It's A Ghost's Life

Trust me. This ghosting lark isn’t such a breeze.

You may think that all it entails is floating around and going “Whoo-oo!” now and then for effect, and that it seems like an easy enough life-after-death. Then you’ll be thinking of the perks.

For one, there’s the fly-on-the-wall factor. You get to witness secrets or listen in to the exchange of them. But what can you do with the information you glean? I mean, half the fun of knowing a secret is breaking confidentiality and spreading it, am I right? Who are you going to spread it to but other ghosts, and they aren’t exactly two-a-penny here, of which more later.

Then there are the intimate conversations, which can coincide with intimate scenes, of course. When I was younger (and alive!), and the sap was rising, I’d have killed to watch couples going at it. (I remember well observing our neighbour Sonia through the gap in her curtains, for example. Voyeurism, some would call it, but it was all clean fun really. All right, maybe not so clean. But in my defence, those were different times.) My present state, though, means not a lot of anything's rising, so beyond socio-physiological interest, there’s no great attraction.

Other perks? Well, there’s no pain, naturally. You’re living a constant cotton-wool non-existence. People suffering from back pain, or toothache, or the agony of cancer – which I know all about – will think this is a big plus. Believe me, it’s not. Constancy’s a killer; contrast is everything. How, for example, would you know the full joy of love without first experiencing the absence of it? The same with pain. Those who don’t suffer it don’t know how lucky they are and just take the lack of it for granted.

The same goes for the senses: we have only two – sight and hearing. So we don’t have to endure diesel fumes or raw sewage in rivers, but nor can we catch the exquisite scent of the first rain on the ground after a dry spell, or freshly-cut grass. We don’t have to suffer a badly-cooked risotto, but we miss a good wine or cheese dancing on our tongues. Cold, damp winters no longer seep through to our bones, but that first warm sun on our faces in springtime can only be enjoyed in our memory.

So you see, the obvious perks turn out not to be. And their corollary is a burden we must bear.

As I said, we can be flies on the wall because no one – except an extremely small number of extremely gifted people, like you – notices us. Imagine going through life without others acknowledging that you exist. It happens to old people – once again, something I know all about. They’re often screaming out silently for any kind of human connection, but people pass them by in the street without a word or a kindly look, or don’t call round to see how they are. Magnify that sense of loneliness a millionfold and you’ll get an idea of the ghost’s lot.

Which leads me back to the scarcity of ghosts. If you think about it, and if the answer to the question ‘Do ghosts exist?’ is ‘yes’ (although there’s really no ‘if’ about it, as you can see), then this netherworld should be teeming with them. I mean, how many people have died since people existed? Over one hundred billion is the answer. We ghosts would be bumping into each other, figuratively speaking, but we’re not, and here’s the reason.

When I shuffled off, I found out there’s a bureaucracy to it; I thought I was back in the Social Security system, where I almost had to get on my knees and beg for benefits when I was ill, and then for my paltry pension. Here there was a series of interviews conducted by cloaked, faceless figures with doom-laden voices, like a poor ‘B’ horror movie. At my final interview, I was told I couldn’t go on and that I had to stay here “until I resolved my issues.” I wanted to know what issues they might be, but my interviewer simply dissolved into a black mist, leaving me stranded and clueless.

Ever since, I’ve been floating around. I can’t be specific about how long because time seems not to work in the same way here. I’ve tried counting the seasons, but I mysteriously lose count after a while. I do have a lot of time to muse on my issues, though, I know that much.

What can Rodney have meant? (Rodney's the name I’ve given to the last interviewer in an attempt to personify him ... or it). It could be anything. I was quite an angry person, and that’s followed me here; I’m now an angry ghost. But the cryptic task of figuring out what my issues are isn’t helping me resolve this defect; rather, it’s making it worse. I was a bit of a hedonist, too, so that spiritual matters never got a look-in. And I was never a very warm person. Later in life, I did seek human warmth; it was too late then – I’d burned my bridges. Issues? It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

So my time is spent wondering what I did to deserve this … limbo. And I’m doing it on my own because it seems that most of those hundred billion souls had everything neatly resolved and ended up at peace (or possibly not, depending on their histories – they could be in that place…).

Having said all this, something has happened that intrigues me. For a number of nights, in this grand old house – which was allocated to me (we don’t inhabit places we actually lived in) – I’ve caught a movement in the corridors. At first it was just a slight suggestion of misty light, but on subsequent occasions, a shape has taken form. And the shape resembles that of a woman. I imagine she must also have issues or she wouldn't be here.

I’ve made it my quest to meet her. The wispy form that flits here and there could be the company I’ve been craving since I died – and well before that, if I'm honest. Perhaps we could tackle our issue-resolution together. Perhaps my interminable non-existence can be made more bearable.

It may take a night to catch up with her. It may take a thousand nights. But that's not a problem really; I have all the time in the world. Or rather, in this netherworld.