Less Than A Ghost

When I was seven, Miss passed away. I found her sleeping in her favourite chair, face turned to the weak light of late winter. And though she looked exactly as she always did, I knew something had changed. Some shift in the very air of the room.

It took me a moment to realise. The dead stillness. No breath escaped her paper lips. No current moved the air around her. She was less than a ghost. She was a shell.

I watched her for over an hour. My eyes tracing the folds of her skin, the deep wrinkles that lined her face and hands. Her skin looked frail, like tissue paper, an exiguous layering. I imagined a breath could blow her away. Then I remembered she was already gone.

I didn’t look at the body again; I closed the sitting room door and went to hide amongst the mountains in the back room. Mountains of memories I had adopted as my own. Boxes of old photographs and trinkets, books, magazines, frayed quilts and mildewed bears. I curled up on the armchair beside a stopped grandfather clock and smiled. I could see Miss sitting in her chair beside the fire, her twisted hands clasping her faded tartan blanket. She smiled back at me, her glassy eyes shining with silent affection.

I stayed there all night. In the dark choking sobs wracked my body as I cried for the first time in my memory. I didn’t recognise the aches that twisted in my chest, the salty drops that seeped from my stinging eyes. I shook as I slipped to the carpeted floor, shivering from cold and an engulfing grief.

I barely noticed the light as it came and went again. And then hands were lifting me, carrying me away. I woke in my parents’ house. A doctor was taking my temperature.

When I ran next door it was gone. All of it.

Reviews

[AndyJCash]

Your ability to describe is immense, but you also make it work within a flowing story. I really enjoyed this chapter, keep it going!