Novel & Cerita Ghosts That We Knew

Alice had always been a thorn between us—sharp, immovable, impossible to ignore or remove. I looked at Grayson now and wondered: if he knew I was dead, would he feel relieved that he was finally free of me? Grayson's phone rang. He answered it, not bothering to put it on speaker. I drifted closer, curious. Could it be someone calling to report my death? I studied his face intently, waiting to see his reaction when he learned I was gone. But when I glanced at the screen, I froze. The caller ID displayed my name. The voice that came through the line was unmistakably mine.

He just stepped aside. I walked past him without a word. Not yet. Not until I knew how many ghosts were still in the dark— And how many were wearing familiar faces.

--- They chase her through tall reeds into a clearing that wasn’t there before. There are more children. Five. Maybe six. All barefoot. All silent. They gather around a small pool of water shaped like a tear. At the center, a stone floats inches above the surface. When Esi approaches, the stone lowers gently. The girl named Temi speaks for the first time. “We remember.” Mira steps forward. “Remember what?” “That we were forgotten.” --- Tano crouches. “You’re ghosts.” Temi shakes her head. “Not yet. We are what the world forgot. Not dead. Not alive. We were marked like her.”

I had traded a quiet companionship for a roaring, isolated silence. We were two ghosts now, haunting the same house, our parallel grief the only thing we still truly shared. It was a perverse, ultimate intimacy: we were both heartsick over the death of the same patient, standing on opposite sides of the bed, unable to touch or comfort, only to watch.

I didn’t move at all. I just sat there, waiting for him. Because I had finally understood something cruel and simple... Ghosts don’t come home. And I was one of them now.

The room was very quiet. I looked at the blank screen for a long time. My breakfast was in front of me — still warm, still exactly what it was — and the garden was outside the window in its usual morning state and the patrol would make its rotation in however many minutes and everything in the immediate world was precisely as it had been thirty seconds ago. Ghost is most likely deceased. I said it in my head once, the way you repeat something to make it real. Then I said it again. The thing about a name that isn't your name is that you don't know how much of you it is until it's gone.

Some even believed we were soulless creatures, forever meant to roam in the spirit realm without a spirit. We would be mindless ghosts, having no real purpose or sense of direction. Unable to feel, taste, smell, or be seen by others. Of course, not everyone believed that is what happened to us since no one knew for sure. However, I was sure that I wasn’t supposed to be here.

“Linh hon da mat. Lost souls. Gooks believed when a body lost its way, it wandered off this plane of existence in search of a new one. Maybe when the body got so it didn’t know what it wanted anymore or where it was going. Or maybe somehow it knew its time was up, so it got to wandering. Problem was, once it started, it hardly ever found where it was going. “It’s the land over there. The jungle. The ground we walked on. It was cursed or haunted or more . . . aware. It knew you. Wasn’t in country too long before I started hearing about the linh hon da mat. Stories of ghost soldiers joining platoons on marches. Not ghosts of gooks we’d killed or guys we could’ve saved, though we all saw plenty

He had diverted his wife's attention and still left her satisfied with him. Note > Pseudo-ghosts: Refers to the 2009 American film Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, whose plot revolves around Connor Mead (McConaughey), an insensitive womanizer who, on the eve of his brother's wedding, is visited by the "ghosts" of his ex-girlfriends.

“We need to go.” The war might have ended. But the ghosts of the past? They weren’t done haunting us yet.