The Breathing Ghost

Where the Stygian gloom swallows the air.

Photo by Hudson McNamara on Unsplash

This wretched abode is a trapped planet, orbiting the ghost of a sun, where the gloaming has long since surrendered to a Stygian gloom that swallows the very air.

Inside, every clock is frozen at twenty-to-nine and the calendar has never moved - its edges yellowed and silverfish-bitten, devouring the very dates that no longer matter.

I am only reminded it is Sunday afternoon when I sit in the yellowed remnants of my lace to peep at the world, watching the townspeople in their Sunday best - crisp and colorful - as they drift toward the church nearby for their own version of comfort.

The bell remains alive, the ghost in the machine still performing its Sunday ritual. It is a heartless piece of iron that never fails.

It never failed to remind me of the world's progress, not even during that sharp instant when my own roof finally surrendered to its rotting structure. It rang then, too - a cruel, mechanical jab at my ruin.

It began with a crack, followed by the roar of falling debris, and then that dying noise - the trickling of dust, the groaning of timber as it settled, and the long, low whistle of air escaping the crushed space.

It sounded like a life dragged on too long in ailment - a final, deathbed whisper that had been held in a dying body, only to be smothered by the weight of the end and shut down forever.

People would just throw a glance, and they went on about their lives.

Only the man across the street watched from behind his faded grand curtains, treating my ruin like a great show for his own amusement - a freakshow for the town to watch the rot for entertainment.

Then came the fire. The banquet hall entrance was torched while the world drifted into a deep, indifferent slumber, its destruction only revealed when the twilight finally bled into the sky.

The culprit remained a mystery buried in the ash of the burn, until the scorched entrance was replaced. It was then he appeared - dancing and mocking, a manic silhouette admitting to the blaze.

He was a vagrant I had allowed to sleep on my porch, yet he chose to ignite his shelter.

To me, every man is the same man; every betrayal is the original betrayal. He was just another ingrate, another Compeyson - another bitter reminder that every good deed is destined for punishment.

Then one night, as I sat in a shadowed corner of the wreckage, a thief crept through the heavy musk of this place.

Scavenging through the cold cinders for non-existent treasures, he is the poor man's tomb raider who has broken into the wrong grave - never realizing the dead was still undead, watching from this breathing tomb.

He didn't even see me; I was invisible to his greedy eyes, a ghost among the charred ribs of the hall.

He was too consumed by his own triumph as he unearthed a piece of blackened silver and a shriveled shard of dried pineapple from the aborted wedding feast - which, to me, looked like a sooted monstrous gargoyle's scale.

I watched him vanish into the dark, and a flicker of pity stirred: I only hope my curse won't pass to him.

It is a comic tragedy; he is trapped by poverty and desperation, while I am trapped by memory and the Stygian past. Being relieved from those would never allow me to take a flight to apricity with my lead feet either.

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©Britt H.

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