Nigel the Ghost

Being dead did not meet Nigel’s expectations. There was no afterlife, no mingling with relatives or all the pets he lost over the years. None of what the gospel people shouted from the pews or street corners was right. When a person dies, they become a ghost, and Nigel was wholly dissatisfied with the realities of being a specter. He imagined being a ghost involved floating around, going through walls, the occasional scaring of unsuspecting people, but ultimately just the freedom to explore the world he saw little of when he still had a body. The higher ups in the corporate world of the spirits gave slightly different instructions.

Nigel was stationed in the third-floor bathroom of the Johnson office building located in Essex, randomly flushing toilets and generally unnerving people who are having a wee.

“Why did I get stuck there?” Nigel wondered, pacing in his flat on the ethereal commons of the ghost world. His ability to pace was greatly improved by the deduction of legs. “Was my death unspectacular? How was I to know that that Thai food was made with peanut oil?” This was a common debate he had with the space around him. The space has never been kind enough to reply. “No, that can’t be it. Johnathan had a similar death with shellfish, and he gets to haunt the traffic light downtown, causing the occasional crash.” He envied Johnathan. He envied every other ghost truly. “Maybe they don’t hate the chimes when they- BONG! BONG! BONG!” His thoughts were interrupted, as they often were, by the Chimes of Punctuality, the noisy way ghosts are kept on schedule. Nigel let out a groan that was more frightening than any of his attempts at scary noises.

Though they all had incorporeal bodies, every ghost whose shift began exited their flat from the same spot they always did, the front door. Doors, as it turns out, were a habit even death cannot break. The tunnels connecting the land of the dead to that of the living were dazzling, shining in every perceivable hue, and some imperceivable. A harmonious tone traveled infinitely throughout its vibrant walls. Legions of phantoms gracefully paraded through, magnifying the colors as they passed. The beauty of the tunnels was impossible to describe to any living being. Nigel hated them.

There was a common courtesy while traveling the tunnels, and Nigel did not follow it. He passed through every specter in his path as opposed to floating around them. It did no damage to either party, but it was considered incredibly rude, and Nigel was often assaulted by disgruntled moans, sighs, and the occasional “hey!” Nigel just wanted to get to his exit portal, number twenty-eight and four-sixty-fourths, and get his day over with. He made this journey every Monday through Wednesday and Friday through Saturday ever since he was assigned. They told him to get a good eight hours of haunting in, but never quite explained why. Nigel never spoke up, though. He, like so many other ghouls, was working for his non-consecutive days off.

Nigel reached the portal, a swirling gateway dragging the colors of the walls into an intense white light. The tone carried through the tunnels originated at the portals to the other side, each one carrying a slightly different melody. This one was in G minor. Nigel stared, as he often did, at the center of the portal. He wondered how he could hate a swirl as easily as he did. He didn’t finish his mental investigation before the portal sucked him in and expelled him to his place of spooking.

Nigel never understood how the portal brought him exactly the bathroom, but he was never interested in researching the subject either. He simply chalked it up to ghost magic and got on with his day. It was a traditional Tuesday for Nigel. He had frightened the poo out of an overweight man in a cheap suit. But the man seemed more grateful than terrified as he had been constipated for three days. There was a man who washed his hands without soap, so Nigel possessed the dispenser and spit out ten washes worth of the cleansing foam. It was more passive-aggressive than an actual haunt, but the man did have to get soap on his hands to clean it up. Nigel counted that as a win. The lowest point of that particular day was Nigel propelling himself from the urinal at the man taking a wee. Nigel mis-measured the distance and was floating right in the basin, becoming a target the man sorely needed. Nigel was never more thankful to not have a physical body.

After that last incident, Nigel resigned himself to floating around the ceiling along the stalls. “The cruel irony,” he realized, “is that I used to work at a place like this. I would hide out in the loo for hours at a time, just to get out of work. Perhaps it left a rather nasty blemish on my spiritual CV. Seems a bit harsh to-“ his thought was interrupted by a man sobbing from the final stall. The man attempted to stifle his cries, but Nigel knew how effective an echo chamber this bathroom was having scared himself on several occasions. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Not anymore,” the man shakingly said. The words bounced off the walls and around Nigel’s mind.

Nigel floated over, hovering just above the stall, inquisitive of the man’s plight. “I just can’t do this anymore,” the man spurted out between tears. Nigel noticed he was holding something, something sharp. It was a letter opener, and the man was holding it, tip first, to the veins on his wrist. Nigel’s hollow eyes widened, and he shot down without a thought.

“Don’t do it!” Nigel appeared before the man in a start, causing the man to scream and recoil in horror. This was the biggest scare Nigel had ever achieved, a fact that would occur to him much later. “You don’t want to do it,” Nigel pleaded. The soul who once was a man and the man who wanted to lose his soul stared at each other in silence. Nigel didn’t have a plan; he just felt the need to stop this man. The man didn’t have a plan either, but he still felt interrupted. “Are you…” the man swallowed his words, but he couldn’t find others to replace them. “A ghost?” Nigel finished for him, “do I not look the part?” Of the things Nigel gained from being a spirit, proper timing was not amongst them.

“So, you’re here to torment me, make sure I go through with it?” asked the man, avoiding the spirit’s gaze. “Absolutely not!” Nigel said forcefully. “That is quite the opposite of what I want. Trust me when I tell you, uh… what was your name?” “G-Garett,” the man said. “Garett. Lovely name, that. Trust me, Garett, death is not something you want to be rushing into. In fact, it’s the very last thing you should do!” Nigel widened the hole he had for a mouth, awaiting the laugh. The laugh was unsurprisingly absent.

