Dancing on the Other Side

The streets were vibrant with carved pumpkins, skeletons, tombstones, spider webs, giant spiders, zombies and other Halloween delights - it was the day before Halloween and excitement brewed in the houses of the middle class neighborhood of Charleston. All except in the Turner family’s house;

“You guys don’t go, don’t leave me,” sobbed Deloris Turner. It had been almost a year since anyone from her family had acknowledged her but it had been comforting to have them with her in the same house. Today, unfortunately, was the day she had been dreading - she had heard them making plans and arrangements but somehow it didn’t sink in until this very moment.

Everything was already in boxes and the moving truck was in the driveway - her mother spearheaded the whole operation as she did in their daily lives. Her father lagged around obeying her every order and so did Charlie – Deloris’ younger brother, he would have it the hardest having to start at a new school close to the year ending. After carrying out the last boxes from his room, Charlie put Roger on a leash and the two navigated to the driveway.

“Mr and Mrs Turner, is that the last of the things?” the truck driver inquired.

“Yep I think that’s it Greg, you can go right ahead - we will be right behind you,” Deloris mother responded.

She went to the backyard and stared longingly at the pool where her only daughter’s life ended in an unfortunate accident during a party they had allowed her to throw to celebrate her graduation from college. Deloris’ father embraced her from behind seeing her internal struggle, “It’s time to let go now,” he said as Mrs Turner sobbed lightly. She slowly regained composure and wiped her tears and tried to form a smile.

“You are right Tom, now let’s go before the moving truck gets to the new house before us and starts offloading,” Mrs Turner said walking to the door.

“Still don’t trust them?” Mr Turner inquired.

“I would trust him more if he didn’t use a calculator to count every piece of material he loads in his truck,” muttered Mrs Turner making her husband snicker.

All the while Deloris was screaming as loud as she could, trying to get anyone to hear her or acknowledge her any way. As her parents made their way to the door, she ran after them in a last ditch effort. She stood at the door and wailed with every breath of her existence.

“Don’t leave me! I’m right here! Mum, Dad, Charlie!” Roger began to growl and bark at her incisively.

“Down boy,” Charlie said as he steered him into the car. Mr and Mrs Turner also made their way to the mini-van, and Deloris heard the car’s engine purr as they made their way out of the driveway and out of view.

Deloris stood by the doorway sobbing, with every inkling of her being she wanted to run out and follow them but something beyond her held her back. She had tried over the course of the year in her ‘new life’ but failed. Every time she tried to leave the house she found herself back in another part of the house, like she was bound to it. Deloris made a last-ditch effort to lunge herself out once more but found herself in the kitchen.

“Ahhh!” she bawled in frustration.

“Being a ghost has to have some perks,” she muttered as she made her way upstairs. Deloris glided her way to the attic – where her mother had shifted all her belongings. In the year that she had been a ghost all she had mastered was moving around objects, of course none of significant weight. She focused he energy and picked up her old laptop and browsed ‘trapped spirit’. After going through a bunch of random videos and even songs Deloris decided to search ‘how to free a trapped spirit’. It didn’t take long for her to get numerous ideas; sprinkling salt at home entrances, burning white candles, burning sage…

“Sage!” she yelped, “we have sage on the bathroom window.”

She hurried down the stairs and into the nearest bathroom. “Bingo! Alright now it said burn sage and wait for a few hours,” she said upon discovering the sage with a lighter right beside it. Deloris quickly lit it and walked around the house. “Let me out, let me out,” she chanted in every room. “This had better work,” she murmured when she was done and the sage had nearly burnt out.

She stared nostalgically out the window and saw that it was already night-time. Deloris thought about all the fun she had when she was still alive, going out with her friends and her boyfriend Nicholas, enjoying the night-life – all the parties and events she got to participate in. She went back into the attic and decided to log into her social media for the first time in about a year, she hadn’t had the desire to in do so until now. A few months after she passed, her friends stopped visiting her house entirely and she realised that they had moved on without her, that everyone had moved on without her and she had thought that social media would only reinforce what she knew was true.

Her attempt to log into her Facebook account was successful within a single try. She stared at her profile picture – in it her blonde hair waved around her face with its drawn-out curls, she wore minimum make-up to accentuate her big blue eyes complimenting it with a soft pink lip-color.

