Miguelancholy

I’ve often asked myself why I chose to stay. Why I didn’t walk “into the light”. I had the opportunity to move on, but I wasn’t ready. I wanted to experience more of this world, I wanted to travel, to experience, to see things from a different vantage point. Unfortunately, I ended up at Spuckes & Sons Scare Services as a tier three haunt waiting to get calls from middle class Americans for performative purposes.

Years ago, Richard Spuckes realized he could harness spirits and use their unique talents to add extra spice to the entertainment industry. Ghosts used to be scary and poltergeists used to send families running, now Bloody Mary is showing up to graduation parties for white collar families in suburbia. Thousands of years of folklore and demonology has been whittled down to something tantamount to a supernatural circus.

Truth be told, it isn’t too bad. The Scare Services offer lodging to employed phantoms, which is nice considering all of the lost souls just wandering the streets. The job offers other spirits to hang out with, which helps with the loneliness. But, most importantly, I also get to scare people. I wasn’t a big fan of them when I was living, so this profession is merely a logical step. If I knew this is where I would end up after I died, I wouldn’t have tried so hard when I alive. But then again, it could be worse on the other side of the light. Funny thing about being a ghoul is that even I don’t know if there’s a heaven or hell.

Obviously, October is our busiest time of the year. The phones ring off the hook reserving the A-listers. La Llorona, The Vanishing Hitchhiker, Bell Witch, are all booked months in advance and go for a pretty penny. Miguel from tier three is a last-minute resort. I am the economic version of the Hitchhiker Ghost; blink and you may miss me. Which works for me. It keeps my schedule pretty open. And It gives me a lot of down time to hang out in the office with the other threes, which are an entertaining bunch, to say the least.

“Hey Miguel, it’s your turn in rotation.” Chuck says as he throws me the ‘Ghost Guide’ sash.

“What, already? I could have sworn I just did it.”

“Naw, you haven’t done it since August and even Anne Boleyn knows that’s a bullshit month for tours.” A large tuft of brown hair slowly raises from behind a cubicle wall across the office whipping side to side in confusion.

“Oh, come on, man, you don’t need to get her attention.” I say as I point at the royally obnoxious headdress. “That’s the last thing I need today is to get stuck in a conversation with her,” Anne peeks her head over her cubicle still trying to figure out who said her name. “I’d have to die again just to escape.”

I guess James was right, I hadn’t done it in a while.

I loathe giving tours of the Scare Studio. Endless questions by the living about what it’s like to be dead. If they can get the Boogeyman’s autograph. Flashes from cameras taking pictures of just dusty furniture because we don’t show up on film. Complaints about the expensive gift shop. It’s just maddening.

Sometimes, I feel like I am in hell.

Or maybe, this is purgatory and I am getting a subpar punishment for being a subpar human.

Either way, this is me, for now. Trapped in a dog-and-pony show doing dances for the living, earning money for someone else because I can’t use it for anything. But it does pass the time. And eternity is a long time without a hobby.

“What do you do?” Asked the kid who has a raspy voice when he talks and wheezes when he doesn’t. The tour is full today. Full of several families stopping by to see the innerworkings of a warehouse for rentable apparitions.

“Well, today I am your tour guide.” Turning my attention from the hell spawn, I swivel to the rest of the group, “my name is Miguel and I am a tier three and I will be guiding you through Sandusky & Sons.”

A camera snaps from the rear of the group.

“How did you die?” The boy continues his line of questioning. His mother quickly pulls him by the arm and scolds him for asking such a question.

“It’s not appropriate,” she tells him in a muffled whisper.

A hand raises. “Are there any poltergeists in today?” Another voice asks from amid the mob of people.

“Let’s save our questions until the end, it’ll go smoother for all of us.”

I don’t know why people always want to meet poltergeists, they’re just assholes. I blame Hollywood for that one. Actually, I blame Hollywood and the media for a lot. The living confuse so many creatures and ghosts. No, Bigfoot isn’t here. I have never met Dracula as he is a fictional character. And I have no idea who or where your grandma is, I’d check lost and found. It was so much better when Spuckes kept the gates to this place shut to outsiders.

After the tour, I try to calm my spirit at my desk. Before I can disappear and relax, Chuck appears out of nowhere to chat.

“What’cha doin’ this weekend?”

