Segment 20

         I saw your ghost the other day.
         Or maybe it was just you. I think it’s okay to tell you this now. I hope it’s all right, to say it. I don’t think you’ll mind.
         It was the crowded season, I was trying to fight my way down the sidewalk. You know how it gets, at that time, when everyone is trying to be everywhere at once. It gets tight, with the press of people, you can’t even breathe. Maybe that’s how you felt, every single day. But I doubt it. That’s no way for me to compare. I could phase out, easily. I could pass right through and it’s nobody would exist but me. Still, I don’t mind, I like the time of year, the city bustles with a crisp snap to the air, voices mingling in a churning roar, decorations bringing color to grey buildings, my face reflected in shop windows, my face superimposed against elaborate displays. There’s a weird music to the wind, something distant and familiar, the receptions of a hundred stations blending together, forming something nonsensical and new. It always felt different somehow, to be trapped in that time. When the lights went low and a hush came over everything and time seemed to stop. Standing in the dark outside waiting for the heat still clinging to you from the inside to dissipate in the cold air. Brightness washing over our feet, from the slashed shape of the door, and never making it further. You huddle together and it barely seems enough.
         Yes, I know. Get to the point. I get sidetracked sometimes, I talk too much about myself. I don’t mean to. What was I saying, again? That’s right. I saw you.
         Across the crowd, you were there. We were on the same side of the street, but you know how it is, when you’re in the center you can’t really move so much as let yourself be carried, without any regard to where you actually wanted to go. I saw you and thought it might be a ghost, haunting me. But I don’t think it was. I think sometimes I wish for things that aren’t true. You were dressed in that coat you always swore to me you never liked. Maybe you got used to it, over the years. Maybe it was just warm and that’s all that mattered. I think you were with someone, you seemed to be talking to a person I couldn’t see. You had gloves on and you weren’t shivering. How could you, jammed in the press? You had shopping bags in your hands, I couldn’t tell the store. It doesn’t matter. These are just details. I’m sure you remember, if I pinpoint it right. You were going sideways, somehow, against the flow. I don’t know where you were going.
         I called out your name. Did you hear me? You looked in my direction but I don’t think you did. You were just looking around, the way you always did. Taking it all in.
         I don’t know why I did it. It was silly, to expect you to be able to pick out a single face in the foaming sea of expressions. I tried, I guess, because that’s what I do. It’s the only way I know out. Maybe I called out your name more than once, but the crowd and the masonry and the air swallowed it all up and my words went nowhere. Or maybe you really were a ghost and were just acting out an old habit, because that’s what ghosts do. Experience the familiar. I don’t see you doing that, though. Your ghost would explore.
         I was about to try again, maybe force my way through, when you walked through a wall, right then. That’s what it looked like. You did that and then you were gone. Or maybe not. Maybe you just walked into a store, into the open door that beckoned you in. I can’t say. The crowd shifted and I was carried and I drifted away. I had all the room in the world to move, but I couldn’t make it across. Just as well. We said everything we ever had to say to each other. And if there’s more, I’m sure we’ll find a way to say it.
         What? No, that was all I wanted to say. I thought you might find it funny. Did I mention you were laughing when I saw you? No? Well, you were, the way you always did, with your face crinkling and your eyes closing a little and your whole body trembling in that resonant way. Maybe that’s why you didn’t see me. That’s all right, then. I can live with that.
         I brought you these flowers. I hope it’s all right. I don’t know how long they’ll last here, but I thought they might bring a little bit of color, for a while at least. You used to joke that I never got you anything, that other people used to buy it instead to make it look like I didn’t forget. I was always afraid you wouldn’t like it. Stupid, I know, but that’s how we were back then. How we all were.
         So I got you these. Happy, now? You’ll stop complaining? Ha. Like that would ever happen. Oh come on, you know I’m just kidding. I’m just joking. That’s all. I know better.
         I miss you, you know.
         It doesn’t hurt to say it as much as it used to, but it’s true. I think of you a lot, especially when I’m back around here. It’s not often, I know, but I’ve forgotten a lot of people in my life, so feel lucky. You’ve earned a place. I know, I know, hooray for you. Where’s your medal, already?
         You were probably mad at me for leaving. But it had to be done. I’ll explain some other time. You know what’s funny about it? You’ll like this. Every time something odd happens my first impulse is to tell you. It still is, I swear. Thing is, I couldn’t before, not really. And now that I actually can’t, it feels different somehow. I don’t know why, but it does. The result is the same but something is missing. I know what it is. So do you.
         Listen, I have to go now. I’m sorry I can’t stay longer, you know I would if I could. But I was just passing by, I’m real busy these days, as it turns out. I’ll tell you about it some time, when it makes sense to me.
         I’ll be by again, soon. I swear. I’m never too far away, just a sidestep in a moment. That’s all. I want you to know that. Can you hear me?
         I don’t know where you are. You probably don’t either.
         But then, who ever does? It’s the one thing we’ll always have in common, I think. Make of that what you will.
         But until then, we’ll always have the crowded streets and the packed seasons and the cold air. And the suggestion of a person who might be there but only if you don’t look directly at them. And everything else there is, because why should it be restricted? This world is narrow enough as it is, why make it smaller? We have what we had and that’s enough.
         I’ll be content with that, if you will.
         All right? Fine. Then I guess we have a deal.
         I’ll see you again sometime, in separate days.
         I step backwards, drenched in memory.

THE END

“I use these words pretty loosely, there’s so much more to life than words . . .” - Over the Rhine, “Latter Days”

MB
June-November 2005
RP