Friday, June 28, 2013

Bathroom Monologue: Ghost Culture


I've never enjoyed waking up early. My body just did it to me, as it did a lot of things to me in my childhood, which is why I had to live in the Special Wing. No one else in the bunks was awake, so I sat up and pulled my blanket over my head, turning myself into a human tent. I don't remember when I started doing it, only that from my earliest memories, it felt better than lying in bed. It's like a denial of the day, or at least a stay of execution.

My bunk shifted with as someone else climbed on. I tensed up, afraid an orderly would chastise me for not sleeping, but this girl lifted the foot of my covers. She was no older than I was, with spindly arms and legs and splattered with freckles, and perched there, draping the end of blanket over her head as though mimicking me. Like everything other kids did back then, I thought she was making fun of me, even when she spoke.

"I like playing ghosts, too."

"I'm not a ghost," I said, and folded my arms. Without my hands to prop them up, the blanket fell over my face and I couldn't see her. "I have a right to privacy."

I wish I hadn't talked like that. These days I think it was half of my problem, but the girl stayed under my makeshift tent with me. She said, "Well I'm pretending to be a ghost. I drowned in a terrible boating accident in my private river. Now I haunt wherever the river's water flows."

Her feet were visible, her soles pressed together and rubbing like a normal person's palms. Her ankles had bands of olive freckles. Maybe, I thought, she was a weirdo. I hoped it too, which is why I said, "I just don't want it to be morning. I'm not good at mornings."

"And you think being under here will stop it?"

"No…" I said without nearly enough conviction, which made me unconfident, which immediately made me think she was going to insult me. And so I said, "It's not like I'm crazy, like I think I'm a ghost."

"I'm not crazy either," she said, grabbing more of the blanket so I'd have to look at her. In the gloom under there, her eyes looked purple and insistent. "I'm pretending to be a ghost. It's not like I think I'm one."

I pinched the blanket from her fingers and it draped down until I could only see her feet again. "I don't think I want to share my blanket with someone who's that judgmental."

She said nothing for a little while. Her feet shifted toward the end of my bunk, then pointed back at me, pressed together, and rubbing each other briskly. "Will you pretend to be a ghost if I promise you my pudding at lunch today?"

And because I truly sucked at talking to people, I responded, "Is it tapioca day?"

"Butterscoth."

"Okay," even though I've never liked butterscotch. The way she rubbed her feet like that made me think I'd hurt her feelings, and that meant I owed her something. I wasn't a monster. Being a monster was not one of the reasons I had to stay in the Special Wing.  "I'm the ghost of a boy who drowned in pudding. It's too thick to swim in, not like water or milk, so you can only sink in it. My funeral smelled like butterscotch."

Her feet parted slightly and she said, "That's sick."

"Hey, it's your game."

"I like it," she said, wrapping her hand in the sheet and making what she'd later explain was a ghost-hand. She poked me with her ghost-hand. "It's sick."

"It's something boys like."

"But you're not a boy."

I remember raising the blanket very deliberately, though I bet it just looked pompous. I looked into her purple eyes, which now looked more like red, and said, "I'm a boy, my body just doesn't know it yet."

"Okay," she said like she'd always meant to concede. "That's cool for a ghost story."

I pulled the blanket over my head so she couldn't see me smile. "So you died in a boating accident in your private? How do you get a private river?"

"Oh, I didn't die there. I'm bored of having died there." She sucked air between her teeth as she made up her mind. "I think I was born a ghost. You know what 'stillborn' is?"

"Now that's sick."

Her toes scrunched to together until they turned pink, and she said, "Yeah it is." There was so much glee in her voice. She was definitely a weirdo.

She was my best friend for thirty-three years. She was the first person to make me want to get up early, and she used a telescope to teach me to be less afraid of the sun, and she played the best man at my wedding. Then, one day, the things that had made her have to live in the Special Wing made her fantasies come true. I keep a sheet in my closet that I like to think she haunts. Sometimes, when I still get panic attacks at dawn, I hide under it. She still helps.

29 comments:

  1. This is a great story! I totally thought the narrator was a little boy. Nice reveal there.

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    1. Thank you very much, Xanto. That reveal wasn't too blunt for you? One of the things I wondered about as I posted it last night.

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  2. If she still helps with panic attacks I think it is safe to say that she is haunting that sheet.
    I found this one very moving indeed. Thanks John.

