, as they seemed unable – or unwilling – to take that next step to understanding that it’s the memories that live on – never fading and never diminishing into the darkness. It is these incorporeal reminiscences that associate themselves with those that are still living. No ghosts, no spirits, no souls, but profound auras of memory – reflective impressions of ethereal recollections that the dead coveted in life so lovingly – that remain; the more powerful those memories, the greater their legacy, undimmed and untainted by age and sometimes touched upon by the more sensitive of the living.

  I looked down. Her eyes still gazed up at me.

  I wiped my eyes again, now feeling quite alone and took in several deep breaths – I was not sure my mental constitution was strong enough for this job.

  They just need help in releasing the memories for heaven’s sake! I said to myself, again. That’s all it is! Surely it shouldn’t be as painful as this!