LEFTOVER OF GHOST

 LEFTOVER OF GHOST

The almost wide and well light room ____besides the window on a wall there was a window on the ceiling___was furnished with a bookcase, with a wardrobe, with a bench.

At the desk, in front of the window, Dora usually sit to do her school homework, and also to draw.

When her schoolmates and her friends came to see her, it was in this room that she spent time talking with them. A room with nothing special, with white walls and worn floor tiles. The house where Dora lived with her parents and her aunt was almost old.

So what was the surprise, the astonishment when , one afternoon Marika, who had come to visit Dora___they were friends since childhood____immediately after opening the door of this room, she ran away , screaming that she would never enter that room again.. And from that day on she did not set foot again there. When asked, Marika said that she had seen something, in the room, which had frightened her very much, but she never wanted to tell what she had seen.

“ You know, Marika is a little shady” Dora’s aunt had commented.

“ Maybe it was a shadow to frighten her. Yeah, she must have seen a shadow, perhaps a shadow of a tree standing in front of the window, and who knows what she took it for” Dora’s mother said.

“ She must have taken a shadow for a ghost “ Dora had dared to say.

“ Ah, there are no ghosts in this house” aunt Judith had declared , with unyielding conviction, in a sure tone.

“ A little girl at school said that ghosts haunt houses where crimes took place, even a long time ago. Then…this house is very old….how is it possible to know what happened in it over a hundred years ago?” Dora observed( remarked)

“ Oh, dear, there are no ghosts in this house, you can be sure” aunt Judith had reiterated, more convinced than ever.

“ But how can you tell it? How can you, how can we know what happened in here a century ago?” Dora insisted asking.

“ Oh, it doesn’t matter what happened in here. There are no ghosts in this house” the aunt repeated more sure than before.

It had been several months since Marika had ran away frightened, as soon as she had opened the door of that room, when one afternoon Dora, who was doing her homework, sitting at the desk, looking up from the notebook, (she) seemed to glimpse, with the tail of her eye, something crawling on the floor. When she had turned her head, to get a good look at what it was, that colored and iridescent strip which, when she had just glimpsed it with the corner of her eye, had made her think, for the way it was moving, to a snake flattened on the floor, with its body squashed on the floor, here, she had seen it almost suddenly disappear under her eyes .Before disappearing , as if it evaporated ,or as if it had been swallowed by the floor, that strip of iridescent , very bright colors, had shortened, as if crumpling up, and it had appeared still for a moment like a dazzling stain of many mixed colors.  It must have been a phenomenon of optical illusion, Dora had thought. . The phenomena of optical illusion, the teacher had talked about it at school, have to do with the refraction of the light and with the visual perception. Dora thought at them (it) as a play of light, as if the light was having fun playing tricks on your sight, on your eyes.

Moreover that afternoon, after it had rained for a short time, the sun had immediately came back to shine and perhaps the rainbow had appeared in the sky. But certainly, that multicolored and iridescent strip, which she had glimpse sliding on the floor and then disappearing, that multicolored and iridescent strip of light had been projected by the rainbow, or, rather, by the rays of the light which, passing through the window panes, had made that area of the floor became a mirror for the colors of the rainbow.

Dora, therefore, had not cared at all for that strip on the floor, even if, sure, it had seemed a bit strange to her how it had disappeared, almost fading, almost dissolving, under her eyes..

A few days after, it was again an afternoon, the sky was cloudy, little light entered the room from the window, such a dim light that Dora had turned on a lamp on the desk at which she was sitting, doing her homework. Looking up from her history book , she had seen a rather indistinct , indecipherable dark shape crossed by a red stripe which at the bottom divided into two parts that she, albeit improperly, had led to consider, to see as the feet of the gray, indefinable thing. That strange, indefinable oddity, perhaps a being, perhaps an object , was advancing, swaying , placing those two little red dashes on the floor, it was moving towards the desk, at which she was sitting. And, while it was advancing slowly, its body, if it could called__BODY___, which made you think of a duck’s breast, was swinging back and forth.

As soon as Dora had noticed that strange thing, advancing from the window towards the desk, she hadn’t succeeded in standing up, as if she were stuck to the chair in surprise. So she, remaining sit, was wondering from where….that strange something could have entered the room. Then she said herself: ah, it must have entered through the window, to remember soon after…but the window is closed. 

