Apologizing

     To everyday people, ghosts didn’t exist.

     Ghosts. The common name of spirits that had lost their lives along the way, but still had an unfulfilled goal. They wandered the wastelands of the world, dreaming of returning to civilization and fulfilling the quest that they had come back for.

     Many never did.

     Many spirits were unable to leave the scorching, empty Sahara Desert or barren, frigid Antarctic wastelands, to go to civilization, and complete their quest. Many never found a suitable opportunity. Many faded away, forgotten by the living and their spirits never able to find peace.

     Some spirits had gruesome and dangerous quests. To exact revenge, to defeat a sworn enemy in life, to find something that had fallen into the hands of powerful people. They were always the most driven people of them all. They would board ships, leaving the wastelands, with determination hardened in their eyes.

     So what was Rosi doing here?

     Rosi. Sweet, innocent, a quite youthful spirit with a silly quest indeed. She had only been living in the spirit wastelands for three years. The oldest ones had been around for hundreds. So how did she manage to get her hands on a ticket out of Antarctica?

     Nobody knows.

     Rosi had an…interesting quest, to say the least. Three summers ago, she and her friends had been swallowed by a mysterious black hole while on a summer road trip. Yuki, Kuri, and Ki, the rest of her friends, had happily passed on to the afterlife, but Rosi wasn’t quite done yet. She still had something to do.

     Rosi had to apologize to John and Ronald for forgetting to bring them along on their road trip.

***

     “WE’RE GOING ON A ROAD TRIP!!!”

     “GAAK!”

     “Did someone say road trip?!”

     Rosi smiled nostalgically as she recalled the events leading up to her and her friends’ deaths. She wasn’t sad, no, not even the slightest; Rosi had never taken anything seriously, even death. After all, she had passed on with her adorable little puppy by her side! Rosi just missed Yuki, Kuri, and Ki. They were probably somewhere in the afterlife, laughing and playing and arguing intensely.

     She floated down the streets of their hometown, Trunton. Even after three years, not much had changed. The local baker still made his famous cupcakes, the general store owner was still being plagued by constant robbers, and the chief police officer still struggled to open a single can of pickles. It was like Rosi had never left.

     “Do I really need this?”

     “No.”

     “Or do I need TWO?”

     “Sigh…”

     The good thing about being a spirit was that you didn’t have to worry about running into walls. Rosi always did that as a human. Not watching where she was going, running at inhumane speeds, and then SMACK! The wall ends up destroying you! 

     “HOW DO YOU ‘ACCIDENTALLY’ ROB A BANK?!”

     “I DON’T KNOW IT ALL JUST HAPPENED SO FAST!!”

     “Look! There’s a road block up ahead!”

     “Looks like we’ll have to JUMP!!”

     Rosi fondly remembered the last time she ran into a wall. It had been during their summer vacation road trip. They were at a gas station, Ki was slowly refilling their car, and Rosi decided to explore the shop in the gas station. But she ran too quickly, and SMACK! Right into a stupid brick wall. She hated that brick wall for a whole six minutes before she forgot all about it.

     Down Summer Avenue, past their old house, turning the corner at Tabor Street. Rosi was almost there. Four houses away, was where John and Ronald lived.

     “I’M A NEON RAINBOW AND YOU’RE—”

     “OKAY ROSI, THAT’S ENOUGH! YOU’VE BEEN SINGING FOUR THE PAST FOUR HOURS, WE’VE HEARD QUITE ENOUGH!”

     Rosi thought about that one day, when they were driving through Iowa, and she had gotten bored. Rosi chuckled to herself. She nearly drove Yuki to insanity with her constant songs that she never seemed to run out of.

     The sky was beginning to darken. The sky blue faded to pinks and reds near the horizon. Rosi had to hurry, or else John and Ronald would start watching television and never notice her. They were always like that, easily distracted by TV. 

     “TIME FOR YOU TO LEARN, IT’S MY—”

     “Oh. My. GOD ROSI. Will you PLEASE just STOP IT!!!”

     “You could have just asked earlier, Kuri!”

     “Are you kidding me…it was that easy to shut you up?!”

     Someone was hosting a party. Rosi fondly thought back to the last party she had gone to. It was, ironically, on the same fateful road trip. But it was weird…the DJ was all goth and stuff, the color theme was only black and white, and then there were these two girls dressed in green and red, always glaring at everyone! Rosi didn’t feel so bad that Ki blew that one up. Literally.

     The old memories were always the best. The ones that Rosi had made when she was still living. Her memories as a spirit always quickly faded away. If she weren’t careful, she could easily forget where she had just been! It always made navigating around the wastelands a little difficult, with no sense of direction. Even if she did have a compass, it would still be hard!

     “See? The compass is clearly broken! Now it’s shifting towards that way!”

     “Uhh…Rosi?”

     “What?!”

     …

     “Oh. I see.”

     “Oh! I’m sorry! It must be this magnet I have.”

     *THUNK*

     Rosi stood triumphantly in front of John and Ronald’s house. This was it! She had made it! Wasting no time whatsoever, Rosi dashed through all the walls and windows and doors and more walls, Rosi was quickly standing before John and Ronald feasting upon a bowl of spinach dip. Yuck.

     Taking a deep breath, Rosi manifested her spiritual powers and revealed herself to John and Ronald. Who reacted like any sane person would. Screamed their heads off.

     “R-Rosi!?” John stammered. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you dead?”

     “YES I AM!” Rosi screamed in her loudest voice as fast as possible. “I just wanted to say…I’M SORRY FOR NOT BRINGING YOU ON OUR LAST ROAD TRIP! OKAY BYE NOW!”

     With that, Rosi dissipated into the air, moving onto the afterlife.