Don't Lose Your Head

The old man’s ghost passed through the wall, slipping out of sight like a child down a Slip ‘N Slide.

Sadie Marshman let out her held-in breath, but the tension didn’t leave her body. That had been the twelfth ghost this morning. How many had visited whilst she’d been unconscious or out of it on hospital drugs? Sadie couldn’t say, but since they’d weened her off the good stuff, she’d become more aware of her surroundings. Wasn’t it enough that she’d had her accident and sustained her head injury? Must the dead also visit her? At first, she’d thought it was only a hallucination. But, she’d inquired about one of them, whose name she’d gleaned from their wrist tag as they pushed a spectral IV stand. It turned out they had died at this hospital.

Sadie was seeing dead people.

God, she wanted to go home and for everything to return to normal. Sadie wished Neal Lynch had never asked her on that date. Yet, it was hardly his fault that she didn’t know how to ice skate and lied out of fear of looking stupid. Well, she’d made herself look foolish, all right. Sadie pulled the sheets up to her chin and kept her eyes peeled, scanning the walls.

The ghost of a nurse backed into Sadie’s room, wheeling a cart containing trays of food.

Sadie yelped and flinched away, banging her tender skull on the back of the hospital bed.

The nurse frowned and appraised Sadie. ‘Oh, dear. Is that bruised noggin of yours still giving you trouble? Would you like some stronger painkillers? I can also ask the doctor to pop by if needed.’

Ah. So, not a ghost, then. A nurse. An ordinary, flesh-and-blood, bills-to-pay, money-to-earn woman. Sadie, whose head did indeed ache, shook her head and smiled, pretending that her vision didn’t swim. She resisted the urge to rub the back of her head. ‘Nope,’ she lied. ‘No pain at all. I was snoozing and you gave me a start.’

The nurse set Sadie’s meal on her bedside table and wheeled it around within reach. ‘Sorry, my sweet. You looked like you’d seen a ghost!’

Sadie’s smile faltered, but she held onto it like she should’ve held Neal’s hand on the ice rink. ‘I’m feeling a lot better. I don’t think I need painkillers at all, any more. I think I’m pretty much fine, now.’

The nurse brightened. ‘Oh? Well, that’s wonderful, my sweet. I’ll still leave them with you, in case you change your mind. But I’ll let the doctor know you’re improving. If you keep this up, you’ll be out of here in no time.’

‘I’d like that. You’ve all taken good care of me, but I’d love for everything to get back to the way it was before.’

The nurse said she understood and that Sadie had been ‘the best kind of guest’, laughing at her joke. She said she’d see Sadie at lunch, then left to check on ‘the other customers’.

Sadie thought about taking a pill to numb the pulse at the back of her skull, then discounted it. Ordinary people didn’t have to take painkillers for their bruised head. Sadie pulled her bedside table closer and wrinkled her nose at the hospital food. She sighed and picked up her fork.

In the corner, something rose out of the linoleum floor.

She froze, like the ice upon which she’d struck her dome and taken two weeks’ vacation from life.

There was something wrong with this ghost’s head. And when he turned to face her—

Sadie screamed and dropped her fork, which clattered to the floor. She clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the noise.

The ghost, whose distorted head had a dent in one side and a bulge out the other, jumped. The damaged eye bulged from its socket, and his jaw hung like a broken coathanger. It was as though someone had modelled him out of clay and then dropped him before reaching the oven. ‘Sadie?’ he asked, his spectral voice undistorted by his facial damage. ‘Is that you? Can— Can you see me?’

Sadie’s stomach belched a bubble of acid up her throat. Everyone knew Gavin; he was the school’s loveable idiot. She gave a weak smile. ‘Hi, Gavin. I didn’t know you were dead.’

Gavin Thornton shrugged. ‘This morning. I put an engine in a shopping trolley to see how fast it could go. Was doing pretty well ‘til I hit the lamppost.’

Sadie grimaced. ‘Oh, God. I’m sorry, Gavin.’

‘Yeah, well, whatchagonnado? Dad said I was gonna kill myself by the time I was eighteen. Guess I’ve got him beat! That’s enough about me, though. Since when can you speak with the dead?’

Sadie pointed to her bandaged head – a minor injury compared with Gavin’s. ‘Also recent. Although, I can’t say I’m fond of the skill. I wish I could go back to normal.’

Gavin nodded, his jaw flapping like a curtain in a breeze. ‘I get that. Although, it’s been nice for me to have a chin wag with someone not dead.’

‘I’m glad we could have this chat before… Well, whatever comes next. But I hope it wears off soon.’

Gavin paused. ‘And if it doesn’t?’

Sadie looked down at her hands. ‘I… don’t know.’

‘Listen. I wasn’t ready to die, y’know? I wish I could come back.’

‘Yeah, that must be tough to wrap your head aro— Um, to come to terms with.’

‘But I can’t change that, so I’ve had to accept it. Maybe this speaking with the dead thing will fade. And maybe it won’t. Either way, you have to live with what comes. It’s like my mum always says, “Grant me coffee to change the things I can control, and wine to accept the things I can’t.” To rage against things out of your power is to go mad.’

Sadie looked into Gavin’s one good eye. ‘Huh.’

‘Anyway, I must get going. I’ve got a hot date. Hey, you woudn’t know where I ought to go from here, do you?’

Sadie pointed to the wall opposite. ‘All the other ghosts seem to be heading through here. Not sure where it leads. Good luck, Gavin. It was nice knowing you.’

Gavin popped off a salute, which seemed grotesque with his semi-crushed melon. He faded through the wall. ‘See you around, Sadie.’

Sadie sighed and looked down at her meal. She’d never felt less like eating her whole life. Seeing bits of Gavin’s grey matter hadn’t helped. She reached down and retrieved her lost fork.

She began to pick at her meal and wondered when the next ghost would arrive.