“You all want to hear how it ends?”
“Yes!”
Powered by an accumulation of two hours of sleep a night,
the young lady was determined to solve this mystery once and for all. Corralling the neighbor’s cousin into her
kitchen for tea and cake, she learned that Dad (real name: Moe) was now living
in the next town over, and the cousin gladly gave her his work number that she
randomly happened to have. Overtired
beyond the point of embarrassment, social courtesy, or restraint, the young
lady later called Moe’s office and convinced him to meet her in a nearby café on
his lunch hour to address an issue about his former home, which was true. He only was slightly startled by her
red-rimmed eyes, for they matched his own.
He also looked about 20 years older than she was used to seeing him
every night, but she thought that would be rude to mention.
“So, Dad,” she started off, tapping her coffee mug
incessantly. “I mean, Moe, I need to
know, where’d you and your family go?”
She barely suppressed an urge to giggle at her rhymes.
“Go? You mean,
when we moved out?”
“Yep-yep-yep-yep-yep!”
“Well, after the divorce my ex-wife took the kids to the
East Coast and I moved to an apartment here by work.”
“Oh? You all broke
up?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way; I still see them a lot. So what’s wrong with the house? It was fine when we left and there’ve been
other owners since. You can’t get me on
mold!”
“Oh, the house is lovely, couldn’t have asked for
better. It’s just that you and your
family keep me up every night and I need to know WHY. Since, obviously, you all aren’t ghosts.”
“Wait – what?”
She gave a brief rundown of what she’d been seeing. He thought this over for a few moments as she
nibbled on a scone.
“Well, I don’t know how you know all this about my
family, and you seem almost normal, so I will tell you one thing: when the kids
were the ages you described, those were the best years of our lives. We were happy and it seemed like nothing
could go wrong. Then the goldfish died
and it all went to pot. If you’re
actually telling the truth, then I guess you’re really being haunted by life –
I suppose it could be worse. I almost wish I could see it, but I don’t think I could step foot in that place again.” He paid for both of them and left her staring
into space.
When she went back home, she cleaned up a bit and had
dinner before sitting on the couch around midnight, nibbling on the rest of her
scone and waiting for the haunting to begin.
Mom, Dad, Kevin, Julie, and the goldfish (the only legitimate ghost in
the bunch) appeared for their nightly routines of playing games, reading,
listening to music, and/or watching the television. The young lady noticed that they did look
content with their lives, a nice bubble of almost-perfection making her
nostalgic for her own childhood, which had been pretty decent. She went to her bedroom, turned on her newly
purchased white-noise machine, and settled into her new bed, accepting her fate of
being haunted by life.
As she had been told, it could be worse.
THE
END
“So, was that scary enough for you?” The little girl raised her hand. “Yes?”
“It started out scary, then just got weird. And sad.”
Nods all around, with one voice asking “What’s ‘real estate’?” and hushed.
“Well, that’s life, children,” The Storyteller
stood. “You don’t always get what you
want. Happy Halloween!”
The crowd slowly filed out to go home and get ready for
trick-or-treating. The Storyteller made
herself a pot of coffee at a table as one of the parents approached her.
“I have to say, that was the most… unusual ghost story I’ve
ever heard.”
“Hmm,” The Storyteller sipped from her mug. “Thank you.”
“I’m curious – where do you get your ideas?”
“Life.” She held
out a plate with a slightly shaking hand.
“Scone?”
