counting crows
by Mileva Anastasiadou
Not much changed after I died, and I don’t mind being dead, except in my case, it all started before I passed. People never paid much attention to me when I was alive either, like I was already a ghost. My bodily needs have vanished, but, otherwise, I live like I used to: I stay at home, like I always did; I count magpies in the yard to check my luck, but it’s less stressful now that I’m dead and my luck has run out; I don’t pay bills; and nobody visits—not even the janitor, the old man from the first floor.
Not much has changed, but I’m less lonely now that a man has moved in. He sits on the sofa and clings onto my arm, but he doesn’t know—he can’t know—I’m here. I want to thank him for being here, because I’m in good company for the first time in my life (or whatever), as if I practiced death while alive, and, now that I’m dead, I want to practice life. I touch his hair, and he looks annoyed, looking my way, but he can’t see me, then looks back ahead, as if I don’t exist. When I put my head on his shoulder; he stands up, looks back on the sofa, sees right through me, then walks to the door, and I follow, already feeling my luck has changed, like I’m reborn with ghost powers I never could have dreamt of. He runs out of the house, but stumbles upon the janitor. He asks him who used to live here, and the old man shrugs, like he cannot remember, like I had been invisible to him even before I died. As I move closer to check on them, the old man steps back in disbelief. You can see me? I ask, and they both run down the stairs screaming. At least I am seen now. Somehow remembered.
Not much has changed, and my roommate comes back; he comes and he goes, like people do. He’d prefer something beautiful— we all do—but he got something haunting instead; he got me. I enjoy scaring him from time to time, but I don’t want to scare him too much, to scare him away. Seems like things changed a bit after all, like I get some attention at last, like if I somehow upgrade to a famous ghost, like the Ghost of Christmas Present (or Past or Christmas Yet to Come), and everybody feared me, I’d never be lonely, but I’ll settle for this, something less beautiful, but satisfying. Seems like the only way not to be ghosted is by becoming a ghost, because people ignored me in the past, but when they notice me now, they run scared. Not much has changed, because I still count the magpies in the backyard, sometimes, but now they come in twos; they come for joy and afterlife wins, because being dead comes with unforeseen advantages, like I finally get what I’ve craved for my whole life and ever after, and, perhaps, that’s what forever is all about or the unfinished business people speak of when they talk about ghosts.
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