Dreams of a Ghost

         

Dreams of a Ghost          

There are visions of dreams, edges of memory, really. There are too many things that can not be seen. Yet you stand on the edge of understanding, trying.

These visions are the memories you could not possibly have. And yet there they are, haunting and stalking the halls of memory. They are ghosts, all too real. Memories of people you have never met and never will. Memories of things you could not have seen, and yet there they are with crystal clarity, memories of moments that changed everything. Moments in which the world was hopelessly reinvented. Memories that came, uninvited, and taunt and haunt and will not leave.

Such is my memory. It is said that at the heart of the act of memory is the ability to forget. Perhaps that is true, but how do you forget the memories of a ghost?

I went to a doctor for a while. I would sit in his office and talk to him. He dutifully took notes but I do not think he was listening. One day he told me to close my eyes and take deep breaths, he told me that he would count backwards from five and when he snapped his fingers I would wake up. Later, so much so that it had become dark outside, I woke. He refused to tell me what I said. I saw him 42 times. Nothing really changed. He never showed me his notes. I still felt haunted.

She said I was just running away. She said that I was retreating into my mind so that I would not have to deal with the world, with her. I never leave the world, I told her, I am always here. She was right of course, not that I would ever admit it. There are whole days that I can not remember, and whole memories that I can’t explain.

I remember one day a young girl coming up to me and asking me how her picture came out. “Do I know you?” I asked. She said that I had taken her picture in the park just a few days before. Her friends had shown up and she left without getting my number. I smiled, faked a laugh and lied that the picture wasn’t developed yet. She gave me her number, I promised to call her. I have no idea who she was.

Memory.

She bathed in morning light on the bed, naked in the twisted sheets, smiling as she dreamt. I left without waking her.

Once at a party, I was given a paper bag full of words. It was filled with scraps of torn paper with one printed word on each of them. I was told to randomly pull them out one at time, write them down and make them into a story. The first ten scraps of paper I pulled out were seagull is watching never forget you are responsible for her. That night I got drunk and, still shaking, burned the bag of words.

I remember the sound of her laughing. We had just met. With the rush of new love we stumbled, no, rushed, into each others arms, laughing, kissing, happy. Once upon a time we were to live happily ever after. But fairy tales have dark things lurking in the shadows. One day I looked out the window and saw myself looking back at me. The I, who wasn’t me, smiled, laughed, and walked away. When she came home later that evening I was still standing at the window. I never told her that story. But secrets are worse than lies and after that night I rarely heard her laugh.

Once I woke up to the sound of the doorbell. It was five in the morning. I stumbled out of bed and opened the door. No one was there and I stumbled back to bed. Later, the doorbell rang again; dingdongdingdong, insistent. I got up and rushed to the door and found myself half naked on the porch alone. Later that morning, after a shower and a jug of coffee, I left for work. I locked the door and started down the stairs when I froze. I stared for the longest time until I realized that I do not have a doorbell.

She is gone now. I do not blame her. How could she stay with someone who is haunted by himself? She does not return my calls; she would not tell me where she had gone. Now I wish I had asked her what the dream was about.

She said that it was like watching a door come unhinged. She was afraid of what was on the other side. She was afraid the door could not be shut. She was leaving me but she felt that I had already left.

I sat at my desk, writing, only to find that I no longer recognized the words, the handwriting, the pictures, the room. I was becoming a ghost. A ghost haunted by his own words. I heard seagulls, waves, but I could not remember the ocean.


The next day the room was empty.