ghosts

There’s a landing between the ground and first floors of my building, it’s where we leave our unwanted things. We can take whatever is there for free. At the end of the summer, as the seasons were changing but before the light became dim, I was coming or going and there on the windowsill was a necklace. It was my necklace, that I didn’t even realise I’d lost. Its coloured glass beads winked at me, teasing me, accosting me in the stairwell. 

I passed it several times, going up and down, always half intending to pick it up again, it was mine after all. But it stayed there, in a straight line, catching the light, until it was gone. Maybe one day, I will pass a neighbour on the stairs, and those glass beads will wink at me again. 

Around the same time, my flatmate saw my shoes in the hallway and asked if they could put them out on the street. They were wrecked, held together by duct tape that wore down easily, so much so it had become ritual to bind its tongue. This meant the right shoe had a perpetual open mouth, almost as if I had a panting dog attached to my foot. These shoes, and the necklace, had followed me all summer, they are in every photograph of that humid haze. It was no longer my responsibility to throw them away, they would do it for me, that was on their shoulders now. 

Upon leaving the building the next day, after the sun blindness had settled I saw sat framed across the pavement, one shoe. It pointed to the left, just by the grapevines, it looked as though it was placed deliberately. “You thought you’d lost me?” It whispered something like that, its garbled tongue didn’t make much sense to me anymore. I was shaken, why were these ghosts haunting me? I didn’t dare touch it, I saw it’s brother further down the street, distracted and bashed. Eventually they both vanished.  

I stopped hanging out in their limbo, afterall the stairwell and the street are where objects exist most in their inbetween, but maybe it was too cold for them anymore. No more looking for things that want to be found, I decided to leave them alone. But I wondered, if a ghost could be welcome, would there be a ghost that could not shock me but one I would be gleeful to receive again. I’ve had my fair share of ghosts and at this point I am tired. 

My flatmate who threw away the shoes, upon their return to their home left me some of their things. One of them was a jacket, that I wore throughout the winter. It suited me so well that their scent had detached itself almost instantaneously. My care became lax as the days became longer and wine started to taste sweeter and I left it behind somewhere I know well. I thought I wouldn’t have to worry because I know the people there, I shouldered the responsibility to them and shirked it off of mine again. 

At work, a man who works at the other place comes in every day. He gives me his mother’s cooking, and is always followed by his sleek black dog who seems to be a part of his own soul transmuted into an animal who bears no collar. Recently, he arrived in the jacket. This jacket was no ghost, and it was no longer mine, it was his. I saw this, anticipated shock, expected to decry the jacket as a succubus, flirting with us all, daring us to look so damn good in it. But, it is just a jacket that was once stolen, then passed along, and finally picked up after being left alone for too long. 

Lately, I had begun to think that a full set of keys, with various rings, keyrings and keys, was a sign of a full life. My keyring had become full, of memories, of signifiers of who I am, and was, of things passed on and over. I lost those keys, and I know I lost them because I couldn’t get in my flat anymore. But my life didn’t suddenly empty as if exposed to a vacuum in the absence of those 5 keys and 2 keyrings, I didn’t forget who I was.

When I finished university, my close friend printed and personalised keyrings for us. The same friend gave me the necklace I wear everyday. It stuck to my neck until the charm detached itself and now a piece of them lives somewhere far away from their home. In my bedroom is my own limbo space for my objects, it is a bowl on the table by my door, filled with my new keys, lighters from who knows where, small change, rolling papers. And, to my surprise, the keyring that my friend made for me was there too, it had fallen off before I lost the keys. I had met my welcome ghost.