The Ghost (unfinished)

Faces appear, always familiar, but I never know them. I always think I do. I think I'm in a parallel universe dipping in and out of each side. Never belonging to either world.
I sit on the outside, always watching. Always listening. But I'm never involved.
A lady stops me and asks me the time. I want to start a conversation, but I don't. I want to talk to people, but I don't. I'm not good at small talk. I prefer to be deep, but not many people like that, particularly if you don't know them.

I like the insane. I'd be happy working in a mental hospital where people hear voices and see things no one else sees. Perhaps they're from a parallel universe too. Who can tell?
Perhaps the insane are perfectly normal and everyone else isn't. Cats stare at things that are not there, and dogs bark at things we cannot hear. Are they mad too?

I am a ghost, who watches the world go by and people walk right through. I observe people's daily lives, but never get involved. I see the middle-aged woman across the road walking her dog every morning. She has a little Jack Russell, who trots along on his tiny legs as fast as he can to keep up with his owners amble.
I watch the man two doors down go out with his wife who wears sunglasses during the winter and long clothes in the summer.
A harassed mother pushes a pram up the road with a little boy trailing behind. She looks exhausted at half past eight in the morning.

I sit in my group that I go to three times a week and listen to the haunting stories of its members. Some of them make you want to cry for the lives they've lost. But others make you want to scream at them.
I'm not telling people my story although they say it will help. Help me move on and the voices may disappear. But I worry what will happen then. The voices keep me company. They're from my parallel world. They tell me what to do when I can't make decisions. I don't think I can live with the silence.

The woman with the scarf is talking about the disaster she's having with her son in law. I'm trying to work out what the disaster is, but I can only tell that he has bought a whole load of logs for the open fire they didn't need. He's inside her head she says. She wishes he and her daughter would find somewhere else to live and leave her alone. She says she doesn't need looking after.

A man with the jittery knee is contemplating suicide again. I want to get out. I feel suffocated with the depression and paranoia around me. I don't want to help them get better. They don't even want to get better.
The idea is the people who are coming to the end of their year's therapy will help the lost souls who have just arrived. But there's no obvious difference between them.

I have been here for three months and still haven't told them anything about me. I clam up and my mouth cannot be prised open. I'm too busy listening to the voices who tell me that they will hate me if I speak.
I listen to the girl who was beaten by her father and then married at sixteen to be beaten by her husband. What kind of life is that? My problems are nothing like the others. I wasn't abused as a child, or as an adult. In some ways, being invisible is far easier. At least if no one can see me, I can't be hurt.

A woman in her forties talks about the anger of not having her own children. She was too wrapped up in looking after her crack-addicted partner and suddenly she realised she'd left it too late. The drug-addict boyfriend is dead.
And all this is supposed to help? I crave the comfort of my empty flat as the counsellors draws the group to a close.

My heart lifts when it's time to go. And I leave unnoticed while the others have their small-talk and goodbyes.
I wonder if I bumped into anyone, would they notice? Would they feel bone, muscle and body against them, or a soft breeze flutter against their arm? Would they look around at the quietness and shiver?

At home I sit at the window and watch the people live their lives in front of me.

© 2010 Melissa Crow. All Rights Reserved.