Fermented Away

A crisp sound of canned beer being pried open and a hiss of pressured air skipping through the slit, blubbering at the rim made me almost moan a little in sweet agony.

“Here it is. Oh damn it.” said one of the guys as the foaming can dampen his fingers. He licked the beer drop born out of the foam before it skipped into his sleeves which made my blood curdle. Eww, I thought. I also thought there was no blood to curdle up inside me. The thing about being residual energy of what I once was is that you still feel things. Not the chubby hand when it poked through your chest to grab the beer. But the envy of seeing someone gulping down the fermented wheat juice that tastes like a horse piss at best, and his Adam’s apple toggle up and down like clockwork. Also, the joy and dizziness they feel as the alcohol and the somewhat friendly atmosphere warm them from the inside and how they live the delicate moments of life without worry. Mostly sentimental feelings I must admit. Seeing people enjoy what I crave the most whilst living in the in-between, stuck without purpose among the rubble of the disintegrating apartment complex where I lived is another added cruelty to my… “existence”. I did nothing to deserve this in my living life. If you were to put me somewhere in the bell curve I would see those who did better and worse than me, because I would be at the top middle. That is how average I was. I did not achieve anything worth celebrating if you don’t count my high-school diploma, the Most Book Read certificate from my university library, and the Outstanding Student award I received during my graduation. And even after going through one of the most important milestones of one’s life, death, a prize I get is to roam a sickly building that I inhabited and see it become a residual structure of what it once was. This building and I are, come to think of it, very similar. Ah, so sentimental.

But let me tell you this. Abandoned buildings are cool. It makes a cool Indie music video backdrop. It is busy during Halloween with teenage friend groups, full of yearning and unaddressed confusion coming to tame their emotion which is too much for a normal building, and urban explorers with their camera gear, possibly looking for me.

I am a bit of a local legend here. (Pun intended!) However, I used to do my best to hide away whenever I knew the living visited. Whenever the echoes of the cackling and laughing drew close to the building, I would run and sometimes shift into one of the furthest corner rooms of the top floor as soon as I realized I could. For the most part, they came just to hang out on the first or second floor, talk, do drugs, and leave. So I thought nothing of it when I heard people below me as usual. Not until I heard a short scream from a woman. Even after death, my dignity lived inside me and so I got to the floor. Instead of walking, I decided to shift between the cemented floor and I jolted away from the corridor as I saw a couple having sex. I assume they did not see me for they continued their deed.

It took me a while to realize why I was the one who feared. It is usually the other way, right? My theory is that seeing ghost live their body when they see me (if they somehow could that is) and the expression of fear on their face would just solidify the fact that I was dead and was an entity that only struck fear. I am not much of a people pleaser but even after death, the innate and deep need for connection with another persists. Oh, it is truly a hell.

One day I came up with a brilliant idea to combat the bad rep that we ghosts have. As I saw a group of urban explorers recording for their YouTube channel, I went ahead and drew closer to their gathering. I walked slowly, on the rubble and broken pieces of building materials. I expected a sound of things snapping and then drawing their attention to me. But silly me, my ghost body with loosely glued with which-ever particles somehow can step on a floor but a broken sharp of glass on it bears no weight. They simply minded their business but I could see some of them became uneasy with my presence. A lady who stood with her back against me slowly strained it with me approaching and became eerily aware of the places she was in. She started to skim through the floor and finally looked at me and stared.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I am good. Just the usual uneasiness,” said she, and the whole group resumed their exploration.

Sadly she could not see me. Just felt my aura. I like to think you livings somehow has a radar for energy and when that radar goes off you feel it but are not able to interpret it. I followed the group through their video, ducking away from their camera view. But then I decided if the eyes can’t see me, cameras might.

A week later, my humble rubble became like a light to moths. Several groups of people at one point gathered and took pictures and videos hoping to capture another shot of the ghost that looked into the camera with pouted lips, peace sign, and thumbs up whilst giving the friendliest smile coming in and out of the shot. Instead of succumbing to the horrible stereotype of ghosts and their horrible presence, I struck the most unexpected poses on the urban explorer group's YouTube channel. At one point, a scene of me twerking against the wall flashes briefly in their video. But no naked eye has seen me. I am just unable to project myself into a retina, but ironically a lens of a soulless digit machine could capture me if I let it. 

It was fun for a while; seeing them looking for me, walking through me, sneezing when I come close. Sometimes they would bring out their weird machines and professional ghost-hunting tools to talk to me. I would usually appreciate the kindness and try to converse with them. But believe me, those are BS and don’t work. Then the excitement wore out and people started to annoy me. So I quit my stardom, which bored people too. So this place is back to being a rarely visited, classic case of a creepy abandoned apartment. Ah, great! Someone’s coming. It is the crackhead that does drugs here. He is usually very sketchy and giddy. But today he looks a bit… focused. His walk is constant and slow-paced. It is as if he is under a hypnosis. I like to observe him closely. I am going to walk slowly up to him and I…

“You…”

Huh

“You are the sassy ghost.”

I froze. Is he seeing me?

“Oh shit.”

“Excuse me!”

“I think I OD-ed.”

“What?”

“Shit, I am dead.”

“What?!”

“Nooo wayy…” he drew a long exhale. “I guess… well…what can I say?”

“Why are you here?”

“Not sure…I...” he put his hand slowly into the pocket of his raggedy oversized coat and was immediately taken a surprise by what had been there.

“Whoaa… It’s the beer I bought yesterday”

“Wait… You can hold it?”

“Yeah. It is still cold.”

“Hold on. Please let me.” I stretched my hand and waited until he moved the beer close to me. I know I might be lying but I almost heard my heart beat again. I tried to bury the excitement and anticipation of a cold can frying my fingers and was afraid that it would slide through them. But I felt it. A coldness. A light gravity that pulled my hand down. An indication of a thing being inside it. Oh. My. God.

“Please… cc can I?”

“Sure! Save me some.”

I leveraged my finger against the tag and gently pulled it up. I moaned at the crisp sound of the can being pried open. I took a sip of an imported Sengur Light and the best horse piss I ever tasted jiggled my saliva glands and glided down my throat. With every gulp, I slowly closed my eyes and heard Don Giovanni by Mozart in my ear.