You're dead, not lazy

“Hi, I am Virginia McWowski. That’s M-c-Wow-s-k-i, and my ghostly self will be your workout instructor for the afterlife.

Because, having a good figure never dies.

Follow me as I show you our amazing facilities.

As you have already noticed while walking in our aged car park, it contains just enough chasms and potholes to send any living person into a lifelong coma. Keeping our gym for the dead is very important to us.

Our state-of-the-art broken glass entrance is covered in 5-star moss and vines. Keeping the seasons inside year-round. Yes, it does remind you of a world moving on without you, but it is important to be humbled.

Now, you may be thinking as we walk through all these empty rooms.

‘McWowski where is all the gym equipment?’

Well silly, we may be abandoned but not empty inside like you. In our weightlifting room you will find one rack with only 5 dumbbells missing. The cobwebs? Decoration.

Remember that when using the dumbbells, you may fell a sense of empty nothingness.

That’s because you’re a ghost and cannot pick things up, silly.

Our pool is one of our best features.

Black stagnant water fosters a beautiful home for living algae and bugs.

Pick a bug and make it your new best friend and follow it around to build up your daily steps.

But what we at Dolus Corporeal Corp are most proud of, is our aerobics room. Notice the floor to ceiling length mirror with only a small amount of delamination and the dust-stained ballerina bar. The room contains the only window that is fully intact. Letting all the sun in.

The floor? Minimal stains except for the wine one at the back of the room, which is um, to be avoided at all costs.

Black Mold you ask? Well, let me remind you that you are dead and as you can see only some of the walls are covered making this the best place to be.

When you sign up to the aerobics course you will have me, Virginia McWowski, world famous instructor as your personal trainer.

So, what are you waiting for?

Sign up is free, parking plentiful and remember, you may be dead but not lazy.”

I smiled hard at the end that if I could feel it, I am sure my jaw would be broken. This was it. It was perfect.

“Um..”

"Shit, I didn't even realise I said it,"

“We need perfection, why can't you get that?”

Mirror me gets on my nerves, critiquing the script we spent 40 years on, laughing at my nose, even though she knows I had surgery booked before my death. How did I die again?

“If I could walk around like you-

She laments about being in the mirror and I feel sinful pride when I know she is just me, myself and I. If I could slap her I would, she aggravates me, thinks herself better. If a therapist had died here before this place shut down, I’m sure they would have something to say about that.

“Maybe we should get rid of the stagnant pool and focus on the basketball court,”

“We can’t go on the basketball court, its too far away from the main building. Besides Basil would be sad and he’s our friend,” in reality, I hate the basketball courts. When ever I walk past, blood clots in my mouth and my neck turns so skinny and crooked. Like it would snap in the wind. No one wants a gym instructor looking like a stick, mirror me knows that and that's why she suggests it everyday.

“Basil is a cockroach, and he is not a friend, I’m your friend remember, me, myself and I. Now, come stretch those hamstrings they will thank us later and 1, 2, 3, --

But I don't listen to her, the worst she can do is stab my dead heart with words. Besides its sunset and I like to watch the ball of life go down through the unbroken window. I love to feel the muted heat. Being dead, you don’t feel much, but if I stand long enough, imagine hard enough. It is almost like I am back at my mum’s, melting into the sunbaked carpet after church on a Sunday afternoon.

Even mirror me is gone, her voice nothing but the summer whine of cicadas.

I can hear the twinkle of gravel as dad comes home, the slam of his car door as he calls out to me in my distant dreams and yells.

“This place looks like the plague,”

Wait. What? I’m pulled back to this gym like a skydiver pulling the cord and there in the carpark with chasms and potholes is a lime green truck looking car.

“What was that? Is it people? Virginia?” I can feel mirror me craning her neck to try and see through her reflected version of the mirror. But she is confined to that world and therefore cannot see what is not there.

“It’s a car and people! Five by the looks of it and their getting all this stuff out.”

I tell her all the detail I can. I am in such shock that I forget that I am not bound to the mirror like her.

“Be careful!” she yells as I run through the gym, running, that’s something we could mention in the commercial.

In the foyer their, heads swivel, eyeing all to be seen. Their hands holding these flat cameras, pointing them in every nook and cranny.

While they walk around and point out the wear and tear. Commenting on the ghostly and darkly vibes of the places, I try to touch them. I talk to them, explain everything about the gym as though they are potential customers.

In the pool area they comment on the rotting flesh smell and can not be in there for more than a minute. I think it smells like nothing, but I’m dead so what do I know. They say something about B footage and finding “The Room” to set up in.

