SHORT STORY: "I Ghost", by D. Gardner

I, ghost

by, D. Gardner

            I am not, by nature, a man prone to fancies.  Nor am I superstitious, or have I had any real belief in the so-called supernatural.  So what I am about to put to paper – a ghost’s story – I do so with not a small amount of trepidation.

As I begin this writing, it almost feels as if I am destroying the last vestiges of my remaining sanity.  For, I must admit, I do question my own sanity in this matter.  Yet, what I have seen I have seen, and what I have heard – well, I shall leave for you to judge the veracity of it.

It began at that gawd-awful hour of midnight, the twenty-third of this month, and not but three hours ago.  I was about to take myself to sleep.  Since I work the late shift and get home no earlier than ten-thirty, I would normally stay awake until nearly two a.m., when you decent folk have already been asleep several hours.

Tonight, however, my dinner had settled uncomfortably in my stomach and I thought to sleep it off, if I could.

As you have probably guessed, my stomach was to have none of that!  After a rather nasty and prolonged pain wracked my stomach, I got out of bed to search my medicine cabinet for a seltzer.  At last finding it, I slammed the cabinet door shut – and that's when it all began.

Believe me or not (and even now, I am not sure I do), I saw an apparition's reflection in the mirror!  How, you might ask, did I know it was an apparition?  I knew what it was by the simple fact that I could see straight through its human guise!

It was a man – or at least it assumed a man's form.  I guessed it to be about thirty five years of age by looks, roughly a decade and a half younger than I.  He was dressed in what seemed rather rustic clothing, something a stylish man might have worn, say, in the late forties.  His hair was done in waves; or perhaps it was naturally wavy.  In either case, it was blond; a dull blond.  His face was weather-worn, like someone who had spent his life outside, perhaps as a fisherman.  There was no gray in his hair, and his body – what I could see of it – looked quite fit.

All this I noticed in but an instant:  It is a writer's talent – or curse.  Then, shock overtook me and I spun about.  Just like a well- (or poorly-) written spook story, there was nothing there, of course.  I looked quickly back into the mirror, but the spirit was no longer visible.

Oddly, I felt a bit disappointed at that.  After all, I'd spent the past fifty years on this planet, and not once have I seen something so absolutely extraordinary!  I've often read the Tabloids which exploit the stories of the many people who claim to have seen flying saucers, those that converse regularly with aliens from the planet Cryptonius.  I've read of sightings of the Dog-boy, Bigfoot, Unicorns, and so much more!  It's enough to make one (at least me) feel that he (I) has (have) led such a… boring life! 

I remember sighing heavily, resigning myself to my fate of loneliness and commonness. I walked into the kitchen, took a glass out of the cupboard and began filling it with water for my seltzer.

"Ah, to drink water again!"

The sudden voice startled me so!  The glass dropped from my hand and shattered in the sink.  I turned quickly – and there my apparition stood!

"Who… who are you?" I stammered.

"Me?" He seemed to have to think a moment on that one.  Then his face brightened and he smiled at me.  "Captain Gannon Bridges at your service, kind sir."  And he actually saluted me!

I guess I was a bit befuddled, for I found myself saluting him back!  "Captain?" asked I. "You are young for a ship's captain, are you not?"

"Aye, I am," he replied, though he seemed to think better of it.  "Er… I mean I was, that is.  You see, I was the Captain of a tugboat named the Minotaur.  She was privately owned.

"I confess I won the job from the owner, the widower Mrs. Tolliver, more with my loins than my skill, mind you."  He gave me a conspiratorial wink at that and, despite the oddness of the present circumstances, it made me laugh.

"And you are dead, are you not?"  I asked him outright.

"Hmm?  Oh, yes!  Yes, indeed.  Fact is I've been dead for about thirty years now, if I count the time correctly."  He went on to explain, "Of course, time doesn't really pass for me; not that I'd notice.  And thank you for being so kind to keep an updated calendar above your desk!"

