Shucked

Finally I was dead. This was the moment I had waited for my entire life. To be clear, I did nothing to hurry its arrival, nothing egregious anyway, despite the fact that my husk of clay wasn’t always what I’d call "amenable" to keeping itself alive. Nonetheless, I really did do my best as long as it was my duty. I fed it, exercised it, gave it multi-vitamins when I remembered and generally deferred from the things it craved that would clog its arteries, fog its brain and otherwise break down its fragile fickleness. But all along I knew time was on my side. It was just a matter of biding ‘til I got shucked out of that coil of nonsense.

I remember the first time I realized my ultimate destiny was ghostliness. The old bag of bones was still pretty short back then, couldn’t even see up over the kitchen counter. I’d come around the corner with a full head of steam chasing after the dog and lost track of the forehead portion of things. As all of you with foreheads already know, the moment you lose track of it, it slams itself into something.

The countertop overhang was a willing hard spot and next thing I knew my mortal responsibility was flat on its back, forehead throbbing, eyes leaking, a permanent monument to clumsiness gashed right above the left eye. I was in there with all the pain and the crying. All I’d wanted to do was to catch up to the dog and feel its soft fur, but now I had to deal with fussing and sorting out limbs and being mad. At first, I was thinking about vengeance on the countertop, but there wasn’t any way to make it hurt like the forehead was doing. Then it came to me. The pain wasn’t really to do with the countertop; it didn’t have any feelings to give or take. The forehead was the real culprit. It’d done the slamming and now it was giving out all the hurting as well.

That’s when I knew. A ghost could’ve just passed right through all that sharp granite. A ghost wouldn’t have throbbing and that kind of foolishness. So that’s when I started looking ahead. I’d be stuck with clumsiness for a while, but someday I’d get shucked of it and all the pain that came along.

Few years later the limbs got longer and even more awkward and now they did themselves the disservice of lifting the eyes up high enough to see into the bathroom mirror. I tried all sorts of ways to cover up that scar over the left eye, but I couldn’t get those clumsy hands to adjust the hair in any kind of way that looked natural. And the scar was just the beginning of the problems. The nose wasn’t anything I thought should be let out into public, the skin was its own little village of outraged inflammation and I’d heard someone laughing about big ears and was fairly certain it was in reference to the ones attached either side of the head I was in charge of. Going down from there it was just a rash of worries—was this part too big or that part too small—all this led to messing around with every kind of clothes, trying to cover things that wouldn’t hold up to being seen while making it seem like what was underneath might be worth looking at.

I hated winding up courage to stand my flesh and blood in front of mirrors and every time I did, I looked forward to being a ghost. Ghosts don’t have unsightly reflections, or any reflections at all. Ghosts are just there, being themselves without worrying about seeing or being seeing. Ghosts don’t have to be in shape, ‘cause ghosts don’t have any shape at all, not unless they want to now and again. 

The worst part about being stuck inside a body was, of course, being left behind. First, it was my dog, the same fluffy one I used to chase around the house. One day he got slow, then he wouldn’t run at all, then he would just lay there and snap at me when all I wanted to do was feel his soft fur. He finally went where I couldn’t follow, free to run around again while I was stuck inside of an earthbound ball of self-consciousness with no best friend to make me feel good when everything else was bad.

After he went, others followed. I did eventually figure out how to get those ungainly limbs to walk straight and managed to look other bodies in the eye, even though I knew all the things that were wrong with mine. There was even a time when I thought I found someone who liked those things that were wrong about me. The hands I had fitted nicely into the hands he had and we got to staying together and I just about got around to thinking it was nice—spirits and bodies bound as one—and I got to thinking that maybe I didn’t ever want to be a ghost, not if being alive could be like this.

 But the truth is bodies always betray you. 

He got slow before he should have, before I did. I had to help him with his body then. Lift his limbs in and outta bed. Get clothes covering him. Get food into his mouth when finally he couldn’t do it himself. Then, before he left, he snapped at me, just like that old dog and that hurt worse than any forehead banging ever could, even though I knew he didn’t mean it, even though I had a good idea he mighta been a ghost already when he did it, only his flesh and bones didn’t know it yet.

I was done with bodies after that, though I still kept mine up. I made it stand and walk just so far everyday. I made it eat greens and drink clear water. But I was wary of it, I never trusted it and I got to hankering for my destiny as a ghost again. If I was a ghost, I’d be the one going places. If I was a ghost, I’d be the one shucking out and leaving folks behind.      

The day I died was a bright and sunny day. I thought that was fitting, because I sprung right out of all that dust and ashes just like an honest to goodness daisy and it was everything I hoped it would be. Right away I zipped clean around the earth, all that mud and water spinning past and not one stitch of pain or one ounce of worry dragging me down. You’d think I was plumb lacking sense the way I dove deep down into the oceans, then came twirling up outta the waves squealing for it was so much joy before skimming the top of the coldest mountain and even sitting on the tip of the crescent moon only because it was so easy.

You bet I found that fluffy dog wagging his tail to see me and after that, found the one who I knew had always liked me, though I still made him say "I'm sorry" both for snapping, even though I knew he didn't mean it, and for leaving me alone.

The funny thing is after all that, after our hellos and after all our plans for eternity were put right in place, our favorite thing to do on evenings was to settle down next to each other and watch the bodies down below go about their business. It's not that we ever wanted to go through all that again, but once you've done it and once you are on the other side, it's easy to see how it makes a good story, and it gets you rooting for everybody else who hasn’t got shucked yet.