“Heck if I know, Charlie.” Which is mostly true. Outside of here, I just kind of float around with my hands in my pseudo pockets and watch the living go about their lives. I was a writer in my old life, so people watching is kind of entertaining for me. It’s just a shame I don’t have the talent for that anymore, I just look like a semi-visible creep these days.

“Well, me and a couple of the others from the office are going to hop on the Ghost Ship and cruise around in the ocean for a few days. Wanna to join us?”

“Naw, I’m good.” I reply in a sigh. “I think I’m just going to roam about home.”

“Well, you’re no fun.” Chuck says as he turns into an orb and floats down the hall.

He isn’t wrong. But those cruises always end in disaster and I am not in the mood for that these days. I used to be a lot more fun years ago, but after a few centuries, you start to slow down. Once you’ve done it, there’s not much thrill in it anymore. And I have done most of it. Chuck is new to the spirit world, relatively speaking, so he is still experiencing the afterlife to its fullest. Me, I am completely content with an ectoplasmic bath and some Jeopardy.

***

Saturday is shaping up exactly how I thought it would go, so I figured I’d go to the park to do some people watching. Sitting on a bench, I watch as a dog walker gets tangled in several leashes and laugh to myself a little bit. It’s not much, but it’s enough to entertain me for a moment.

I close my eyes and take in my surroundings. Listing to nature is calming. It reminds me of being alive. Everything around me is breathing, living, happy and managing. I am just existing. Not that there’s much to look forward to when you are dead, but it is calming.

Momentarily, anyway.

“Mind if I sit here?” I open my eyes to see a woman in a long jacket and scraggly red hair standing before me. She is carrying a worn composition book in her hands. A curious combination.

“As long as you don’t mind a ghostie sitting next to you.”

“Heh. I am more afraid of them than you.” She motions to the swaths of people going about their day. She’s not wrong.

Sitting down, she opens the journal in her lap. She flips the pages until she gets to a blank one and pulls a pen out of the amber bird’s nest resting atop her head. She clicks the pen and begins to stare at the unsuspecting public with an inquisitive “hmm.”

Every so often, she breaks her analytical gaze to write a few comments in blue scribbles on her notebook before going back to scanning her surroundings. Just endless notes frantically scrolled on a blank piece of paper. She looks contently mesmerized.

“Are you a writer, by chance?” I break the silence and her concentration.

She shakes off her alternate reality to ground herself in ours again, “I’m trying.” Her voice changes tones to an inquiring one, “how’d you know?”

“I kind of did the same thing when I was alive.” I motion to her frantic notetaking. “I tried to be a writer too. People watching was my favorite part. Could write whole stories based off weekends in public.”

“Do you still write?” She asks.

“Can’t. Seems like when you die, imagination leaves you. Plus, it takes way too much energy to physically move things.” I slouch a little when I say this. “But I can still people watch.”

“That’s interesting,” she says gazing back to her musings. “Sad, but interesting.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Well, you said it, I just went a long with it.” She stops to think for a second. “What was living like for you.”

“Well, from what I could remember, it was quite hectic. But also, rather dull. I lived on the wrong side of the 1700’s and saw a lot of shit. Excuse my language.”

She begins to write a few notes. “Uh huh.”

Fascinating, I thought to myself.

“I was born in 1734…”

***

We meet for several Saturdays afterwards. Mostly, I recant my life story and she records it, but we also talk about ponderings we think of and, of course, people watch along the way. I’ve actually begun to get pretty close to Maggie, oddly enough. The living and dead don’t usually connect all that much. Metaphorically and literally.

“Hey, can I show you something?” She brought a worn rucksack with her today and she opens it on her lap on our bench and begins to dig for something. She pulls out a stack of papers and sets them next to me.

“Miguelancholy: My Conversations with the Dead,” I read the title in bold letters out loud. I glance back at her. “Well, I mean, the title is a little rough, but it is a curious notion.”

“Yeah, I’ve turned our conversations into a book, or at least, I am trying to.”

“Interesting.” I try to recall what I have said, just in case I said something stupid, but laugh it off because those stories are as dead as me.

“Now, we can both be writers.” She stops and grins. “Well, I can be the writer, you can be the ghost writer.”

We both chuckle at the horrible pun.

“Do it.” I say.

At least I can do something more productive in death than I did in life.