“I sure was pretty,” she commented as she went through more pictures. Deloris saw more than a dozen posts on her timeline; friends, family members and school mates grieving over her unfortunate demise. She became particularly sentimental when she came across pictures of herself and Nicholas; pictures of them holding hands, smiling and kissing – things seemed simpler then and they didn’t have a care in the world. Deloris decided to go to Nicholas’ profile to see what he had been up to. Well, he had cut his hair to a short buzz rather than the long, wavy hair Deloris had known. He was still as handsome as ever, she thought.

As Deloris went through his timeline she was discontented to find a lot of posts from her all-time nemesis Kate. She filled his timeline with random posts and she tagged him in pictures of herself - “Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Deloris mused. She decided to go to Kate’s profile to see what the cunning little sneak had been up to. Upon scrutiny, one of the first things she noticed was that Kate had received the internship at the elite Franklin’s Law Firm that was awarded to Deloris before tragedy struck. “She’s trying to take my life,” pondered Deloris. She then noticed that Kate had posted about a party she would be holding on Halloween, inviting her friends and of course Nicholas. “Huh, its tomorrow,” Deloris noted, “this sage mambo jumbo had better work because I’m attending this party.”

Deloris drifted around the house until morning when she felt enough time had passed for her to attempt to leave the house again. She stood by her door way for a while, considering her options; she had the oddest notion that if she left the house she would cease to exist. A few hours later, she succumbed to her own curiosity – she focused all her energy and all her might; Deloris remained frozen in that set position until she felt herself being displaced and before she knew it, she was in the driveway.

“Hah,” she shrieked, “I did it, I did it.” Deloris drifted around the driveway satisfied with herself, for the first time in almost a year she had left her house. She wandered to the neighboring houses passing through and admiring their eccentric Halloween decorations. Deloris glided through all her favourite local places – Mr Glover’s Coffee Shop, the Library, the bookshop, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Deloris felt free. “Thank you sage,” she crooned.

Time flew as Deloris explored her newly-found freedom and before she knew it, it was dark – the much anticipated Halloween night was afoot. People were at the grocery store buying candy at the last-minute, children had started roaming around - some in groups and some with their chaperons. Deloris found herself wondering what Nicholas would be doing at that moment in time and thus decided to make her way to his place. It didn’t take her long to get there once she focused her energy to the place she had been to countless times. “I could get used to this,” she mumbled, realising that she was in Nicholas’ driveway.

Nicholas still lived with his parents, having just graduated from college a year ago, at about the same time as Deloris. Just then, Deloris saw Nicholas’ old truck pull up in the driveway. He quickly jumped out wearing a white shirt and black jeans with pale-blue sneakers, upon inspection Deloris saw that his shirt had a small label on its left-breast pocket that read ‘Foster Engineers’.

“Haha, baby – you got in!” Deloris gasped. Nicholas seemed more put together, more serious than she had known him. She drifted alongside him as he made his way into his house, he greeted his mother with an amiable kiss and went upstairs to his room. On his bed he had laid out a pair of blue jeans, a black t-shirt and a Jason mask. “Oh come on, don’t tell me that’s what you’re wearing to the party,” Deloris sighed. “Well at least somethings don’t change – like your terrible taste in fashion,” she noted. Nicholas took a shower and quickly got dressed, fixed his hair and headed for the door.

“It’s only 7:30p.m. Nic, no one actually goes to the party that early… haven’t I taught you anything,” moaned Deloris. Nicholas kicked on his boots and was out of the door. Deloris focused her energy to her arch-enemy’s house. She was there before Nicholas and decided to go in to see what her devious adversary had up her sleeve. Kate had always lived in the most lavish house in the neighbourhood, in her driveway was a fleet of cars, including her pink 1974 Cadillac Eldorado. Kate had gone over the top with her Halloween decorations; a massive spider web covered the entire house and was surrounded by giant spiders, she had two pillars made of skulls on either side of the entrance, and everything from clowns to zombies scattered on her front yard.

Deloris made her way into the house and found Kate and her two ‘minions’, as Deloris called them, Tiffany and Amber. Kate wore a skimpy witch costume whilst the two coordinated scanty maid costumes. “Fitting,” Deloris scoffed. It was the first time Deloris got that close to the trio, they had an unspoken feud with Deloris since high school. It only grew when both Deloris and Kate went to the same college, enrolled in the same field of study and were thus in the same class where Deloris graduated as Valedictorian.