I nodded.  The spirit – Captain Bridges, I should call him – then turned and walked – no, floated would be the better term – into the other room.  What was I to do but be an hospitable host to my dead visitor?  I followed him in.  Confusion, rather than fear, filled me from head to soul.

My flat has only three rooms; the kitchen and bathroom of course; then there's the main room.  Here I have a bed, a small couch, a television I could ill-afford but bought anyway three years ago, and my wonderful desk.

Upon said desk it my pride and joy, an IBM Selectric typewriter.  I've owned her for the past seven years.  I keep her in tip-top shape.  There is, I know, a newer model on the market now, but I prefer my beloved prize, whom has so lovingly assisted me in my never-ending endeavor to be a successful writer.

You see, I fancy myself a good writer, though I've yet to prove it to the world at large.  A few of the stories I've penned over the years have made their way to publication.  These infrequent sales have helped keep me afloat over the years; that, and jobs such as I have now, as the night clerk at the Quickie-Mart Convenience Store just down the road a piece.

At this very typewriter, I have spent better than half the time I've been in this apartment, and that includes sleep.

"I say," I asked my ghostly visitor, "I've lived here for the past seventeen years – "

"Oh, I know!" he interrupted rather enthusiastically, "And a good tenant you've been!  I've so loved your stories.  Hope you don't mind knowing, but I have been reading over your shoulder as you write."

"Oh?  Um… no, of course not.  That's quite all right." I offered up what I hoped sounded like a good-hearted chuckle and added, "After all, a writer writes in the hope that someone might actually read his work, does he not?"

"Surely, surely! And you are certainly a good writer!" the ghost boasted of me.  I smiled and thanked him; I could feel my face turn a bit red.

"But sir," continued I, "why is it, in all this time, I have neither seen nor heard hide, hair, nor sound of you before this?"

"Oh, that."  Until that moment, I had never heard anyone tell of, nor would I have believed in, a blushing spirit!  "You see," he explained shyly, "I have never quite got the hand of – the knack, if you will – of being a poltergeist."

"Oh?"

The captain shook his head.  "Can't lift a thing," he lamented, and demonstrated by thrusting his incorporeal hand through the pencil holder on my desk, making a motion as though he would have picked it up.  Only, he couldn't.  "And I've never been able to make contact with the living."

"Until now," I commented.

"Hmm?"

"Until now.  You have finally made contact – with me!"

"Oh, yes!  Right-o!" he said, nodding his head enthusiastically.  "At long last, I can speak to you!  Oh, I've had so much to say to you over the years!  Advice… Questions… Comments on your marvelous stories!  Oh, how I've longed to speak to you!"

"I suppose that very longing it the reason you can speak to me now?" I offered.

"Perhaps it is," he replied, repeatedly nodding his ghostly head, "perhaps it is."

"So tell me," I began again, after a pause in our conversation, "how did you come to dwell here?" I was surprised at how easily I was taking to all of this.  There was, after all, a real ghost in my flat!  But then, I suppose in my mind, I still felt that this was probably just a dream, vivid though it was, brought on by those horrible clams I'd eaten.  And besides, I certainly did not feel the least bit threatened by my late-night visitor.

"Well," began he with a long sigh, "you remember the widow I spoke to you of? The one that went and made me the Captain of the Minotaur?"

"Yes."

"Well, you see, this house was originally hers."

"Really?"

"Indeed!" the Captain confirmed.  "It was built in Nineteen thirty-eight, by her then husband.  He'd been eight years younger than her; quite an odd marriage in those days, mind you.

"When the war came, he got called up.  As a man of wealth (he'd inherited it all from his father, of course), he could easily have bought his way out of the thick of it.  To his eternal credit though, he did not.  He was (and I begrudge him not) an honorable and admirable man.

