Annemarie opened the door and was for a second blinded, this room was not as well lit as the room down stairs and the hall had been. Annemarie, lacking the insight that a narrator must of course have to tell a story, at first didn’t realize that she wasn’t alone in the room. It wasn’t until the man moved that Annemarie noticed him, after all he was wearing black and therefore blended in with the shadows. Well that and he was actually vaguely transparent, that’s right, finally the ghost has arrived in this story.
He wasn’t a scary ghost, he wasn’t wearing old fashioned clothing, everyone knows there is nothing more frightening then a man wearing Macaroni fashions, and he wasn’t very old looking either nor was he very young. Everyone knows that the elderly and children are also terrifying. He looked as if he was, or should I say had been, about seventeen or eighteen, and was extremely modern looking.
“Hey, how’re you?” he asked, raising a hand in salutation.
“Do I know you?” Annemarie demanded. She was about to say something else when the fact that he was transparent struck her and she started to back away. He noticed, being dead makes you very good at observing the living, having not much better to do. He darted forward and swung at her, his fist went right through her head as if nothing had happened.
“See, I can’t do anything to you even if I wanted to, just pretend you are talking to a movie if it makes you feel better, and no we’ve never met. I think I would see you every once in a while when my friends and I would go to get soft serve ice cream but that’s it.”
I could leave the description of the man up to Annemarie, but as previously mentioned narrators have better eyesight and are able to tell you things normal humans can’t. I am sure that the reader will like it better therefore if I actually do my job, especially since I know far more then Annemarie could ever know about the man in question, or boy if you like that better. He’s only, or should I say was only, ghosts make tenses tricky, eighteen and that makes the distinction between man and boy a little tricky as well. I could of course call him a teenager, but I have a strange prejudice against that word in a written description and everyone is allowed their oddities. Because of the awkwardness about how to address him, I will just tell you his name, that’s easier. His name is Daray.
Daray is a total Goth guy, wears all black baggy clothing, hair dyed black and with bangs that hang over his eyes; he even still has headphones around his neck, though they no longer produce sound. If you failed to notice the way light passes through him you probably would expect to find him the in back of a high school class. Contrary to popular belief ghosts don’t always wear the same clothing they died in, that would get boring after a while and ghosts don’t like boredom anymore then any other thinking creature. Daray keeps up on fashion by sticking his head through the boarded up windows and seeing what it is that the people who are walking past are wearing. He has always loved the Goth look though, in life and death, and therefore sticks to black as a color scheme. The headphones are a comfort thing; he grew so used to them that he can’t be parted from them even now.
Having described a black wearing downer kid I must do justice to Daray, he didn’t, I repeat didn’t, commit suicide. I know that is everyone’s instant assumption when they think of ghosts in general and especially teenage Goth ghosts. He was hit by a car while crossing a street, he didn’t hear it coming thanks to the headphones, you would think that he would learn his lesson about the headphone thing. I have wandered far away from what is actually happening in the story though, so back to Daray and Annemarie.
“So why exactly do you want to see me?” Annemarie has been asking for the last two paragraphs, you just don’t know it because I didn’t mention it before.
To be continued...
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