Ghost tips

The funny thing about this particular bus stop was that it was haunted as hell. Now I know that that sounds like a crock-of-shit but stay with me on this. There are places in the world which are more susceptible to this kind of supernatural interference. Places where people congregate because they have to because there is no other choice. People don’t go to bus stops for the ambience, well I mean some people do but they’re statistical outliers and we need not include them in our assessment. 

The key is important but boring, that’s where ghosts like most. Hospitals, cemeteries, morgues and the like are unpleasant to be in but mysterious and dynamic. Things are meant to happen in those places, so ghosts hate them. It’s cliched to do what you’re supposed to do, all ghosts are secretly rebels trust me on this. I have an inside source.

Yes, she’s a ghost and her name is Emma. We’re mates. 

I first met her at, surprise, a bus stop. She looked bored as hell, hanging out two feet next to an old lady looking through her enormous purse for change. I scared the crap out of her when I said hi, I mean if ghosts had crap to scare out. Most people can see ghosts if they try, but the important thing is that most people don’t. If you admit you can see ghosts you have to consider all the shit that comes with that revelation.

Is God real? Which one? Am I going to heaven or hell? Have my grandparent’s ghosts seen me having weird sex with my next-door neighbour? I have the distinct advantage of being an annoying loudmouth and have no friends or family to speak of, and therefore have always seen ghosts. 

We met three years ago, back when I was still in school, I’d like to pretend that we met in an interesting or mysterious way but it was pretty mundane. It was, get this, a dark and stormy night, my night class had just let us out, I was lamenting ever attempting to improve myself and some of the boys in the class decided to run ahead and ditch me. Which left me walking along a darkened road to the bus stop on my lonesome. 

I thought she was just another commuter at first,hanging out next to her nan or something, with long dreads reaching almost all the way down to her bum, almost the same shade of her skin. The first thing I noticed was her excellent kicks, these bright blue sneakers with red and yellow accents. I think I startled her when she walked around, she straight up jumped like a foot in the air. Which was funny, but then she scared the actual shit out of me when she didn’t come back down again. 

She just hovered there a foot off the ground, at first it was scary but then it quickly got kind of awkward. Like how do you have a conversation with someone when they’re hovering? There is no good place for you to look.

Eventually she came back down again and cue several minutes of like super awkward conversation. That’s how I know all that stuff about ghosts and whatever, Emma clued me in. Apparently she died.

‘So what are you doing at a bus stop? Like shouldn’t you be haunting something a bit spookier?’ 

‘Shut up, that’s rude you know. I can haunt whatever I want’.

I shrugged, I mean she was right. I’m not the boss of her, she could haunt a gym if she wanted, it wasn’t like it was my business. 

‘But why are you haunting a bus stop tho? Doesn’t it get boring?’.

‘It’s not like I’m here all the time, I haunt loads of places. You wouldn’t believe where I’ve haunted’.

I think I embarrassed her. 

‘No, I mean of course you have. I reckon it’s cool, I haven’t haunted anywhere so… I mean I would haunt a bus stop if I could, I mean I bet you see loads of cool people’.

She smiled, and we became mates. Turns out she had seen loads of cool people. Well, interesting weirdos at any rate. Apparently, there’s a hierarchy of sorts when it comes to haunting places. You have to earn haunting interesting places.

Lots of different things go into becoming a good ghost, how interesting you were when you were alive, how long you’ve been dead, how noteworthy your death was, how many times you’ve been seen (this one’s tricky because it matters how you’ve been seen). Emma didn’t have enough ghost points, so she was stuck haunting:

1. This bus stop
2. A fish and chip shop
3. Some random woman’s garden

So obviously, that’s a bit rubbish so I decided to help out my new friend get better at being a ghost. Mostly it was a lot of slog, like I kind of hoped it would be a cool training montage but apparently that just happens in TV shows.

‘Why are we here?’

‘You need to get better at being a ghost, we’ve been over this. You can’t be more interesting in life cause you’re already dead’.

‘True’.

‘And your death wasn’t like super cool, you didn’t die wrestling a crocodile or in a skydiving accident dressed as a clown’.

‘You don’t know that!’.

‘Yeah I do, cause you told me’.

‘Oh yeah’.

‘So now we gotta make you scary or cool or whatever and to do that you need to actually be scary or cool around people. Which means confidence!’.

‘Confidence?’

‘Yeah people are scared by like actual spooky stuff, like scary nuns and haunted dolls and stuff’.

‘I’m not a nun or a doll though?’

‘Yeah, well. We’ll work with what we have’.

Then started my summer of coaching a ghost how to be spooky and scary to earn some ghost points. I can tell you right now, it was hard work. Emma is not a naturally scary person, she’s a sweetheart really so getting her to scare nice normal people was hard. Besides, it was seen as crass as wanting to haunt proper places because, like I said before, it was seen as cliched. 

But anything has to be better than haunting a bus stop.