Earthly Ghosts May 18, 2012

May 18, 2012

So, it turns out I’m haunted

(adj)

1. (of a place) frequented by a ghost
2. having or showing signs of mental anguish or torment

The “place,” in this case, being my head. The “signs” including but not limited to cuticle biting, eye twitching, intermittent spells of spasticity and lassitude, anxiety (more or less constant), nightmares, night sweats, night terrors, and a fascination with death.

Far from being alarmed by said haunting, I am in fact quite relieved; I’ve known since pre-language toddlerhood that there was something other inhabiting the soft tissue encased in the slowly fusing bone mass that would become my skull. How nice, after all these years, to be able to address this suddenly concrete and thus assailable entity.

An aside: wouldn’t it be cool to find out that somewhere within the recesses of your body, perhaps buried deep within your liver or your spleen, there lurked a twin? I first heard of such a possibility on CSI, which was a decent series back before they killed off Gary Dourdan and William Peterson left the show. TV drama politics aside, the victim, who was really the perpetrator, did not take the news of his slightly unorthodox cohabitation well. (I can’t remember though if it got him arrested or got him off.) But really, think of the benefits! Live twins are said to be one of the closest, most perfect relations we can have, but even they, after all, have limitations. A micro-twin, on the other hand, would have all the benefits of a true mini-me without the obvious drawbacks. (Really, do I want another Annie Maier in my life? No. And you probably don’t either!) You could, for instance, call on your twin anytime of day or night without having to worry that he/she might not pick up the phone, or worse, that your brother/sister-in-law might pick up instead—because, clearly, if light-hearted banter was something you were good at, you probably wouldn’t be fantasizing about having a hairy bone mass lodged in your organs with whom you could have a conversation. You could visit without your twin without calling, take him/her out to dinner without a care as to who would pay the bill, and wear their clothes with complete impunity!

However, I digress.

My ghostly friend is neither dead nor encased safely in my spleen. And while I cannot reveal his/her identity, for fear of endangering the innocent (that is, me), I can say that he/she is someone with whom I am both intimately and irrevocably connected. I am not unique; we all  sanction the presence in our lives of at least one person who wants nothing more than to possess us. As is the case with my possessor, said people are often

Manifestation(s)
noun

1. display, exhibition, presentation
2. sign,indication, evidence, token, symptom, proof, substantiation, reflection, example, instance.
3. outward or perceptible indication; materialization
4. the state of being manifested, (that is) a conscious feeling, idea, and/or impulse that contains repressed psychic material

As such, my apparition at least must also, in addition to ruthless, insatiable and often cruel, be fairly labeled innocent. A fiend perhaps, but a reluctant fiend.

What, you may be wondering, if you are still here to wonder, in the hell has this to do with ANYTHING? It has to do with hesitation. With indecision. It has to do with goal setting, goal reaching, and self-constructed barriers. It has to do not with writing but with allowing what it is we have written to escape from our souls, our pens and and computer screens to a concrete existence in the greater, larger, infinitely more entertaining world. It has to do with my book. And maybe yours.

To be continued

(thank you to Liz Wong, illustrator)