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  3. There's such a sad element to this story, but I'm glad she's still around to help the other one.

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  4. I love the shifts and turns in this story and a sense throughout that something remains half hidden beneath a blanket.. It started out as a potential Japanese Horror and ended as a very poignant, heartfelt and beautiful story of friendship and love.. Excellent work John

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    1. Haha, I promise that these characters will never experience Japanese Horror. Sadako, I presume?

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  5. So good I had to read it twice. This story makes me want to ask a lot of questions and definitely to learn more about the characters. Love it.

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    1. That's one of the greatest compliments my fiction has gotten in a long time, Rebecca. Thank you.

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  6. I'm not sure I ever really successfully penetrated the 'reality' level of this story with all its twists & misdirections, but that's okay, that's entirely legitimate for an author to wreak. the emotional tugs emereged clearly and effectively however.

    marc nash

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    1. What would you consider the reality level of this one? Is that a way of saying the entire piece felt too artificial?

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    2. no, it means I could never fathom whether one, both or neither were actual ghosts. I think by the end that neither were, but both were inmtes in an asylum. But I'm not confident of being right at all

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  7. That one is really unique. Had some weird twists.

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  8. I liked the intriguing knots on this blanket rope. The ending was perfect. Excellent.

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  9. This is great! Loved the detail with the feet, and the sense of sadness that permeated the whole thing.

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  10. I liked this, and am trying to figure out why you'd think it wouldn't be received well. The boy that is only kind of a boy, the girl who likes to play ghost stories… and the detail with the feet made this all somehow real. The one thing I'm unsure on is exactly what the Special Wing is.

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    1. Haha, I didn't know other people were reading that conversation. Most of my anxiety with all the Bathroom Monologues that I post at this point is that I spend so many hours editing my novel that I'm exhausted and compromised on other endeavors. I keep aiming for subtleties or ambitious presentation that I could easily fumble if I do it wrong, and I'm more likely to do it wrong when I'm running so tired.

      I left the Special Wing ambiguous on purpose. Would you say it detracts?

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    2. I can imagine. That you aim high even when exhausted says something. (Maybe "get some rest, dude" is the something.) The ambiguity didn't distract at all; not everything can be detailed in a flash, and we're all used to that. A longer piece would have demanded further explanation, of course.

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  11. I also had to read it twice. The elements left unexplained only serve to enhance the mixture of pathos and comfort in two people sharing such an isolated fate.

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  12. Brilliant story, loved the way the blanket is used throughout.

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  13. This was so beautiful- especially that last paragraph. It felt like the first chapter of a much longer story. I can just imagine following them through their trials and tribulations in wherever they are, learning about the special wing, finding out how "the things that had made her have to live in the Special Wing made her fantasies come true." I want to read that longer story because I can imagine loving these chracters that much more deeply.
    REALLY loved this, John. Connected to it more than I have to something in a while.

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  14. I liked this one, but like Marc I don't think I ever got to the reality level. The image I was left with was of the narrator living in the adult part of the Special Wing, the girl and the marriage fictions confused with actual progress made on the panic disorder.

    I kept flashing to the part in A Beautiful Mind where the protagonist realises his "friends" must be illusions because his best friend's niece never grows up.

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  15. I thought the character was a boy until the reveal! Well maybe three character is a boy in the mind. Hmm. Of she's helping him still than I would say she lives in the blanket! Very sweet!

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  16. I'm not sure where the line between real and fantasy is either. I mean in this story. I have a firm grasp on reality. Please don't put me back in the special wing....

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  17. This was such an interesting tale! I loved the clever twists, the unanswered questions that leave it up to the reader to interpret, the visual and emotional impact of the blanket and how you tied it all together at the end with your mc holding onto her/his friend's spirit through it! Awesome job - now get some rest:)

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  18. I love the use of the blanket throughout too John. This feeling of intimacy here is so thick you can almost touch it.

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  19. I wasn't entirely sure if the use of 'Special Wing' meant they really were both ghosts, or not, but I think that layer of 'not knowing' gives it an ethereal feel.

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  20. Sorry I'm late John. As I was reading this, I was struck by how real this seemed - as though someone I knew was telling me a story of meeting his/her best friend at camp. (Special camp?) I especially liked the detail of her rubbing her feet together. This story could go so many ways, but I think it's best left as it is. Some elements of childhood are best left with their haziness and magical qualities intact.

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