(*I wrote it exactly 10 years ago; today seems to be the perfect day to resurrect it.)
“This place is so depressing, so empty! It’s a ghost town!” Mark gave a melancholy smile at his own pun and floated along the deserted Bur Oak Avenue. Maybe coming here wasn’t such a great idea after all.
He was a novice when a family he attached himself to decided to move to a place called Markham. He recognized it immediately as a sign — a place bearing his name! So, naturally, he followed them. In the months preceding the big move, no one paid any attention to him. Of course, at the time, he was so green, so to speak, that he couldn’t make a noteworthy appearance if he tried. But he didn’t try. He lingered, waited for the right moment, and curled into a box once he was certain they were going to take it with them. It was a music box, and it left the taste of metal and machine oil all over him for a long time. At least he was glad it was packed so deep that no one thought about playing it until they unpacked upon arrival.
Once in Markham, Mark started working on his craft. First, he tried to present himself to the family, but they ignored him. Then he floated around, trying to find others of his kind, to no avail. Once he came across a figure so old it looked almost...mouldy. The old guy looked at Mark with contempt, and when Mark asked him where the others may be, he just rolled his eyes the full circle in his eye sockets. When the gaze settled back on Mark, he whispered something that sounded like “old parts” and “main street” and “Stiver mill.” Mark had no idea where any of that could be, but before he could ask, the mouldy character disappeared.
Getting lonelier by the day, Mark tried to amuse himself by haunting the son of the family, a boy named Aaron. Aaron was 13, dark-haired and dark-eyed, tall for his age and skinny like a rail. When he didn’t chase a football with the gang, he played video games or walked around the house with earphones hanging from his ears. Mark tried to spook him by moving things around, but there were problems - he was too weak to move bigger objects, and moving the small things around didn’t faze Aaron a single bit. He tried to startle the boy - he’d heard long ago that the most efficient way was to skulk behind a person when he looked himself in the mirror and appear suddenly in the corner of his vision. He tried his best for weeks, sometimes turning purple with effort, the colour that seriously doesn’t flatter his complexion. The only time he succeeded was one chilly morning after Aaron’s shower. Mark appeared at the edge of the mirror, visible just over Aaron’s right shoulder. Instead of turning in fright, Aaron squinted at the mirror, then wiped the foggy glass with the palm of his hand, and Mark couldn’t hold the shape any longer. He vaporized into the mist.
Being invisible can cause serious depression. For someone as lonely as Mark, it could have been a life-ending disaster had he not been dead already. He tried all he could think of, even went to a Rhenish church on Bur Oak and 16th Ave in the hope to find at least a ghost or two lingering there from times unknown. But the church was built only a few years earlier on the ground that was nothing but a cornfield before, and had no spiritual residue. Mark was so frustrated and desperate that he wanted to appear to the priest and get himself exorcised. He failed even in that.
Desperate, Mark went for long floats around the neighbourhood in hopes of finding someone he could scare, or at least talk to. Despite the beautifully maintained houses with tidy front yards, he saw only a few elderly people out for morning walks, and they all carried their own old, scary-looking ghosts on their shoulders, so Mark didn’t dare to even approach.
Then came October with its winds, rain, and falling leaves. On the last day of the month, something happened. Suddenly, as the evening rolled the blanket of darkness over Markham, the city came alive. There were ghosts and witches, ghouls and goblins, and creatures from Mark’s worst nightmares like Caitlyn Jenner or Paris Hilton, alive and crawling all over the neighbourhood. Most of them ignored Mark, but some waved to him in passing. He waved back, surprised.
A very small ghost in a white sheet stopped in front of him and regarded him with serious blue eyes through two large holes in the sheet.
“I love your costume,” it said.
“And I love yours,” Mark replied, delighted to be noticed for the first time in his afterlife. He lied, of course — it’s hard to like a sheet with holes, but a little white lie won’t kill a ghost.
“How did you make it look transparent?” asked the little ghost.
“That’s the way I am,” said Mark.
“Cool!” said the little ghost. “Can I touch you?”
Without waiting for permission, he stuck his arm through Mark. It tickled, and Mark giggled. The little ghost giggled too.
“Will you be my friend?” the little ghost asked.
“I’d love to be your friend,” said Mark. Things were starting to look so good that he forgot all about scaring people.
“When did you die?” asked Mark.
The large blue eyes looked at him.
“I’m not dead, dummy!”
“Oh!” said Mark.
“Would you like a candy?” asked the little ghost.
Mark nodded. A small, chubby hand appeared under the sheet, holding a pumpkin-shaped bucket filled with candies. Mark reached in and swooped through the basket. He tried again and passed through again.
“I’ll get it for you,” said the little ghost and reached into the basket.
He placed a candy in Mark’s open palm. To Mark’s surprise, it didn’t fall through his hand.
“What are you doing, honey?” a woman’s voice came from behind the little ghost.
The sound of it shattered Mark’s consistency. The candy fell on the ground and Mark disintegrated. He would have been blown by the wind, but a hand, light as his own and yet firm, took hold of his arm. A face of a young woman, completely transparent yet clearly visible to him, smiled at Mark.
“You must be new here,” she said. “Having a problem keeping yourself together?”
Mark was speechless with surprise and managed only a nod.
“Don’t let the living frighten you to disintegrate. If the wind catches you, it’ll blow you to pieces. You’ll never find the way back home.”
“T-thank you,” Mark stammered.
As he composed himself, she released his arm. A group of screaming Ninja Turtles rushed by, chased by a Frankenstein and his bride.
“I’ve never seen so many people,” said Mark.
“Nor so many ghosts, eh?” asked the woman.
He suddenly became aware that all the small ghouls were followed by larger ones, and those, in turn, were followed by ghosts. There were clusters of ghosts hanging around the adult figures.
“It’s Halloween, a party day, that’s when we all come out. Every living man or woman carries a few ghosts of their own, that they see only in dreams. Try as they may, they can never see us when awake, or at least most of them can’t. They are blinded by their beliefs, preconceptions, and regrets.”
“Children, on the other hand,” the woman ghost smiled, “have no prejudice, only trust and curiosity. That’s why they can see us.” She turned to look at Mark. “Are you a restless soul?”
“I-I don’t know,” he said.
“Well, you didn’t seem to carry anger inside. I saw you talking to that child. See, Markham is a new city. We’re all here with good intentions. There are very few restless ones; we isolate them easily and send them to the other side. As for the rest of us - no one is a native; we were all brought in from far and farther away. We are ghosts carried over by people who came here to find a new life. As long as they are content, so are we. But I talk too much. Tonight is the night for a party!”
She took hold of his arm once again and pulled him down 16th Avenue toward Markham Museum with dizzying speed. The museum, built around the historical village, was teeming with people pretending to be ghosts and ghosts pretending to be people. The more mischievous ghosts gathered around the haunted house, adding to the artificial scare with a blow of icy breath or a touch of icy finger to a hot neck. The others just chatted; some floated in the rhythm of music which could be heard from one of the houses. Mark joined a group of teenage-looking floaters dancing to the music. For the first time since he was brought to Markham, he felt at home.
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Image by Marc Renken from Pixabay