ghosts of me

by Mileva Anastasiadou

When it gets dark and silent and the world stops, that’s when they appear, the ghosts of me running in circles around me, and they’re dressed in white, the color ghosts choose when they play innocent, like they don’t claim revenge, but I’m not scared because they’re just dead versions of me for fuck’s sake and I feel safe around me most of the time.

Those ghosts float above my head, they linger and fly like angels, or birds, or buzzing flies. I move my hands to send them away into oblivion where they belong. I get up and open the window to let them out, but they keep coming back when I lie down. They go through doors and windows and walls, like ghosts do. I close my ears, but I can still hear them, and when I’m close to letting go, when I’m about to sleep, they bite and sting like mosquitoes, as if they feed on me to stay alive.

Those ghosts cringe as they watch me stare at them, when I give up and I give in and I’m about to confront them,  and I can’t be sure of the reason, because they don’t speak out, they only dance around me like they ran out of respect; they don’t think much of me, and they look down on me, not only because they’re literally high above me, but also as if they have the moral high ground, as if they’re right and I am wrong and I’m a failure.

Those ghosts grow fast in number, there’s more and more of them every night because whenever I kill a possible future version of myself, another ghost is born, and those ghosts of me are filling the room, little by little; they surround and haunt me and I run out of air eventually, not because they take up all the oxygen, they’re dead and buried after all, but they feed on guilt and regret and retrograde nostalgia for all the persons I could have become but chose not to.

Those ghosts never attack, they only stand there smiling. They hide behind the curtain sometimes, but they mostly glow like neon lights, they are persistent and vivid like imaginary memories of all the persons I imagined but will never be. They only want me to look at them, those freaking attention seekers; they float around as if saying, hey, look what you missed. They’re always clean and beautiful and smell nice, and they keep staring as if saying, you missed that and that and that, and then they laugh, like they enjoy my pain, my agony to justify myself, because they expect excuses and reasons and regret.

Those ghosts hypnotize me sometimes, and I spend all night staring at them, admiring them, trying to touch them and feel them, but they slip through my hands like ghosts do. The sleeping pills don’t work, so I get up and walk up and down the room and I go after them, like I’m chasing butterflies, because they look beautiful and beauty is haunting and inviting and intoxicating, and butterflies are beautiful although they’re still winged worms.

Those ghosts visit more often the older I get, as if to remind me I’m running out of time. Their ghostly eyes glow in the dark and brighten the room, as they play hurt, neglected, forgotten, like unfulfilled desires and wasted potential, and they make noises, demand attention. I’m haunted by all the possible futures that will never turn into pasts, but I ignore them most of the time, because there is a dirty side to every single one of them; they may look pretty and flawless but when they turn around, I see their ugly side, and perhaps the future me I chose today will get ugly too, but it will be my ugly and I won’t mind. Those ghosts of me shine and glow and thrive above my head at night, untested by reality; they insist on bothering me, but I am wise enough to turn around and close my eyes and wait for the dawn.

*Stay tuned for Mileva Anastasiadou’s next monthly installment.

Photo of Mileva Anastasiadou

BIO: Mileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist, from Athens, Greece and the author of Christmas People and We Fade With Time by Alien Buddha Press. A Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions nominated writer, her work has been selected for the Best Mirofiction Anthology 2024 and Wigleaf Top 50 and can be found in many journals, such as the Chestnut Review, Necessay Fiction, Passages North, and others.