The Ghostwriter

I do not tolerate the company of others. Not in the social sense—I don’t hate them; I’m just irreversibly sensitive to them. Just as some people are allergic to cat fur or dust mites, my body reacts with painful sores that no one would care to see. I won’t elaborate; I do my best to keep them hidden.

Even before this affliction, I’ve never been much of a social person. I was always a bystander, nodding when others laughed, never entirely sure of the joke. Small talk was never my thing. Instead, I was drawn to the marrow of things—an inclination, I suspect, that makes most people shift in their seats.

Ironically, I was once a social worker, witnessing others in times of need. Now, I manage my affairs remotely, relying on phone lines, headsets, and keyboards. The person I once was lingers in memory, like an echo drifting through the corridors of a deserted home.

The sensitivity emerged sometime after the pandemic. I can't say precisely when. Since then, I’ve avoided all contact. Couriers leave packages at my door, and interactions are held through screens. On rare occasions, I miss the old world, particularly the quiet companionship of kindred souls who, like me, also seemed ill-fitted for this world. But those days are long gone.

I earn a modest living editing, writing freelance copy, the usual patchwork of commissioned words. Yet solitude gave rise to a different kind of need. I began writing without the intent of publication—to hear a voice inside my head. Words that felt lived-in. Human.

To avoid encounters in daylight, I adopted a new rhythm. I sleep all day and go out at night when the streets have emptied. I tune into the night sounds and they reciprocate with a kind of camaraderie: the rustling of fruit bats over the crowns of palm trees, night birds calling from silhouetted rooftops, and distant jackals baying from the edge of the fields. Now and then, a single cat will dart across my path, that reflective gaze fixed to mine, as if the creature’s gaze bores right through me.

The night confides in me. I walk the town’s low-built quarter, where the humble homes are holding their ground against the rising tide of concrete. Above them, words drift like dew, wrapping their warmth around me. It's where I find my inspiration, and when I return home, I write them down.

One night, I wandered farther than usual. My feet led me to a small house — a humble, timeworn cottage on the outskirts of town, where the fields stretch out. The house looked as though it had stood there long before the city expanded to meet it—and I suspected its residents had, too.

Then—I heard it. A faint moan. Not quite a cry. Not quite a breath. More like a delicate note of finality. As if someone had just departed from life yet remained suspended between heaven and earth. My heart jolted. I froze at the gate. Should I knock? And if someone answered, would my presence terrify them? Should I call for help? But what would I even say—that I’ve developed an acute sensitivity to the human soul and the quiet stirrings of unfamiliar hearts?

I walked away. I’m not proud of it. I wasn’t sure what I’d heard or whether there was anything I could do. I picked up my pace and headed home, feeling shaken and uneasy. But the sound stayed with me, lodged in my chest like an unfinished sigh. As I often do, I turned to the page. Suddenly, a powerful song of life burst from within me, urgent and unyielding. It refused to let go until I had sung it to completion.

It was a woman who shared her story with me. Not all at once—but in fragments, like tidewater receding time and again to uncover what lies buried in the sand.

One memory stood out among the others. A pivotal moment that seemed to define all the rest:

She was kneeling beside a grave. It was National Remembrance Day. She carried a cloth, a thermos of water, and a plastic bag filled with pebbles and flowers. Her movements were slow yet practiced. First, she washed the headstone. Then she hummed—softly, unconsciously—a tune from her youth movement days.

“I used to bathe him and his brothers in the tub,” she murmured, more to the wind than to anyone nearby. “And now I wash this stone instead.” She sat there for a long while, staring at his carved-out name. Then, she poured two cups of water from the thermos and set one beside the grave.

“Your father’s gone now, too, you know,” she said. “But I told him to pass on my love.” She took a sip, then sat in silence. “I should’ve gone first,” she added. “That would’ve made more sense.”

That was the image that lingered—more than her childhood as a sabra to orphaned immigrant parents; more than the hopeful, destitute pioneering days she shared with her husband, when the town was just a scattering of shacks in the sand; more than the endless conflicts she witnessed firsthand, and later through a mother’s eyes; more than each grandchild’s birth tipping the scale against the vanished names of the old world.

That visit. That silence. The hopes for a peaceful existence put to rest. That ultimate act of mothering beside a grave.

In her final words, I sensed her drifting back to her childhood. Her voice grew softer, her words fading, until all that remained was a quiet melody—timeless, tender, and serene.

After countless nights, I finally finished writing her story. The sigh that had lodged in my throat for so long escaped at last. I placed the manuscript at the door of her house. It was no longer empty. Inside, new longings stirred—youthful and vibrant—belonging, perhaps, to family who had returned, or to strangers who now called it home. I couldn’t say. I only knew it was no longer the same house. Time had reshaped it as it pleased.

I didn’t knock. I simply hoped the words would find their way.

Weeks passed. Then an article appeared in a local news feed. A mysterious manuscript. A ghostwriter no one could trace. A black-and-white photo of the woman in her youth, just as I’d imagined her, and another one, recent, of her children, holding the manuscript with quiet reverence.

They thanked the unknown writer for preserving their family’s lost history—details they’d never heard, since their parents, like so many of their generation, had been people of action, not words. They even offered a generous fee.

But I never stepped forward. I had no desire to claim anything. I hadn’t written it for them. Or for her. Or even for myself.

That’s how I became a ghostwriter, not by choice, but by necessity, because of a sensitivity I can’t control. What began as an affliction became a form of listening. Now I walk the quiet town as always, letting the stories of distinguished lives sink into me. Some nights, I feel too full of absences, of stories never told.

And sometimes, my words are not met with open arms. I’ve seen my words ripple outward, leaving traces I never meant to leave. Some have attempted to follow my trail; others were angered by the family secrets I brought to light, even though I have never written a word that wasn’t whispered to me. Some have even accused me of appropriation, of deception, of stealing stories that were not mine to tell.

More than once, I’ve wanted to stop. To shut out the voices gathering at my doorstep.

But the shadows won’t let me.

They return, night after night—weightless, urgent, demanding.

I think of her often. The woman who, for reasons I’ll never understand, entrusted me with the last thread of her life. All that remained of her was a single, stripped-down filament of essence. I used to wonder if I could’ve saved her. Or the rest that followed. Maybe I could have offered their words a place to rest while they still had breath.

That doubt stayed with me until the day I picked up the phone and called a volunteer program for the elderly. I signed up on the spot.

Now, once a week, I call. I listen. I stay silent. I ask. And sometimes, if they want, I write. Other times, it’s enough just to say their name aloud.

I no longer ask why these stories find me.

I write to anchor them to the world.

And in doing so, I leave something of them, of my own, behind.