Nothing Else Matters

"Don't you think we should go back?" she said as we entered. "I don't feel good about this."

"It's gonna be fine," I tell her. "Besides you're with me so what's there to be afraid of?" She nods and I could sense her discomfort but she says nothing as we walk in silence. 

"Do you think they exist?" she says after a moment.

"What?" I kind of already knew what it was going to be. I had told her a thousand times before but I could see now that those conversations didn't help.

"You know... Ghosts. Spirits. Stuff."

I didn't say anything because I was busy looking for a place we could spend the night. And I knew the last time we talked she had no problem with the plan. It was almost an adventure for her something she could brag about the next day to her friends. But now I could tell she was having second thoughts.

"You know, it depends," I said, walking a bit ahead of her so that I didn't have to look at her face which I knew surely could change my mind into not doing this thing. But I didn't care. I wanted to do this. And she knew I was hell bent and she was too the night before. But now it seemed something else had gotten in her head.

"Depends? What do you mean by that?" she asked from behind, struggling to keep up. I knew that because I could listen to the sound of the leaves crunching beneath her feet making noise in quick succession. I knew she was trying to stick closer to me. I slowed down my pace and turned to her. 

"What is it?" I asked, stroking her hair away from her face and gently tucking them behind her ears just the way girls do every once in a while. "You having second thoughts or something?" She gave me this look whenever she broke a promise. I knew what was coming my way. But this was important. For me at least.

"You said depends," she began, "what do you mean by that?" 

I let out a sigh and could see a cloud of smoke leaving my mouth. "Tell me this, have you ever seen a ghost?" She said she hadn't. 

"Then what makes you think you'll see one tonight?" She said nothing. I knew she was going through this dilemma of what to say next and while she was doing that, I looked around trying to find a decent spot. Now one doesn't come to a graveyard and look out for a place to park your butt for the night. I looked back at her and she was still thinking about what to say. I signalled her to tag along as we moved ahead.

The night was silent except for the wind which came and went as it pleased every so often making her shiver even with all those warm clothes on. Finally I saw a fairly good place where we both could fit and decided to make our small tent there. 

I pointed to the place and she nodded. "But they're there, right? The ghosts?" she said as we began to walk towards the empty spot. "As I said earlier that it depends. Whether you think they are real or not. It matters." I knew she was not going to be happy with whatever I might say to her tonight. So I decided to make this simple for her as if she were a kid. 

"Tell me," I said when we came to the nice little spot in the corner, "have you ever seen, say for an example, a bird's ghost?" She looked at me with a questioning face. "What?" she said almost as if pissed at what I had just said.

"No I'm serious," I told her. "Have you ever seen a bird's ghost or for that matter a dog's ghost? No you haven't, right? So why you think that when people die they turn into ghosts?" She shook her head, disagreeing with me. "That's not the point," she said as she looked away letting out a quick sigh something she did when she was angry. "You won't understand."

"I do. I really do. But see, the more you think about the bird analogy, the more it makes sense. And yes I agree that a graveyard is not exactly the best place to spend a night. I get it. But remember we had a pact. And you were all in for this thing saying that this was gonna be so much fun. So what happened now?" I checked my watch when she didn't say anything for a while. It was getting cold. Or was it already very cold, I couldn't tell. Maybe the cold had already numbed my insides and I was not able to tell the difference. 

"I remember the pact. What an idiot I was. Maybe we did it while we were drunk." 

I laughed breaking the eerie silence that surrounded us. "No we weren't drunk. We were at your place when we came up with the pact. Remember?" She replied with an angry "oh yes" and looked away as if she was looking for something.

"What is it?" I asked as I unpacked the small tent from my rucksack and began to unfold it. I stopped in the middle when I heard her sobbing. "Hey you crying?"

"I'm fine," she said as she looked at me. No she wasn't crying. Weird. I remember listening to her voice and I knew how it sounded when she sobbed. I ignored it and asked her to help me with the tent. Reluctantly she gave a hand and when we were done, she hurried inside.

As I went in I saw she had switched on the electric lamp and was wiping her face with the cuff of her hoodie. "How long is this gonna last?" she asked as I sat next to her opening my rucksack. I wanted to make up to her. "We'll be out of here in the morning. And besides, we can watch a movie," I showed her my iPad, "or we can just go to sleep." She said she wanted to watch a movie. "But nothing horror," she said quickly. After discussing for about twenty minutes we both decided on an animated movie. 

After just a few minutes into it, she told me she wanted to talk. I told her it was fine with me. 

"You asked me if I had seen a bird's ghost," she began when I put away the stuff back in my rucksack. "What did you mean by that?"