Meanwhile that grayish thing, which, instead of a living being, could make you think of an object….but what object? It also could make you think of a cloud or of a shadow, without , however, being a cloud or a shadow, that…oddity was getting closer and closer, with its lopsided

steps, wobbling, and when it reached the desk, at which she was sitting, Dora no longer could see it. As soon as that thing disappeared at her sight, Dora stood up and , first, looked to see if it was behind the desk. But the oddity wasn’t there. Then she looked to see if it had slipped under the desk , but it wasn’t even there. Disappeared! Dissolved! Dora was about to sit again, when her gaze caught, by chance, in passing, two thin red stripes peeking out from under the window curtains. She didn’t have time to ask herself what they were , that the incredible strangeness came out from under the curtains. Those thin red stripes seemed to be the arms of the sketched body, if one could speak of a body, of that strange being or thing. And the two red very thin stripes, they were almost threads, were approaching her. They had already reached the desk top. When one of the red stripes landed on her neck and quickly began to wrap it, Dora ran away from the room, screaming, with that kind of thin red rope still tight around her neck. The arms of that being, certainly an infernal being, had become very long, they seemed not to let her escape.

Dora had tried to free herself from the noose which was tightening around her neck, with her hands, but without succeeding in it. Only when she had closed the door of the room, from which she had come out, that lace, which was about to strangle her, had suddenly disappeared.

From that afternoon on Dora didn’t go in that room to do her homework. To anyone who asked her what she had seen in the room, Dora, sighing, replied that she had seen someone which, if he was not a ghost, then he must have been a devil- That…devil had even tried to strangle her, she complained, touching her neck with one hand. But there was no sign of violence on her neck.

Dora tried to find out from Marika what she had seen that day when she ran away in terror as soon as she had opened the door of that room. Only after much insistence did Marika decide, albeit reluctantly_____she seemed to be doing it with a considerable effort_____to tell Dora what she had seen so terribly frightening.   Ah an incredibly scare face….a face so much terrifying , it was also huge…..as she had never seen, even she could never imagine, had come up from the floor as soon as she opened the door, Marika said, sighing, and, while she said it, her face was becoming congested, as if she felt ill.

“ He must had been a ghost, then” Dora said, with an absorbed , thoughtful face. “ Even though aunt Judith keeps on repeating that there are no ghosts in this house” she added, after a moment of silence “ Ha….did that scary face say something?”

“ No….and it couldn’t say anything, she couldn’t even scream….it was the face of a woman being strangled. There was a red rope tightening more and more tighter around her neck “ Marika said, very sadly, with a paining voice.

“ A red rope?” Dora asked, putting her hand on her neck, remembering the red stripe around her neck , the afternoon that strange gray and almost shapeless thing…or being, had appeared to her.

Ah, so the ghost which had appeared to Marika was the ghost of someone___a woman____who had been killed, probably killed in that room, probably a long time ago. So much time had passed since then, that no one remembered that crime. This Dora said to herself. “ Instead…..the ghost which appeared to me must have been the murderer’s ghost….but, how strange he (it) did not have a face, he didn’t have limbs, he didn’t even have really a body, Dora thought, mulling over(brooding) . And, brooding, she ended up finding, that is, giving herself an explanation of the strange aspect (look) of the ghost which had appeared to her. He, that strange kind of ghost, certainly was the ghost of the murderer who strangled the woman a long time ago, and he must have killed her right in that room. Yeah, the ghost of the murderer that who appeared to me, but he was a ghost not intact…not complete, he must have been a not whole ghost, he was…a kind of ghost remainder….Dora ended up saying herself. The ghost which had appeared to her that afternoon was a shapeless , even clumsy and almost ugly presence. That gray, almost shapeless and unpleasant presence had no head, had no legs, and, as feet, it only had short red dashes. And he, the not whole ghost, had neither arms nor hands. Instead of arms he had those long red stripes, with which he had tried to tight her neck. If he had not be able to strangle her, it had to be due precisely to the fact he wasn’t a complete ghost, but just a ghost remainder.

Dora had never come back in that room, after the afternoon when that….piece or leftover of ghost had appeared to her.

 Her mother kept on going in that room, to do the cleaning, to sew, and even to spend time talking with her friends. After some time, however, her mother , too, had stopped to go in that room. She had said she had been frightened since had happened to her, when she was in that room alone , to hear voices, threatening voices, which announced that….THE TIME WAS APPROACHING….in that room what had already happened, a long time before, it would soon happen again……the time of the crime was about to come back, it was at the door.

Aunt Judith began to go in that room every day. She spent hours there embroidering, knitting, reading, and listening to the radio. She kept on repeating that there were no ghost in their house.

It must have been hallucinations for what Dora had seen there and for what her mother had heard.

Dora had not told anyone what she had learned from Marika, she had not said a word about the huge face of the strangled woman which had appeared at her friend, as soon as she had opened the door of that room. Dora wondered why she couldn’t tell about it. She kept on wondering it

When aunt Judith was found dead in that room. Her aunt was found lying on her back on the ground. The expression of her face was serene, but red lines were clearly visible on her neck, as if it had been tightened by a rope.