“Ugh, fat Amelia? She’ll probably be as tacky as ever, remember last year she wore that horrendous bridezilla costume,” sneered Kate.

“And what about Charlotte and her Hobbit costume, I mean it’s enough that she’s a nerd, she wants to wear it too,” Amber ridiculed.

“Some people are just hopeless,” snorted Tiffany.

“Oh, look its Nicholas; he made it!” Kate beamed.

“What is going on with the two of you by the way?” Tiffany inquired.

“Ahh, you know he’s still heartbroken over the whole Deloris deal, but I think I can help him get over it – he’s too good-looking to be sad,” mused Kate.

“The whole Deloris thing was really sad right, I feel bad for him,” Amber commented.

“Uhm, I wasn’t too surprised, that Deloris was getting too reckless, thinking she was the best thing in town – I saw it coming,” stated Kate. “Let me go talk to Nic,” she said parting from her friends.

“Who the hell does she think she is, she thinks I deserved to die,” Deloris fumed. Without thinking, she followed Kate to where Nicholas was. The party was beginning to fill up; Deloris saw a lot of familiar faces from her part of the neighborhood and even some of her friends but she was keen on focusing on Kate and whatever she was up to. As Kate tried to chat up Nicholas, Deloris noticed that he held a full glass of punch; she focussed her energy on the glass and was pleased when it splashed all over Kate’s costume.

“What? You ruined my costume!” Kate wailed as the liquid dripped down her torso.

“Uh, I’m so sorry – I don’t even know how it happened,” said a confused Nicholas.

“Never mind, I’ll dry off in the bathroom,” Kate said as she headed upstairs.

But Deloris wasn’t done yet, in fact, she had just gotten started. She followed Kate to the bathroom, as she tried to clean herself up Deloris decided to leave a message on the steamy mirror. Kate watched in horror as the words formed; “You’re next,” it read. Kate screamed and ran back downstairs and only stopped when she reached her friends who now stood in front of the snack table.

“Guys, there’s something wrong – I think my house is haunted,” Kate breathed heavily.

“Yeah it is,” Tiffany said blissfully hitting her cup against Amber’s.

“No you idiot, I mean really haunted; as in there’s a ghost, I saw it write on the mirror upstairs,”

“Haha, I think the drinks are really hitting her,” Amber said winking at Tiffany.

“Ugh, I knew you buffoons wouldn’t get it,” Kate sighed.

At that very moment the entire table of snacks flipped over and scattered all over the floor.

“What the hell was that?” Amber queried staring at the refreshments now adorned on the floor.

“I told you this house is haunted!” cried Kate.

She tried to regain her composure and walked back to the corner where she had left Nicholas, where he stood quietly. As Kate was about to reach him, she tripped over something invisible and landed on her rear-end. A few of her guest snickered but immediately stopped when she cut them a dirty look.

Nicholas was already at her side offering aid, “I’m so sorry Kate try to get up, bad luck seems to be following you today,” he said as a light joke.

“Hehe yeah, you have no idea. So where were we?” Kate said smiling cordially.

At that moment, the previously vibrant music began to muffle and started playing in an inaudible slow wave before the whole sound system burst releasing a repugnant dark smoke.

Kate’s guests began to boo, and slowly, some of them began to leave.

“Ugh, who needs you anyway, you are just a bunch of losers and you should be honored that I even invited tragedies such as yourself. Oh right, you too Ben? Like you were even invited,” Katie snarled. She stormed upstairs to her room slamming the door behind her.

Deloris stood in the passage way, pleased with herself. As she raked around the room to find Nicholas, she saw him sitting on the couch conversing with a girl Deloris had known her whole life, the two seemed cozy.

“Amelia Miller,” Deloris noted and drifted towards them, “This is one of the most genuine and selfless people I have ever known Nicholas – she’ll be good for you.”

Deloris wished they could hear her but they seemed so taken by each other that she simply watched the two dialogue for a while before she was contented enough to leave. She made her way out of Kate’s house and into the streets; the streets were still occupied with trick-or-treaters, as well as teenagers and adults in costume. They chatted and frolicked blissfully on this thrilling night, happy to be out and about and happy to be with friends and family.

“Family,” Deloris ruminated. “Let’s do this one more time,” she said focusing all her energy to where her family was – where her home was.