“Why… why shouldn’t I do it?” asked the incredulous Garett. “Being a ghost is not as much fun as it seems,” responded Nigel. “I thought it would be all floating around, going where I like, maybe spooking somebody… probably on accident, though. But it’s just… so much work.” “Work? How is it work?” the living one asked, looking like a man who discovered a new species of bug: horrified and intrigued. “Well, I have to stay in this loo from four to twelve for five days a week, rotating shift mind you. Did you think I like being here?” Nigel said defensively. “I just thought maybe you died here,” said Garett, also defensively. “Nope. I died in my flat, rather unceremoniously I might add. We just get assigned where to haunt. I know a fella who died in the states and now has to scare Japanese children in a school. He got the jerky movements down pretty quick, actually,” Nigel said, unable to control the mild bobbing as he floated in front of Garett, but it soothed the troubled man.

“So, you’re stuck here? You can’t just go through the walls to the outside?” Garett asked, relaxing more. “Oh, I tried that the first day. When I’m haunting something, I must stay in my assigned place. The walls, doors, even windows act as barriers to me. Got to complete my eight hours before I get any freedom.” Nigel attempted to roll his eyes, but he found it rather difficult without eyeballs. “I’ve heard of some ghosts that don’t go through their portal to get to their haunting grounds. They moved on, saw the light, or so I’m told. I don’t know what that means, but I don’t imagine it’s better than this.”

Garett thought in the direction of the floor for a moment then asked, “can’t you request a new spot? Is there a promotion system or something?” Nigel made an artificial sigh as an actual one requires breathing. “I put in a request a few years ago. I haven’t heard anything back. Some say it takes decades for the council of specters to even write back, and most of the time it’s to deny any and all requests. I guess this is a real dead-end job!” A silence deader than the spirit floating there fell upon the stall. “Come on! At least give me a chuckle occasionally!”

“That’s a lot like my job,” said Garett. “I’ve been here for ten years, and I don’t think my supervisor knows my name. I think he called me Gary once,” Garett’s mouth slanted at that. “But eight hours isn’t so bad. Then you can see the rest of the world, or the universe even.” Nigel began shaking his head, though his stocky body joined for the ride. “Wish it were so. I did my fair share of exploring, true, but as the years went on, it got to be less and less. I thought being dead meant you didn’t have to sleep, but it seems I need more of it now. I guess I technically keep aging, and you know how old people like their sleep. I haven’t made it much past the moon without needing to go to bed.” Nigel then attempted a shrug, which was more successful but still ended up looking like a hop.

“So, you’re stuck here, just like me?” Garett asked as his eyes peered at the floor in disbelief. “Basically,” Nigel agreed. “But the people at my work, the ones who mock me or brag, I’ll be free from them,” Garett said, looking at Nigel. “More like you’ll exchange them for some ghoulish new ones. This one ghost, Sophia, is stationed on an airplane, mostly making people’s luggage disappear. Anyway, she gets to see so much of the world, and she’s always bragging on about it. She thinks she’s so much better for her lot in the afterlife, looks down on us stuck to one location. She calls me the ‘Butt-Ghost’ behind my back, thinks I don’t notice,” Nigel began to look down despondently. Garett nodded knowingly.

“Do you at least get days off, holidays? Surely you can see the world then,” Garett questioned, becoming more desperate for a justification for his actions. “Yeah, I do. And those are some great days. But… I can’t do anything except look. I can’t taste the food of other countries. I can’t smell the ocean mist. I can’t curl cool grass in my toes. Hell, I don’t even have toes. It’s not an experience, it just a show with better visuals.”

Garett grew silent, and Nigel followed suit. Garett began looking at the letter opener still in his hand. His face still held the contemplation of ending it all. “You know what my favorite part of being alive was?” Nigel started, “It was that no matter what happens, you can change it. If you’re unhappy, you can find something else to do. If you’re in a bad relationship, you can find someone new, someone that treats you better. If you don’t like something about your body, your hair, your life, you can change it. The world is still so full of possibilities for you. Once you’re dead, all of those go away. You can’t change your life after it ends; you just lose it. And once you’ve lost it, this is all you have. You can never get back those unlived moments, those feelings. Your heart may never break, but you won’t have a heart anymore. You won’t feel love or joy or wonder. You’ll just float around… forever… without an end.”

Nigel’s voice broke several times during that speech. He knew every word was true; he had just never faced them before. His life was over, and he would never have what Garett has again. Remorse rushed through what he called a body, not for himself but for the man in front of him, the man that wanted to give it all up. It was a remorse that someone could be so despondent to end their life so soon, and a remorse that Nigel was unsure he did anything to stop it.

Garett contemplated the blade. He looked up into Nigel’s vacant eyes. The sound of steel hit the tile floor, and a smile was on both parties’ faces. “Thank you, sir. I think I might try that life thing now,” said Garett, confidence faintly showing. “I’m… actually relieved to hear that, Garett,” said the ghost. Garett stood and held his arms out for a hug. Though the two could not touch, they made their best effort, holding their arms out in an embrace.

Garett washed himself up in the sink and made for the door. “When your time does come, maybe you can look me up. My name’s Nigel.” The unfrightening frightener said, waving farewell. “I’ll do that, Nigel,” Garett nodded as he left the third-floor bathroom of the Johnson office building in Essex.

Nigel floated mid-way in the bathroom, holding the semblance of a smile he could get on his face. The portal began to appear behind him, swirling in magnificent color. For the first time in a long time, the glow made him happy. “I guess that wasn’t such a bad way to spend my day,” Nigel said as he disappeared into the light.