"He went to Europe, after serving nearly two years at a State-side camp.  He survived the horrors of the Normandy Invasion, only to take a bullet to the temple three weeks later, some-where in the center of France.  Poor chap lived even after that – seven days, I'm told!

"Way I heard it, he finally died of starvation.  He'd been the whole time in a coma, and there was not adequate doctoring or equipment, of course.  He had hung tenaciously to life, but finally gave it up.  I read the letter they sent to his widow.  Even up to the end, his vitals looked fine, even though he were in a coma.

"Anyway, it were nearly two years after the war that I met Mrs. Tolliver.  She'd already converted half this house into a bed-and-breakfast.  She still resided in the other half.  Done it mostly for something to do, she did.  She really didn't need the money, what with her husband's estate left to her.

"I'd been working on the Lolli-Lady, a tub in the fleet of six tug boats owned by one of her late husband's companies.  It were one of the few companies she hadn't yet sold off, though she couldn't have explained why she kept such a filthy, manly company.

"So that's how I met her.  She was on the docks that day, inspecting the boats as they'd come in.  A mere formality – the good woman didn't really know what she was doing, or even looking at.  But it makes for good relations for the crews to see the owner from time-to-time.

"I was in conversation with Nick Remey, a pub-going friend of mine.  I didn't even realize she had made it onto our ship, yet.  So there I was, telling Nicky how I'd just lost my apartment above the Ritz – which you may or may not know burnt down that week.  I was wondering if Nicky could put me up for a few nights, until I found a place to stay.

"Before Nicky could answer, I heard a woman's voice – and you didn't hear a feminine voice aboard a ship much in those days.  So I weren't slow to realize it was the boss-lady herself!  She tells me, 'It just so happens that a room at the Lost Wharf has just come open.'  That's what she called this place back then, the Lost Wharf.  Odd, I always thought.

"I was so confuddled; it was all I could do to stammer a question about the rent.  Well, the price she quoted me was such a break, I nearly burst out in joyous song!

"It was at that moment, however, that I saw here looking at me rather queerly.  I understood then, just why I'd gotten such a good deal!  The woman had taken a fancy to me!"

He paused as if for affect, or perhaps to see if I believed him.  It wasn't hard to; he was a handsome man, if one might say as much of another.  He was well built and obviously had a decent education.  I nodded and he continued.

"I don't believe I'd lived three days of my tenancy in this very room, before she came to me.  Oh, she made some pretense about problems with the pipes – we had steam heat back then, mind you."  We both looked over at the still present – thought functionless – heating unit once serviced by a gigantic steam heater in the basement.  "But, she offered no resistance when I come up behind her and put my hands on her svelte hips.

"She continued to ramble on about the heating, as though oblivious to me, even as I kissed the back of her neck.  One of her hands came up and took hold of the back of my head, but still she rambled nervously on.

"I slipped my hands around to her belly and, as she spoke about the possibility of over-heating such a small room, she placed her other hand gently over mine.  Next thing I knew, we were kissing each other passionately.  She was crying, telling me she'd never been with another man save her husband.  I could not imagine it!  A half dozen years without!"  He looked incredulous and shook his mop of blond hair.

I found I had, out of habit, taken a seat at my desk.  The ghost had chosen to remain standing all this time; though I doubt it would really make a difference to him.

"I know they only converted the other half of this place a few years before I moved in," I told him.  By 'they' I meant the realty corporation which had purchased the place.  "It was renamed the Flamingo Place Apartments.  I suppose you'd been – dead – a while by then?" I hoped I hadn't sounded too tactless.

"Yes," he replied, and nodded for some time, reminiscing.  Eventually, he spoke again.  "About two years – no, a bit less than that, I suppose.  About that much time after I had moved in here is when I died.  Right there."  He pointed at my bed.

Despite myself, this disturbed me a good bit.  My bed!  I looked over at it, but since the light fails in that corner, I could only barely make it and the clump of sheets and blankets I'd left on it.  I gulped several times.

