Ghosts At The End Of The Bed

A short story inspired by a recent bout of insomnia during lengthy stay in hospital.

There were ghosts at the end of my bed. 

I know that sounds crazy, but they kept me awake at night, and I wasn't  the only one. The other patients in the ward room tossed and turned and tried to ignore the incorporeal images that demanded to know by what right we claimed beds that were once theirs. 

Fights were not uncommon; many had passed in the same beds, and each believed the bed to be their own. Those who had been tethered here the longest were pale and wispy, fragments of souls that floated dimly by the pillows of the still-living residents, moaning their complaints in soft, faded voices.

It is the recently departed that kept me from sleeping. Crowding around the foot of my bed, illuminated by the soft, small lights of the bed controls, they bickered and griped, each one insisting that he was the bed's rightful occupant. None of them, with eternity stretching before them, willing to back down. 

Last week, it got too much. After six nights of listening to the imprint of Mr Hughes argue with the shade of young Riley that of course the bed belongs to the first to pass under it's blankets, I decided I had had enough. Ear plugs and eye masks do nothing when the eldritch voices were raised in dispute. All I wanted was some sleep!

So I sat up and started to talk. At first I was rambling, my sleep-deprived brain struggling for coherency. In all likelihood, I was simply begging for some peace. But then I realised that the squabbling had stopped - not only between Mr Hughes and Riley, but between all of the ghosts in Ward Room Three. 

Silently they gathered, moths drawn to the flame of my voice, and realisation struck me; no one acknowledged these poor poltergeists, determined as they were to cling to their rationality and desperate need to believe that what they saw couldn't possibly be real. Now, a voice was speaking to them, a voice full of life and fire, and suddenly the beds no longer mattered.

Looking at the faded faces clustered in anxious hope all around me, I took a shaky breath and smiled. If I wasn't going to get any sleep, there were worse things I could do than try to foster some peace for the other patients - and entertain the ghosts.

I looked at them all, the souls of old men who had let go after full years; the remnants of the young who succumbed to the cold when the pain was to much to bear. Here and there were dotted feminine faces, lined with soft wrinkles that glowed dimly with a phosphorus light, hanging on from the times when the ward had served both men and women. Saddest of all were the smallest ghosts, clinging to unsubstantial teddy bears, their hospital gowns engulfing them. 

I reached for the book I had abandoned hours earlier, when I had still pretended to myself that sleep would come and the ghosts were just a symptom of the fever that I had yet to fully break. Taking a breath again, pulling air into my aching lungs, I opened to the page I had reached, and began to read aloud. 

The effect was instantaneous. Like ground fog they settled in, a weightless mass pressing on and against my sheets, inching closer to hear my soft voice more clearly, As the words of a literary genius rolled off my tongue, the ward room was filled with a peace and warmth I had not felt before. 

I read until the sun rose, my voice becoming fainter as the tidal wave of sleep overwhelmed my senses. The ghosts slowly faded, satisfied that they had passed a night in companionable pleasure, the issue of the beds no longer important. 

That was a week ago. Now the ghosts still cluster around my bed to listen to me read, but I have joined them in their world of soft shadows. No books can help me now, and so I weave words from the air and they hover, entranced. I speak softly, for the occupant of my bed is tired and needs their rest. I hover serenely where I cannot disturb them, and keep my companions at bay. 

There at ghosts at the end of my bed. 

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

This started out in an eerie, somewhat frightening mood, but then the tension lessened and it became something entirely different. I must say I smiled to know the souls were comforted. My last hospital ghosts were nothing like yours, but I might have read to them if I'd known how they enjoyed it. Actually, mine seemed to be hobbits, singing their hearts out at the Green Dragon. They sang night and day, but for some reasons, the nurses couldn't hear them. Did you read them any Poe?

[MadamHatter]

Thank you - I'm glad you liked it! It was just a passing fancy that I got carried away with.
I didn't read them Poe, but they really enjoyed Dumas!