ghost haunts self

When I was younger I used to daydream about my funeral. I thought most angsty teenagers did that at some point, and I have no way of knowing if I'm right. After all, I didn't believe I'd actually be around to witness it, so anything I imagined would just be that: imaginary.

Death was supposed to be the finish line, when my body finally got to release the energy stored within it as gas, when the symbiotic bacteria would finally be able to feast unfettered by the musculoskeletal constraints of the living organism. That happened, but my spirit was not as tied to the electrical impulses of my brain as I assumed. Existing isn’t as simple as biology made it appear, and

I suppose the universe decided I could still experience consciousness, just without a body. Well, I chose to discard my body when I committed suicide, I guess, but I had thought the rest of my existence would decay alongside it.

Ironic, really, that I had assumed death would be a final escape and instead I’m permanently trapped, unable to touch objects, interact with the words, exist as anyone else would. Part of me wonders if this is some cosmic joke, take the guy who was lonely and felt unloved in life and make him experience life continuing without him. 

I spend most of my time eavesdropping on strangers, or watching creatures I know might have existences similar to mine soon, like squirrels on their way to becoming roadkill or birds preying on insects. Unless being a ghost is only possible for people, which I don’t know if it is or not. I haven’t found anyone who could acknowledge my existence, so for all I know, I might be the only ghost in the universe. I hope not. 

I miss having a body - you never realize how embodied existence truly is until something goes wrong with the body, I knew that even when I was alive. Hell, that’s what kept me alive while I had thought about suicide for over a decade, the fear of failure. Little did I know, I didn’t just have to fear failure - success not only disabled but destroyed my body, so I no longer have a body. I can move, but I can’t exercise. I can’t eat, which was another one of my pleasures when I lived. I’m lucky I still have senses - sight, hearing, although touch no longer occurs because there aren’t nerves, there isn’t skin, I don’t entirely understand how I can still see and hear but that’s about all I am capable of doing as a ghost. 

Luckily, planet Earth has so much to see and hear, from other people to the battles within nature, which then has me doing the other activity I am capable of doing as a ghost: thinking. Can animals continue to experience life after death? That leads one to the more philosophical question of how much of an animal’s experience, like mine, was embodied? If all experiences are embodied for, say, a squirrel, then there’s no existence after that squirrel is flattened on the road. The heart stopped, muscles ceased, and insects and microbes began the decaying process, same as they had with my body only faster. But if a squirrel does have some level of consciousness, some form of awareness of the past and future, which they need in order to cache nuts, maybe there’s squirrel ghosts on their own plane of existence, fruitlessly trying to unbury nuts that will instead become oak trees? What is existence without an ability to interact with one’s surroundings?

From my own personal experience, boring and lonely. But do I really exist? I think I do, I think I’m experiencing the world continuing to turn without my body around to be able to interact with Earth’s inhabitants, but couldn’t I be wrong? Maybe I didn’t die - I never witnessed the funeral. I did have a black out after death; just not the permanent one I had hoped for. But I never woke up, I just became aware of existing again… somehow. 

I doubt ghost squirrels exist as I maybe watch live ones chase one another across the wooden fence that was once my neighbor’s. I can travel, but I don’t do it often even though I have no reason to avoid it the way I did in life. Inability to drive can’t impact someone who isn’t corporeal, after all! I just fear leaving, even though I left the most permanent way one can try to leave. Still, If I’m not alone in ghostly existence, if the friends who I betrayed by murdering myself do die and end up existing again after life, they would expect me where I lived in life. And maybe then I would be able to apologize, maybe that would be the unfinished business that lets me finally stop existing. 

Not that I only regret leaving because I’m still suicidal. I also do genuinely regret the grief I caused by ending my life. I guess instead of keeping my misery contained to my body, when I died I contaminated the lives of those who had to interact with my death, in a far worse way than I wrongly believed my life was hurting them. I exploded misery onto my friends, especially the ones younger than me. They still have decades of life ahead to experience if their lives end naturally, which I’m hoping will be the case. 

Although selfishly, part of me wants to be joined by fellow ghosts, although I don’t have a self anymore so can I even still be selfish? I don’t have any power to influence others with my thoughts - I’ve tried and nothing noticeably changes. Although maybe ghosts thought while I was alive and that’s what made me mentally ill. If so, I wish I could interact with those ghosts. I’d just like to know if there’s a reason my loneliness hasn’t ceased even after death. Nobody responds when I send these thoughts out to the universe - if other ghosts exist, they too are ignoring me.

That might be a comforting explanation - I wasn’t suicidal, I on some level had ghosts convincing me to die so they might feel less isolated even though in order to do that I ended up isolated completely from all living people. They don’t think about me often, my old friends. Or, at least they never outwardly express thinking about me, through talking or writing or artwork or any other form of communication. As a creature no longer capable of communicating, I think I just have to hope they think about me after death, even if they go the rest of their living days without remembering me.