Suddenly the ghost laughed.  "Please, Mister Seymour!" I was startled to hear him use my name, for I had not given it to him! Then, I remembered he had admitted reading over my shoulder.  I always sign my works with my full name:  John Harold Seymour.  "Surely you don't think you sleep in a thirty year-old bed?  Why, don't you remember?  All the furniture was brand new when you moved in!"

I slapped my own forehead.  "That's right!  Why, even the paint was fresh.  And they'd just put in new carpets as well."

"And charged you a pretty penny for the place, if you ask me!" The Captain sounded quite indignant.  "Why, the gentleman before you, a Mr. Archibald, paid a third less a month for this place!"

"I suppose they had to pay for the new furniture," I laughed.

The ghost laughed as well.  "That is what I've always liked about you, Mr. Seymour!  You never let things get you down.  Even your stories are full of hope and charm!"

"I'll write one just for you, quite soon!" I promised.

"Ah!" he exclaimed with delight.  "That would indeed be wonderful!  After all this time of silence… do you think you could write my true story?  Someone who can manipulate the typewriter the way you can; why, it would be like making up for all thirty-or-so years of my silence!"

I slammed the desk top with open palms.  "I'll do it!  Why, no one will believe it of course.  But still, your story is a good one, and it shall be told!  And I… I shall have another story to sell!"

"Wonderful!  Wonderful!"

"I'd offer you half," I told him, "but I suppose in your current condition, you haven't much need for money!"

He laughed so heartily at this, I figured it must have been the best joke he'd heard in… thirty years!  Smiling wide, I took paper and pen out of the top side drawer and made myself notes to catch up to where we were in the story.

"So tell me the rest," I implored Captain Bridges.  "At least as goes your life here, with the widow Mrs. Tolliver."

"Oh, yes; my yes!  I'd love to."  He cleared his throat (odd how even after death he continues the habits of life!) and then did sit down.  He sat on the edge of my bed.  Actually, truth be told, he'd miscalculated and was actually sitting about two inches above the bed.  But, for a ghost, that seemed to me quite proper.

"Where was I?  Oh, yes.  Three days after I'd come here to live, Mrs. Tolliver and I became lovers.  It was a very… how do you say it now-days?  A very hot romance!  We made love practically every night.  It never ceased to amaze me that she didn't care one rat's tail about the talk that went on, nor who saw her steal into my room at night.

"It was not six months after our affair began that old Captain Ripley, of the Minotaur, up and died.  Right nice of him, of course; but hardly unexpected, seeing as he was in his seventies.  Good to know though, he was permitted to die on the very sea he'd spent his life upon.  He was a Navy man, you see.  Retired from the Navy shortly after the first World War.  Went right from there to working for the widow's husband's father.  Worked with us straight through 'til his timely death."

The Captain chuckled.  Oh my, how I do go on!  This is supposed to be my story, isn't it?  Not Captain Ripley's; though I dare say in all honesty, his story would probably be a mite more of an interest than mine!"

We both laughed at that.  I said, "Perhaps I'll write his story another day, using you as my primary source.  But for now, I shall indeed write your story!"

He looked at me then with sad, thoughtful eyes.  "How very kind you are! You may not realize it, but you're a rare beast.  So few men – in either your time or mine – have such a kind, warm heart.  I've oft wished I had been more of that kind of man."

He seemed to be reminiscing, so I said nothing; merely waited.  After a time, he shook himself out of his reveries and continued his story.

"Well, you can imagine the consternation it caused among the other men when I was assigned as Captain of the Minotaur.  Yet, I'd had nearly twenty years of experience on the sea by then.  I was a hand on my Uncle's fishing boat when I was a teen.  I'd even served in the War.  My duty had been the South Pacific, on a battleship.  I volunteered in 'forty-one, just a few days after Pearl Harbor.

