literature

The Winter Ghost

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Literature Text

The afternoon was deceivingly bright for January. The cold nipped at the light, the shadows, the fingers carefully wrapped in gloves, but was blatantly ignored. I know the feeling.  I walk down the busy street, watching shoppers grab the best of the sunlight and ransack the shops, most of which had a large ‘SALE’ sign on their window. It is a curious affair, observing strangers. A few years ago, when I first visited the shopping centre, I realised that each one of these people had their own story, like I have mine. Each one of these people had suffered their losses, and won their victories. Each one of these people are living a life, just like me, and are looking at strangers on the street, wondering, ‘What is their story?’

As I like being observant as well as imaginative, I make stories up as I wander along.

The woman, dragging along her red-faced, screaming child, with the green hat and the tired eyes, her story is rather simple. Her husband – nay, fiancé – works long day shifts. She had a child three years ago, and while life is hard and times are tough, she battles on, taking each day as it comes. She knows her situation is considered unorthodox by most, she has been frowned upon most of her life, and yet she battles on. She walks down the street, with her screaming baby boy in tow, looking with sad, wanting eyes at the shoes she still cannot afford, even at the sales.

There is a couple, at the expensive ice cream parlour. Their kissing and touching have the feeling of young love, but the girl’s eyes and demeanour tells a different story. She is bored. She wants excitement, danger. She wants to feel different from all the other girls, the ones who were too pretty to date. And yet, while her boyfriend is a sweet guy, he is too safe. Too apologetic. She will have to break it off soon. The boyfriend, however, can hardly believe his luck. He asked out plenty of girls, and received the same amount of rejections. However, when he asked her out, she said yes. He didn’t want to screw this up. Finally, his mother is convinced that he is no longer gay. Not that there is anything wrong with it. Even if he was…

The family walk towards me, smiling and laughing, eating hot waffles but there is a hole. A gap in their charade. Something is missing. Someone  is missing. There should be a little boy on the father’s hand, skipping alongside with them. But fate would not have it. A car accident, I believe, involving the mother – hence her slight limp – and the cruel icy roads of December, three days before Christmas. It happened four years ago, and while the wound might age, it’s still open. Warm waffles were the little boy’s favourite.

The shop assistant, fixing a mannequin on display with an expert eye, looks longingly out the window, and turns back to the mannequin. She has shy eyes, eyes of the observant. Eyes of a writer. She glances out the window again, and I follow her gaze to the electronics shop opposite, proudly displaying over-priced laptops in on a large poster. She is a writer, with ideas begging to be written down.  The library computer is too slow, and wouldn’t print, and besides, she can only use it for an hour. Her hand is too slow for writing it down on paper, and by the time she finishes one line, she forgets the next. Her grandmother had gotten her a beautiful typewriter; hence the ink stains on her hands. It worked for a while, but the ink ran out, and she wasn’t sure how to fix it. Now, she has a crummy job in a second-rate clothing shop in order to pay off the dream of becoming a screenwriter.

As I walk down the street, I catch my reflection in one of the sun-drenched windows. I can barely see myself, but there I am, looking with my big brown eyes. My big sad eyes, my mother used to say, eyes that stopped everyone in their tracks to ask me what was wrong.  I am wearing my favourite crochet hat, with the white and yellow crochet flower in it. Mother made that too. My dark hair, my dark skin usually cannot handle the cold very well, but today is different, I guess. They embrace the sunlight, and sparkle. I try to smile, but I don’t mean it. How can I?

People walk through me, and I am once again reminded that I am invisible to most. I walk and walk, up and down and back up again, collecting stories and living through them. I walk, as I do, on this day every year, up and down the street on which I died, and collect stories.
© 2014 - 2024 The-Funkiest-Penguin
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pferdmeister's avatar
Wow, your writing is really good!