I do not care; I am so excited by these people being here and the only person I want to tell is Basil.

“Basil? Basil? Here chook, chook, chook, chook, chook,” he is not a chicken, but he must like the sound because he scurries up the seat next to me and waits patiently like a dog.

There are two ghost rules I know of. I cannot leave the gym grounds, mirror me said so, and I can touch Basil. Only basil.

Mirror me thinks Basil is a cockroach ghost. I think that he knows a good thing when he sees it.

I give him a scratch on his exoskeleton and tell him about the day. I tell him about how the commercial went perfectly and do not mention the 'um'. He says that this is good news, it means I can take a break, I can do anything else for once, like swim in the pool.

I tell him about the humans walking around which makes him nervous as he thinks he might get stepped on. But they don’t like this room so he should be fine. I wish him well and run back to mirror me and come to a skidding halt.

“They're Ghost Hunters,” she says with lips squeezed tight in annoyance and anger.

The aerobics room has a full sci-fi rig, right in the middle. Strange flat screens and artificial lights dance around the walls. The humans run tests, talk about temperature, and mention checking the EMF reader and spirit boxes.

By the wine stain at the back of the room they take pictures. One of the girls pulls a peace sign and sticks her tongue out, the wine fanning around her head like the sunset.

“So, let’s do the story first, a tour and some B footage before the sun goes down fully. Jake, you stay here with Mac to learn how all of this is set up for nighttime filming,”

They split up, the girls and the talking one turn to go to the foyer.

“I’ll follow them you listen to these guys.”

Shocked, Mirror me exclaims, “But their hunters! You should stay hidden.”

“No way! I’m going, catch up later.”

“Wait-

But I am gone. I am flying down to the foyer where the flashing camera lights and silent camera zooms are in full swing.

“I can't believe she was stabbed their," photo girl booms as she twirls her golden locks.

The room sounds like movie theatre, a hush then nothing before the loud title card plays. In the back of my head a projector whizzes and reveals me on the floor like a tattoo on my eyelids. I’m looking into the mirror as blood bubbles while metallizing the air. I see a red me, myself, and I.  

I feel cold and tight, I try crack my neck, but no pops happen, I turn my head hard and thanks to my flexibility I hear a snap and remember I am dead so how would I be able to snap my neck. How did I die again?

“In the aerobics room Virginia was stabbed multiple times by her."

I rub at my chest and sides trying to feel for holes, but nothing is there. They must be wrong, I was not stabbed, I would feel the dull aches and mirror me would laugh, point, and rip me to pieces if I had holes. How would I be the perfect actor for her? How would I fill my days if I was not perfect?

"Witnesses say both were in a good mood. Excited for their first aerobics class but nervous which is why they stayed in the back of the aerobics class."

I follow them back to our room, leaf's crunch under her feet and I am amazed by it. Nothing moves or sings when my feet patter on the sodden floor. I rub at my neck it hurts like it does when I walk past the courts.

"On October 13^th, 1989, Virginia was stabbed violently by her sister multiple times.”

How could I not remember that. My throat feels stretched, tight, and twisted.

“Ignore them, who would want to stab you? That would require someone wanting to be around you other than Basil,” mirror me says all this while I pace the room trying to breath, even though I don’t need to breath.

“We will now try to communicate with Virginia. To see what life is like beyond the grave…How was that?”

“Good, we can go again if you want?”

“No, no, no, no, we –

But I can’t hear them anymore. Can ghosts lose hearing, it seems like it is going in and out. Its staticky like a frying hum.

“Virginia are you there?”

I accidently step on the wine stain and flinch backwards as though it was lava. I bang into the ballerina pole making a deafening creak that spooks myself along with the hunters.

“Virginia are you there? Please talk to us.”

Mirror me is standing near me and her face is consuming hell fire.

“You’re all trespassing! This is a ghost gym, and we pride ourselves on our 'ghosts only' value so please go away!” she says this as her face blooms like a tomato and her voice feels like frost and sounds like rocks falling.

___--Go----___Away------

“Virginia is that you?”

But mirror me is repeating ‘go away’ and some robot repeats it back in a metallic choral. This room is too hot and I don’t like it. I can feel my throat be swamped in a tsunami of bile and blood, my eyes bulging and thumping like a heart beat. Mirror me is screaming and the excited visitors are chanting for her to speak more. She pounds her hands on the mirror so violently, so aggressively that it cracks, and the room goes silent.

The humans apologise and decide to try another ghost. What other ghost could be here. The frying hum starts again.

“Is there anyone else there?”

These people have overstayed their welcome. Through the frying and sizzing hum I scream.

“Just leave us alone!”

