Almost done with my crazy work schedule!

“Hey,” I started the conversation casually. “If you hang around cemeteries as much as you are people are going to start thinking you’re a ghost!” I gave a mock laugh at the end.

The woman stared at me as if I had a second head. Then she said slowly, as if I were a child, “Yes… that’s because I am a ghost…”

I sighed. “Yeah, I know. I am too… ghost to ghost…. Kinda obvious… that was the joke – get it? I know you’re a ghost and I’m joking about you being… you know, nevermind,” I gave a dismissive wave of my hand. “They say explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog – you can learn parts and label them but you still have a dead frog. Or two dead women…” The woman just gaped at me, so I just plowed on.  “Seriously, though, why are you hanging around here so much? It’s depressing…”

“I’m sorry,” she shook her head. “Who are you?”

“Sam. Well, Samantha, but everyone calls me Sam.”

“There’s others?”

“Ghosts? Oh yeah, but most of them don’t actually say anything. Mostly just,” I let my face go slack and held my arms out in front of me and took several stiff steps. “You know, they’re not all there.”

“I don’t know. You’re the first ghost I’ve talked to.”

“I can tell,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because – and this brings us back around to the beginning of our conversation – all you do is hang around a cemetery!”

“But…” she started, “This is where I’m buried.” She pointed to the headstone that read “Melissa Taylor” and listed her birth and death dates.

“Uh huh,” I nodded in agreement, then looked up at her and said, “So?”

“So… I should be here.”

“Why?”

“To… bear witness to my life? To see my loved ones come visit?” she said more in question than statement.

“Look, Mel – can I call you Mel?”

“No, no one calls me Mel….”

“Okay, Mel, first you’re dead. What’s the point of the dead bearing witness to life? And to your second point… honey, we need to get you out of here – you don’t want to hang around for the living to visit…”

“But my husband and family were all here just the other day. It was beautiful!”

I looked at the headstone again. Died October 5. “Mel, you just died. They’re going to come out here for your funeral and because, I don’t know, it’s new and all. But they’re going to realize that they’re visiting a piece of marble and manicured lawn and what’s the point of that?”

“I’m below that manicured grass!” She yelled.

“Uh huh,” I said. “Below. As in ‘not visible’. They put you in the ground, what? A week ago?”

“Ten days.”

“Yeah,” I said, “It’s still new – I’m sure they told themselves they’d come every day or every other day or once a week – whatever it is, I’m sure they said it with the best of intentions. But they’re going to stop coming regularly. They all do. And they should – they’re alive!”

“But…” she countered, “I see an old man visiting his wife’s grave every day. It’s really sweet!”

“No, it’s pathetic. What kind of life is he living now?”

“One where he remembers his wife!” She emphasized.

“And what of it? She’s still dead. He’s alive – he can go out and live!”

Melissa rolled her eyes exasperated. “What do you even want?!”

“I want to help you, Mel. I want to take you on a proper outing outside the cemetery gates!”

“Can… can we do that?”

“Nothing stopping us!” I said. “Want to see what’s in the big dead world out there?” I asked.

She seemed dubious, looking from me to her headstone, then to me again. “Okay,” she said with a nervous smile. “Let’s go.”

“That’s the spirit, Mel! Get it, spirit… we’re ghosts?”

“Yeah, I get it…” she said as we started walking to the cemetery gates.

“But you didn’t laugh.”

“That’s because it wasn’t funny.”

“I like you, Mel!”

“Stop calling me Mel,” she said.

“We’re going to have a great time, Mel!”

Just about through my crazy-busy work stretch! I’ll make it! About to go get some much-needed sleep. Here’s hoping I wake up without any unwanted guests…

I used to call them the “waking ghosts.” At least that’s what I used to say to my mom when I finally got away from whatever it was that came into my room at night and sat on my bed.

“Mom! The waking ghosts came again! Mom!”

“Julie, you were just having a nightmare,” she’d say. But I knew it wasn’t a nightmare – I was definitely awake.

When the Waking Ghosts persisted for years my mom finally took me to a sleep therapist. I described the Waking Ghosts and told them about how they would come in my room in the morning and sometimes they would just sit on my bed and watch me or walk around the room or – in a few cases – one would put its head close to mine as it pet my hair. I don’t know what that one looked like because I was too scared to open my eyes, but I know the hair petting was real – not a nightmare.

The therapist listened and took notes. He didn’t seem surprised or disbelieving. Pretty quickly, though, he said, “Julie, what you have is called ‘sleep paralysis.’ It’s what happens when you wake up during the dream phase of REM sleep. Normally, during this phase your brain turns off the signals that let your body move so you don’t act out your dream. But since you wake up you’re now fully conscious but you’re still dreaming. It’s what we call hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucination.”

With every term or big word I felt more and more relief. I wasn’t being held down by a ghost – it was “sleep paralysis!” And it wasn’t a ghost petting my head, it was a “hypnopompic hallucination!”

The next morning when I woke up and the Waking Ghost that sits on the bed and leers at me was there sitting on my feet I actually smiled as I thought to myself, “You’re not real!”

Then the voice came right next to my ear, cold and dangerous, “Wanna bet we’re not real, Julie?”

“Miss Taylor?” Michael asked still giggling.
“Yes, Michael,” I asked.
“Your aunt is funny!” he said with a smile.
Michael was one of the kids in my kindergarten class. He could act up a bit, but on the whole wasn’t a bad kid. But I had no idea what he was talking about.
“My what, Michael?”
“Your Aunt. She’s right there!” he pointed to the empty chair across the table from where he was coloring.
Now the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “Michael, what does she look like?”
“She’s got these great big glasses on. And…what?” he leaned towards the empty chair. “She said they’re her Elton John glasses? I don’t know what that means.”
My breath caught in my throat. I had always referred to my late aunt’s glasses as “Elton John” because they were oversized and always a little outrageous. I’d never mentioned my aunt in class, certainly never mentioned her glasses…
Was my aunt here? I got goosebumps. And then waves of emotion – sadness because she was my favorite aunt and we always laughed together. And then anger at my cousin, who I am certain killed her mom. She had made her change her life insurance policy a month before she “fell down the stairs.” I confronted my cousin about it and of course she denied it, but, worse, cried her crocodile tears to the whole family. Now I’m a pariah – my own mother said she wouldn’t talk to me unless I apologized. But I wouldn’t. She killed my aunt. I didn’t have a way to prove it, but I can’t pretend I don’t know what really happened.
“Miss Taylor?” Michael asked, snapping me out of my reverie.
“Yes, Michael?”
“Miss Taylor, your aunt said to tell you you’re right.”