"Our ship saw plenty of action.  I was on a gun crew, so my hearing was a bit impaired by the time I'd finished my four years of duty and returned to a civilian life."  He canted his head to one side and said, "Odd, but death seems to have cured my poor hearing!"  He winked at me and we laughed again.

"Anyway, Mrs. Tolliver and I had no problems communicating.  And since I could hear decently out of my left ear, I had no real problems at sea.  Life had turned out good.

"In but a few months, I had earned the respect of the crew, despite my youthfulness and company tenure – or lack thereof.  Truth was, there were younger tug-boat Captains.  My relationship with the boss – which was well known by then – became a non-factor.  In fact, we soon fancied ourselves the best of the six boats in the company, and took pride in that!  Our ship was always the cleanest, fastest, and most efficient – as well as best serviced.  To this day, I believe I proved I was worthy of my questionably-received Captainship."

I smiled.  I had been taking notes on the pad I'd brought out so I wouldn't forget anything.  Now, it occurred to me that I was so enthralled by my unsuspected roommate, that I knew I could never forget a single word he spoke!

"So now," the Captain continued, "we come to the moment of my death."  He sighed heavily.  "All during our love affair, I'd tried to convince Mrs. Tolliver to marry me.  I cared not a cent for her money; I had been, in truth, deeply and totally in love with her since the first night we were together.

"But, as I suppose a rich woman should be, she was concerned about my 'true intentions'.  Was I only after her money?  Did I truly love her, as I told her over and over, and not exclusively in the thralls of passion?

"Six days before my untimely death, we were sitting at a table that occupied the space your desk now takes up."  Here he stopped, I suppose to reflect.

"When you moved in," he restarted, "they had put a new eating table there."

"Yes," I confirmed.  "A rather small one – a two-seater.  But, I asked the manager to take it away so I could put a desk in here.  I made a good deal on this beauty," I tapped on the top of my beloved wooden desk, "but as you can see, it's quite large and I knew there wouldn't be much room left over."

"No, there's not," Captain Bridges agreed with a smile.

"Well, I've been happy with the place," I finished lamely.  I suddenly realized I didn't tell stories about myself very well.  I could have told him of my search for the Perfect Desk; how I'd about given up hope of finding it.  How at last I'd discovered this beauty in an out-of-the-way shop that only advertised nick-knacks, yet also had several fine pieces of restored old furniture.  I could have told the Captain how the salesperson had been so… oh, never mind.  I, too, seem to have forgotten:  This is Captain Bridge's story.  Mine, I'll save for another day still.  The Captain was speaking again.

"I remember that I was indignant you would do such a thing!  I mean, the table had been a fine one – all the furniture as.  The table had even reminded me of the one my love and I often ate at.  'Why,' thought I, 'would a decent man not want to eat his meals at a proper table?'"

He chuckled again.  "Well, I saw soon enough you do all right at meal times!  You seemed a fine cook and made out well, eating and writing at the same time."

I laughed at this.  It was all true, of course.  When I was writing, I wouldn't let even my need for nourishment slow me down much!  I was finding I really liked this Captain.

"Where was I?" the ghost reflected.  "Oh, yes!  Six days before my death.  My lady and I were seated at the table.  We were eating some sweet cakes she'd brought, and drinking some rather exotic tea I'd got down at the docks.  We had already made love (thought of course, I was hoping for another bout).  I remember I looked up into her eyes and saw her beaming at me.  Love!  I could see it in her eyes.  She loved me!  I believe I would have openly cried, had the silence gone on.

"Then she said to me, 'yes darling, I love you.' As though she had read my mind!  Oh, how I loved her then!  I shouted – literally shouted, mind you – 'marry me!  I love you with all my soul!  Be my wife!'  And, to my everlasting amazement, she replied, 'Of course, darling.  That's just what I meant.  Yes, I will marry you.  I love you.'

