The Ghosts of Avenue

When you live a life like I do, there’s not much you can do except peep. Many would love to place me in the categorical section of Peeping Toms. But I’m different in the sense that I’m dead.  Confining me to the typical would not be a good decision on your part because unlike the typical, I derive no pleasure from these silent, barely there interventions. Changing the channels or switching the lights off does not do it for both parties. We just don't get it, clueless in both life and its absence.

When you die, you get placed in Apartments based on the lives you have lived. As per my papers, I’ve lived an average life. And that is why they place ghosts like me in apartment chains named Avenue. It’s almost taunting in the way they expect the dead you to find “new avenues”, when you couldn’t even do it when you were living. 

I’ve been a ghost, here at Apartment Avenue, for quite a long time. While many have transcended, I’ve been here, peeping, out of the labyrinth that is my home at the moment. And all this time, life has been the same, cradling me, only to fling me off the very next second. In this case, they flung me off a little too far.

My subject today is in the apartment in front of me. She breathes, alone and tired. She’s evidently been flung off by life as well, just not to the ghost realm. I don’t like doing this. She’s reminiscent of a lot: love, life, strength or well, their remains in my life. But I still witness her life, forcing it down my throat like an awkward dinner conversation. 

I see her in her war zone, sitting through people on phones telling her to get by. She vomits a “Thank You”, forced in the odd way life does.

It’s been 50 days since he left. And while she’s been waiting for him or for something she can’t give a name to, it's clear that she realizes that this is a commonality now, a ballad on loop being played in every house in her city. It’s visible in the way she crawls out of her shell to lash out, only to find nobody. She doesn’t know that he’s been waiting as well. He shares a seat with me and on ordinary days like this, we peep together with a bourbon in our hands. 

And on days like this, I wonder if Ma waited for me. I couldn’t find her at Avenue. But it was what I expected. She was extraordinary even when we lacked a social status or money to compensate for it. Days after her passing were not easy and I wonder if ma suffered as much as me, if she’s stuck like me, waiting, peeping, gasping for any amount of life I can steal. I hope she is not. But I wonder if she waited. 

It’s been 84 days now. She looks better now. She’s been collecting pieces, scrambling gracefully to piece life back to what it was, if not for her, for them. She still recoils into that shell on some days. But we try changing the channel to a dog show in hopes that she buys one for company in this dingy and lonely city apartment. Our attempts did not go well though. We only drove her to paranoia. She’s better now or at least that’s what we tell each other. She double checks everything now. But she’s better now.

And on days like this, I wonder if a window was open to Ma. I hope it wasn’t. I don’t remember much from the time I was living but I hope there was no window. I did ask around for her but they say she must have transcended. They don’t reveal information about ghosts of other apartments even if they are your living past. And while I do not want to meet her, an oddity creeps up from time to time. Grief jumps on me when I least expect it. It’s the home where I was abandoned. I stay because my people are still stuck there. And so, I keep on visiting that home in hopes for a glimpse of the people and time I grieve. 

My subject, on the other hand, avoids that home at all costs. 

She’s found a routine these days. I have found one as well and it’s not her entirely. It’s a window to my living past. I’ve made some progress as per the counsellor. 

I watch her as she makes tea, moans about her work, talks to people on phones with zero word vomit(s) this time. There are days where she stares at her ceiling for too long. But she gets back up. She got a dog as well. 

I know this because there are days when I go back to peeping. Well, there’s not much to living when you are a ghost!

We’ve passed the 200-day mark now. 

And we looked her in the eyes today. She looks at the equivalent of Apartment Avenue in the living realm. His eyes meet hers, glistening in the sunlight as an unknown feeling takes over her. It’s like she knows. 

She lifts her gaze from his as the dog barks at us, ghosts in hiding. He soaks up all that he can of her, of her new life, of love, life, strength and what remains of it. The window seems to be closing for both of them today. 

It’s been 345 days, precisely, 145 days since his crossing over. The routines we, her and I, follow have been cheap ways to evade boredom. And as I try to recall what it is that holds me back, I have come to the conclusion that she’s been on the run ever since him. It is not the presence rather the lack of memories. It can’t be him. It is her. Maybe because she still hasn't thought of the new avenues life brings. She is simply incoherent. And I’ve been running on the same tangent, spilling out my grief in terms of what I’ve been forgetting, what we’ve been forgetting. The window is closed today.

And so, I sit with my bourbon today and wait.