Bohemian Avenue #9

I am a ghost.

Don’t let the movies or anyone fool you. Ghosts haunt people, not old empty houses, though location is an important factor. There has to be some kind of connection between the ghost and the place and the one he or she haunts.

I haunt a place from my childhood, a place that is strongly imprinted in my memory. It’s a lovely old building in the middle of a big city that houses many beautiful children with high ideals and faraway eyes that no longer seem to see the decay that is right outside the fence they and their guardians have put up.

I’ve wandered the street outside many times to see other ghosts—not unlike myself—with a toehold on life and the old bulldog Death’s jaws locked onto them. Those jaws shift from time to time to get a stronger grip.

Who do I haunt? It’s one of those beautiful children I told you about. In life, I was related by blood to her. That is the tie between us. I might not have been so bound if she hadn’t at one time perceived my existence, but she’s managed to shut me out of all her senses now.

I watch her without the power of helping or even hindering her activities. I can see her joys and pain, but I can’t give a word of encouragement or stop her from making a mistake. It is hard sometimes to have to watch the events of her life helplessly.

It’s too late now. I am caught and bound with my only hope of being free to wander again is in the day she no longer returns to our place of connection.