--------Just---------

“What is your name?”

“Just go!”

-------Just-------

“Tell us your name spirit!”

“Just….ughhhhh…..I never even wanted you here!”

------Just------I—N—E------

“Justine!”

“Oh my god it’s the ghost of the murderer!”

There is another crack on the mirror but this time from me. The humans stop talking and instead focus on temperature readings and saying more about the murder. All I can do is look at mirror me and try to breath, try to stop crying.

“For many years no one knew why Justine murdered her twin sister Virginia. But with recent developments and with the deaths of the sister’s parents, new diaries of Justine have been found detailing the obsession and love she had for Virginia's boyfriend. Even going so far as having locks of his hair taped to the pages, love spells committed by paid wiccans and a pair of his underwear. Seconds after killing her sister Justine ran, but a crowd pursued her. She had no other option but to jump from the second story and onto the basketball court. She that she would be okay. But when she hit the hoop, it was at such an angle that her head and neck created a V shape, severing her airways. No one helped her down instead they watched her drown in her own blood.”

This is all too much. Too much, the room spins, the wine stain moves to swirl around my feet.

“Hey, hey, look up, look at me,” whispered mirror me. I wipe away the tears and looked at her, me, myself and I.

“Is that the reason why you killed me? Because you loved Kevin?” she says and I feel like I am breathing warm watery air.

“No, I don’t remember.”

“Oh, come on Justine.”

“My names Virginia-

“NO!” mirror me steps out of the mirror like it is a soothing lake.

“Your name is Justine, you stabbed me for Kevin!”

“I, I, I, I-

“YOU with the big nose, the one with no friends, the one who I took out to aerobics because you were rotting away in your ROOM, KILLED ME FOR KEVIN”

She screams like a banshee about keeping me here, how we actually can leave this place, that there are other ghosts to talk to outside. But also how she enjoyed the burning pleasure she got from critiquing everything I have done for 40 years. How she laughs with her friends over my Basil. Shit I named the cockroach after our childhood dead dog. I can feel the blood clot in my throat and my lungs burn.

I wish she was gone. GONE, gone, like a cartoon bubble popping gone, like a thumping into skin shiny knife type of gone. Here one minute and gone the next.

“Gosh you look like you’re having a heart attack, how adorable,” she laughs like a witch.

“I-

“Don’t remember? That’s okay,” She takes my hand, and I can feel it, like true hard flesh, just like Basil’s exoskeleton. “This was all for my amusement anyway. But now with the Ghost Hunters coming which will like totally bring more people, like imagine that, more people equals more ghosts, ghosts love haunting, well not that you would know. Your only friend is a cockroach. And with investments from some rich ghosts, I can finally fulfil my dream, the one I had when I was alive.”

“Its really cold in the middle you guys,” camera man whispers.

“Maybe we have both of them and their having a show off,” croaks the sunset photo girl.

I sniff. Blood snorts up my nose, coagulating with boogers for me to swallow. It tastes like the stuff that dripped into my lungs when I jumped into that basketball hoop. And in a nasally voice I say.

"And what is that?"

She leads me out of the room, down the hall, and to the right. Towards the hoops.

“Hi there. I’m Virginia McWowski and I’m going to tell you about a new and invigorating death style club that will change your world.

With investments from Poltergyst Guys and Bashing Banshees, Furiez Corporeal Corp has reached new heights.

Let me ask you something. What is one thing that us as ghosts dream of?

That’s right, closure.

However, some of us die at very violent hands. That’s where us at Reinvigorating and Release come in. We focus on those difficult, violent, cases with a one-word solution, revenge.

Take me for example. My sister, Justine, well you all know the story. But what you don't know is that I trapped her in this very gym for 40 years. She never knew another ghost, had a cockroach for a friend, I bullied her every day and she cried like a baby when Paranormal Investigators visited. Like what noob.

My soul felt at peace when I returned home at night. Like I had a new beginning, like justice had peaked through her blind fold and was like.

'You go girl'

As you can see, she hangs from the basketball hoop with a knitted ectoplasm noose which was donated by the lovely Gelatine Grannies.

Here she forever sits feeling pain, anxiety, and uncertainty as she watches me live my best life and have sex on the courts. Because I am a woman with needs, and she is a limp wet corpse stewing in jealousy.

So, when the person who violently ends your life enters this ethereal plain give us a call and we will provide you with your own personal revenge trainer, like Malcolm here.

If, however, they are still alive we have amazing heart attack haunting training sessions, that contain real Paranormal Investigators to practice on, to help speed up the process.

Well, what are you waiting for an invitation?

Come get your revenge.”