"All living things eventually die either by natural death or due to some illness or at times in an accident." I don't know why but I paused for a while as if I saw something. A flash of memory. Something bright but I couldn't remember what that was. I saw her looking at me and continued clearing my throat. "But that is how it is. And by all living things I also mean birds and animals. But have you ever come across someone saying that they saw a dog's ghost? I bet you haven't." She said nothing and I assumed I could continue. "Many believe that living things have a soul and that when they die their soul leaves that body and enters into another living thing yet unborn." 

"Yeah I've read that somewhere," she said. "And that's it. Everything else that we've heard about people turning into ghosts is not true. It never has been."

I still knew she was angry and afraid and most importantly she didn't believe anything I'd just said and was not pleased with what we were doing or at least with what I was doing here in this graveyard.

"So what's the problem? I know you're angry at me. And you're scared but you don't have to. There's nothing out there. Never is. Believe me." 

After changing the topic which began from discussing the last animated movie we'd seen together to how she'd once read in the local newspaper that there had been an incident last year where the people of the town complained that all got weird letters from some unknown person for at least a month, among other things. And after some time, when I could see she could no longer keep her eyes open, she said she was going to sleep. "I'll wake you up in the morning," I said. "Goodnight." I turned off the electric lamp and sat in silence for a while. Then I went outside, getting out of the small tent without making any noise and sat on the wooden bench nearby, lighting a cigarette. 

"She doesn't know, does she?" said a voice from behind. I didn't have to turn to look who that was. An old acquaintance, I thought. I simply took another hit and let out the smoke, looking at it until it disappeared into the night. "Mind if I sit?" the voice asked. I signalled the empty space by my side and threw the cigarette butt.

"So I see you still haven't told her, have you?" the voice spoke again. This time I turned to look but could only make out a dark figure, almost like a silhouette. "She doesn't have to know. Not yet at least," I said and lit another cigarette. 

"Do you think hiding things from her will make her feel better?" the dark figure said. "Sometimes you don't need to know everything my friend." I said as I let out another cloud of smoke into the air and watched it disappear. "Sometimes ignorance is bliss." I heard the figure chuckle. 

"I agree. But when the time comes..."

"I'll know what to do," I said.

"I think," I added after a while.

"So how long since you two...?"

"It's been almost a month now. But somehow she has no memory of it," I said. The whole incident flashed in front of my eyes suddenly making me sad. I didn't know if I could feel things anymore. But I did it at least I thought I felt something for a moment. Time had done its thing into turning my skin numb and I remember I no longer felt the way I used to.

"Peculiar," I heard the figure say. "I've never heard this one before." I sighed, hoping to be alone for some time, knowing that I'd like told him about this a few times before.

"I'll leave you alone with your thoughts then. But if you need me, you'll find me at my usual place," the voice said. I could see his silhouette pointing at something but I couldn't see at what exactly. I nodded and the figure got up. "But make up your mind and tell her." I said nothing and the figure left.

I wanted to go inside. Somehow I had begun to feel this strange numbness within me. I could no longer feel the cold as if it was not there. I sat for a while staring the darkness but there was nothing else to do and I didn't want to be left alone with my thoughts anymore so I got up and went inside the tent. I saw her sleep, snoring lightly with her hand tucked beneath her left cheek facing the other side. 

It had been a month or so since we both lost our lives in an accident but for some reason she can't remember it. When I woke up I found myself lying next to her in this very tent in the graveyard. The memory of the accident comes back to me in flashes. But I don't see the whole thing. What I do remember is driving and laughing with her about this stupid pact that we had made a couple of hours ago and then all of a sudden there were these bright lights coming out of nowhere, blinding everything around me before I wake up next to her. I have given up on finding what had happened because for some reason I can't get out of this place. I tired but I can't. And I guess I'll have to live with that and as long as I'm with her I don't mind.

Everyday I do this thing, something we wanted to do on the day we died - I bring her here to spend the night with me in this graveyard telling her that we have made a pact and she agrees but then when we arrive she thinks otherwise. And it happens every time, every day. I don't mind to live in this loop and I'm ready to do this all over again the next day as long as I can but I know that someday I'll have to tell her the truth. I know it will shock her to the core for I've known her almost my entire life. And I think about it all the time. Thinking about finding that perfect moment to tell her about what had happened that day a month ago. But I haven't found that perfect moment yet.

But for now the truth has to wait. I don't want to tell her that she's dead. I don't want her to know that she has become a ghost now. And I want her to know that she is alive even though for the world she's not but she's alive for me. And that is important. Nothing else matters.