"Oh, how my heart was filled with joy!"  Here, my new-found companion got up from the bed and rushed about the room as he spoke in a quickened tongue.  "The next days were a blur of activity!  We had decided to marry in naught but a fortnight.  Neither of us were willing to endure being separated by living arrangements anymore!  There was so much to plan, though.

"She saw to renting a place – the old Warren Theater, I believe, is what she finally decided on.  We both had lots of friends (who were not the least surprised by our announcement) and we could not forget to invite a single one of them!  It became my duty to address and mail the invites, for, she told me, I had 'beautiful penmanship'.

“A minister friend of hers had agreed to perform the ceremony.  The mates of all her ships were demanding front-row seats of which, of course, there were far from enough!  And I had a hell of a time deciding upon a Best Man!  I’d finally chosen Anton, my good friend and First Mate, but…”  Here he sat once again (and once again miscalculated) upon the edge of my bed in the dark side of the room.  “…but I never got the chance to tell him!”  His voice was much smaller now, and filled with such sorrow, I thought I would cry.

“Late that afternoon,” he continued, “I dropped off the last of the invitations to the Post.  I wasn’t expecting to see my lady that evening, for she had promised to spend the whole night at her best friend’s house, outside of town.

“So, I came home and made myself a bachelor’s meal.”  He smiled at me.  “You know – spam, green beans from a can, bread, tomatoes and a beer.”

“Oh!”  I exclaimed.  “One of my favorite lunches!”

“Aha!” he nearly shouted.  “So I have noticed.  Imagine, if you will, my surprise to discover your favorite lunch had been my very last meal!”  He was smiling as he said this, but it threw me for a loop.  I suddenly felt very sad, and even a bit ashamed.

“No matter,” said he, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Anyway, afterwards, I lay down.  I kept my bed just where yours is now, of course; no other decent place for one.  Perhaps if I’d been a more careful cook…” He shook his head.

“A lot of bachelors die that way,” he said softly.  “Or so said the Chief of Firemen, when he came to survey the damage.  You see, I’d left the fire on under the skillet!  Could have sworn I turned it off, but there you have it.  I’d not paid enough attention – perhaps I’d merely turned it down and thought I’d turned it off.

“The skillet caught fire, but the fire never left the stove.  However, it poured out black smoke, and that was my demise.”  Again he shook his head and smiled sadly.

“Stupid way for a man to die, it is not?” he asked me.  I didn’t know how to answer him.  “Here I was, only a week away from marrying the True Love of My Life, and I die of smoke inhalation.

“Fortunately, we have a good and efficient Fire Department.  When a neighbor smelled the smoke, they called it in immediately. A couple of chaps even tried to force open the door, but in those days a door was a door!  It was meant to keep things out and in this case it unfortunately did.  The door proved too strong for them.

“Of course, the firemen had axes. They arrived quickly and broke their way into the apartment.  They got things taken care of rather quickly; but for me, it was too late.

“I had a first-hand view of it all!  It was an odd feeling at first, knowing I was dead.  There was my body upon the bed, and the room filled with smoke and firemen and looky-loo’s at the door. I watched it all in a stunned daze.”

I breathed out heavily, only then realizing I’d held that breath a rather long time!  “It’s quite a story!” I told him.  “How… er… did Mrs. Tolliver take it?”

For several seconds, he said nothing.  Then he shrugged his ghostly shoulders and said, “Badly, I suppose.  She never returned here.  I’d hoped she would.  Even though I quickly discovered I could not make contact with the living, I felt certain, somehow, that if she would but come, I could speak to her!”

He then looked at me shyly.  “You truly think it’s quite a story, eh?  I always thought it was rather a common one.”

“Not when told from the view of the victim!” I assured him.  He smiled at that.

“I am so fortunate,” said he, “to have found someone who can manipulate things so well!”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Only that you shall use that thing,” he pointed at my typewriter, “to tell my story!  And I already know how fine a writer you are!”

