A New Muse

As a phantom, it is rather hard to find satisfying ways to waste one’s days. I spent the entirety of the 60s and 70s learning to dance. Jazz, tap, disco, Irish, rumba, cha cha, foxtrot, waltz, polka, swing. You can tell how desperate I was insisting on learning all those partner dances despite not finding a fellow ghost I would’ve been willing to partner with. As the 80s were consumed by crochet, the 90s were exhausted by my fleeting love for bird watching. God, the 90s were wretched. What a waste of a decade!

Now, however many years later, I find myself unamused by everything. Badminton? No, thank you. Gardening? Pass. Stamp collecting? Never. I’m stuck in this Gothic dungeon for eternity with the poorest of company: Jerry the dull, Violet the simple, Penelope the slippery, and Jim the insecure. I need a new muse!

“We have a visitor!” Jerry shouted from the front of the communal hall. There’s no need to shout, dear. How rude.

A visitor? How strange. This dusty, overly ornamental, forgotten castle on a hill in the middle of what I thought was nowhere has finally been discovered. By whom? Some bored princess and her dependent husband who probably already has plans to woo the next woman he finds? 

The others are all gathered in the stained glass window. How desperate, peering through tinted panels to get an obstructed view at best.

“Oh,” Violet started. “She’s pretty.” Violet thinks everyone is pretty.

“They’ve got a lot of stuff with them,” Penelope chimed in, already calculating the total worth of their assets.

“And a nice car,” Jerry added, Penelope taking note.

“Look at him! A handsome bloke,” Jim said, weeping for a compliment.

Well, I might as well take a gander myself. I’d be doing these visitors a favor by taking interest. I strut underneath the vaulted ceiling and across the desperate-for-a-good-polishing wood and faded rug. With a clearing of my throat, I shimmy past the desperate lot and see them: the pretty woman and the handsome bloke.

Violet was almost right. The woman was once pretty but no longer. Life has gotten the best of her, like it got me, but at least I got to die before the wrinkles got too deep. Our scheming accountant, Penelope, correctly observed the abundance of their fortune. They are spilling over with Louis Vuitton trunks, rather impressive, which means a lot coming from a hopeless dame like me. The uncoordinated Jerry was also right. A very nice car. I never cared to know car names and models and makes and gadgets. But I know “very nice” when I see it. A little futuristic for my taste, but then again, I died decades ago. To complete this intriguing picture, we have the “handsome bloke.” Jim turned out to be a better judge of character than I thought. This man looked familiar, not like I’ve seen him before but like every single one of us, including myself, have dreamt him up before. He seemed aloof, but the kind of aloof that made ever being (women, men, dogs, squirrels, living, dead) frantic to get his attention. Who would be the one to make the aloof man focused?

“Hm,” I started, the rest of the phantoms begging me to continue. “This should be fun.”

As I eased my way to my haunting station in the master suite, the others sped to their posts with not an ounce of grace. I adore my place in the nicest room of the mansion, but I feel great apprehension, letting Violet be the first ghoul to scare our visitors in the grand, arched foyer. She’s too delicate to give them a real scare, but I guess it’s proper to save the best for last.

“Ah!” Violet shrieked as if she were being murdered for a second time now. How shrill.

“Aren’t you precious?” the strange woman replied. 

Excuse me. Precious? Did I hear that wench correctly? I understand that Violet is mild and prude and vanilla and lukewarm and boring, but even I take offense to calling a phantom precious. We are not precious; we are dead and terrifying.

“Henry, look at this one!” The strange woman added, an out-of-place chuckle leaking through her words. “He’s been decapitated!” Jim is a laughable man, but you don’t laugh at him for losing his head. Who gave this tramp the right?

My liquified strut and ease are long forgotten, as my newfound stomp shakes the decaying floorboards and aging walls. I did not die to entertain some unappreciative floozy and her poor, seemingly mute Henry.

The gust of insulted spirits and disgruntled sorcery pushes through me and blasts open the French doors, making my entrance to the grand foyer as priceless as the moment that same gust sends that woman’s oversized fanny to the floor. 

“Who are you to insult and mock those who have heroically died so you can keep wasting your air on showing off your poor taste and poor intellect?” I ask, straining against my better judgment to not use for poignant, crude words.

“Henry!” the woman calls out.

The man of the hour appears. “Hello, all,” he starts, not mute. And I am ecstatic to find out he has a working voice. Its smoothness makes him even more wanted. I just wish I liked the name Henry better. “I apologize for my wife’s behavior. She’s quite the ghost fanatic.”

“How can one be a ghost fanatic?” Penelope asked.

“She simply adores ghosts.” The woman now chasing Jerry around the study. How bizarre. But I do admire her lack of shame, quickly forgetting her humorous fall.

“And who are you?” I ask the mysterious Henry.

“I am the new owner of this property,” he replies, and I swear I saw my wink at me. That little tease. New owner? More like my new muse.

“Well then, Henry, is it?” I play it coy.

“Yes.”

“Henry, it’s nice to meet you.” Now, let us have some fun.