“Well, thank you,” I responded.  “And that is exactly what I shall do; tell your story.  In fact, I do not think I could sleep tonight until I finish typing it all out!  I find I’m not tired at all, and even my stomach seems to have calmed down!”

He laughed lightly, nodding his head.  “Oh, to be heard again!” he sang.  “To be able to communicate with another!  It is so grand, I assure you, my friend!”

“You must feel free to communicate with me anytime you wish!” I told him, and felt it was the absolute truth I felt; I was not just saying it to be polite.

“Well enough!  I shall do so.”  He stood up once more.”  But for now, I shall take my leave of you.  I know you prefer solitude and quiet when you are writing.  Have I not seen you turn off the television before you start on a story often enough?  I shall leave you to your work.”

“Very well.”

“I am sure, Master Seymour,” he said in a softer, friendly tone, “that our relationship shall be a long and amicable one!”

“Oh, of course!”  I stood too.  “Consider me your new Best Friend!”  I smiled, and meant to extend my hand to shake his, but he suddenly saluted me again – then vanished into thin air!

            For several minutes, I but stood there.  Did this really happen?  Was it all true?  The facts could be easily researched of course, but what, exactly, had just happened to me?  Had I truly been visited by the ghost of a previous occupant of my room, or was it but an hallucination?  The end of a dream, discovered upon waking?  A fiction caused by bad clams?

            It matters not, in the end.  The story is a good one, and I knew I must put it at once to paper lest, as is the wont of dreams, it disappears from my mind!

            I sat down and began to type.  I was like a madman!  The words – the exact conversation – so easily came to my mind!  My fingers danced over the keys.  I am a fast and accurate typist normally, but tonight it was as if the Devil himself had taken control of me; I could not be stopped!

           

            It is morning now.  The sun spreads its rays through the small and sole window in this apartment only in the first few hours of the day.  They fall right upon the desk.

            These are the last words I shall type, for now.  Despite finding I am not the least tired (my adrenalin must be working on overtime), I must lie down.  If I do not get some rest, I’ll be no good at work tonight.  I shall force myself to get a little sleep.

            It has been quite an evening, though; the most exciting of my life!  It was a good tale, and in the telling of it I feel a great peace, joy, and even invigoration.  This evening, I hope my friend shall return.  I wish him to review and give his opinion on the story as I have written it.

            Besides; he must have a plethora of stories to tell, and I am most anxious to hear them all!

            Goodnight.

            Oh, the Lord is a cruel God!  What is this!  What unjustly thing has happened!

            I was to bed.  I lay down.  Not tired, and certainly not unawares.  Just as I lay my head to my pillow, I leapt back up – for someone was already in the bed!

            What intruder has come! I thought, and looked for a weapon.  Then a second thought occurred to me.  Perhaps the man in the bed was none other than Captain Bridges!  The ghost come to give me a fright?  Yet, had he not told me he could not manipulate his surroundings as a poltergeist might?  Then again, I remembered that before last night, he’d never been able to communicate with the living at all!  Perhaps the good Captain was merely experimenting with his new-found talents?

            Oh, what vanity have I!

            “Who is there?” I demanded.  Then, in a softer voice, “Captain Bridges, is that you?”  But here, I remembered, the Captain was a well-built, stout man and surely larger than the small statured person who now hid under my sheets!

            Finally, my courage came to me.  “I’ll have you!” I shouted, and roughly pulled back the covers.

            Oh, what horror I did reveal!

            For the figure repasting in my bed was none other than my own!

            No breath comes from those nostrils anymore.  No longer shall those eyes behold the beauty of day or evening.  No more shall those hands caress a woman’s breast, or the petals of a rose, so alike.

            The Captain is standing behind me now, as I type – no, manipulate – these final words.  He speaks not, but lays a comforting hand upon my shoulder.  He is a true friend in need.

            I laugh softly, as I realize the Captain’s words are so surely true.

            He and I shall endure a long and amicable relationship!

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