Fiction: The Lake

                                                 The Lake.
                                           By John A .Ryan

“You boys really thinking of doing the Six Lakes Swim?” The old bar owner at the Lodgepole Inn deposited our breakfasts in front of us. He had a long nosed ungainly lank-limbed melancholic air that reminded me of a moose. The Lodgepole was not the ideal venue for a pre-swim breakfast. It's grimy wood paneling, flickering neon beer signs and clientele that appeared to be mostly left over from last night identified it more as a seedy small town dive bar than a place to get a good meal. It was however, the only eating establishment in the tiny town of Barrelhead

“I am” replied Dave starting in on his buckwheat pancakes “Tim here is my support team. Right Tim?”

I paused Monster Push on my tablet and looked up “That's right. I follow along in the canoe in case he gets in trouble.” I took a sip of my bitter coffee and hungrily contemplated the mountain of greasy eggs and bacon that was my Lumberjack Special


“Not many make it all the way through”the bar owner mused aloud


“We aren't many” Dave grinned and took a swig of orange juice “I've already beat Juniper, Monroe and Wolf lakes.


“Tuurngait is the breaking point for folks. Four miles of glacial run-off against a headwind. It claimed that Sorrel girl last summer and that fellow from Whisper Falls” he gestured with the coffee pot towards a wall of yellowing newspaper clippings. “You city boys might find it more than a match for you”

“They said the same thing about Monroe, didn't they, Tim?”


I mumbled affirmation through a mouth full of toast “We broke the old record”


“Take my word, friend Tuurngait Lake is the tough one. It'll change you. If you make it out the other side, there's no saying you'll be the same person as dived in.”

“You sound like you're speaking from experience” I said


“Back in '73” he confirmed with a nostalgic smile“Sooner or later everyone round here tries the Swim”


“What happened?” asked Dave


The Barkeep chuckled through the mists of recollection
“I never left. I'm still here, aren't I?”
With that he stalked through the swinging doors to the kitchen.


* * * * * * * * * *


“Do you think it's some sort of local past-time to try to freak out tourists?” Dave asked me as he downshifted the pickup


“They have to do something. You can't even get a decent radio station this far north” I flicked a twig goblin causing him to explode into a cascade of leaves and earning a hundred points


Dave clicked his tongue
“What is it with you and that game? You've been glued to that screen for the whole trip”

“You need to try it. It's seriously addictive. You travel through the Magic Woods looking for treasure and try to push the hidden monsters away before they grab you. ”


“Christ, Tim! We're surrounded on all sides by pristine wilderness and you're ignoring it to bop invisible monsters! We just drove under an eagle's nest and you didn't even notice. How can a digital forest possibly be better than the real thing? Just promise me you'll leave that thing in the truck when we're out there okay? I need you focused.


“Have I let you down yet?”


“No, man, and I really appreciate you doing this for me. I'm just a little on edge”


“Don't let that old coot from back in Barrelhead get to you, Dave. It's like you said. They have nothing better to do than to try and scare people. You'll make it fine and we'll have a celebratory dinner in his bar and be off to Pinetop in the morning. Just like we planned, right?”


“Right” he relented “Could you do me a favor though and turn that off? It's making me nervous”


“No problem”


I traded my tablet screen for the windscreen. Dave was right. The view was spectacular.


************************************




“Isn't it weird the way the mist hasn't burnt off yet? It's already 11:30 ”


The mountains keep the cold air trapped down here. Makes the water nice and brisk” Dave grinned as he zipped up his insulated wet suit “ I wouldn't have it any other way. Just look at this place! If it were warmer it'd be teeming with tourists”


I had to admit he had a point The snow cloaked peaks rose like spires into the clouds appearing in places to bleed into them. armies of deep green conifers ascended the mountainsides from the lake shore accented here and there with highlights of crimson and gold from the occasional maple or birch that had already begun to turn, even though August wasn't even halfway through. In the distance a loon's clarion call rang over the ghostly waters. As I stood on the rocky lake shore with my friend it felt as though we were the only two people in the world .


Watching Dave go through his series of leg lunges, knee bends, and shoulder stretches I contemplated how we had come to be here. Most men going through a divorce would sink into despondency and drink. Dave, for reasons known only to himself, threw himself into the idea of open water swimming with a frightening zeal. We had known each other casually for a few years. Like most of our circle of friends, I had viewed Dave's aquatic pursuits with a mixture of admiration and detached amusement. Then Bethany left. After four years of gradually growing apart, she finally decided that she'd had enough of my antics. Even though I was devastated, I understood. If I were honest, I had to admit I wasn't a particularly boyfriend. Brooding over my fate one night at O'Malley's I ran into Dave fresh off a triumphant race. Several rounds later he confided that he wanted to try longer swims but he needed a spotter. He surprised me by asking me to take on the role. To my further astonishment I found myself agreeing. That was eight months ago. In all the hours of training, long drives, and poring over topographic maps, we rarely discussed anything personal, but a friendship born of the bonds of shared purpose and mutual heartbreak.


“Here's the plan” he announced, shaking me out of my reverie “We'll take it nice and easy today. Once we get about 50 yards out, I'll do my plunges. From there I'll check in every twenty minutes for a breather. That should be every half mile or so. I reckon we'll make the other side in about two hours. You ready?”


I nodded my assent


“Fantastic” he said, snapping his goggles over his eyes “Lets go swimming”

Dave marched intently towards the water. With his beard pushed up into a sharp peak by the rim of his wetsuit hood and his jaunty swaggering gait he looked like a fugitive from an early animation. I scanned the cargo of my candy-apple colored canoe one last time to make sure everything was in order and pushed her nose into the lapping waters.


****************************************
Just past the halfway point, I had fallen back into the easy paddling rhythm that had become automatic after several months. Just off the left side of my bow, Dave had switched from an Australian Crawl into his preferred Butterfly Stroke. I could see his arms break the gray surface of the water in canted parabolic arcs punctuated by the sharp intake of breath. It had become a subconscious game for me to time my paddle strokes just after these breaths. One of my first cues of trouble, should it arise, would be the interruption of this pattern. For the moment, his labored flight across the lake's surface continued unabated.


Although I would never admit it to Dave, I had come to relish these moments out on the water as rare moments of quietude. He often accused me of having a technology addiction. In the privacy of my mind, I agreed. It seemed like my entire life was bathed in the glow of screens. I like computers for their endless entertainment value and their logical nature. You could get any information you wanted out of a computer, provided that you knew how to ask. In my lifetime I had run into few things that were this simple to understand. The trouble was that so much screen time left you unprepared for the messy and illogical real world and filled your head with electronic chatter. Skimming across a silent northern lake allowed my mind to work unencumbered and made some much needed reflection possible. Of course, if I ever let Dave know this I would never hear the end. Dave is one of those people who is relentless in his opinions and advice. Conceding that he was right on a point would be inviting a ceaseless barrage of well intentioned council on every aspect of my life. Well intentioned or not, I felt uncomfortable at the thought of inviting that level of external scrutiny.


Far above my head, an osprey hovered, silhouetted on ruler straight wings against the clouds. I wondered if it was the same bird that half an hour ago glided almost within arms reach, examining me with it's mad tangerine eyes. On the near shore a mule deer doe and her twin yearlings collectively decided that my friend and I posed no threat and began to drink. Nearby in a stand of tall spindly trees-


I shook my head to clear the cobwebs, for what I saw, what I believed I had seen, could not possibly be there. A second closer look confirmed this. There was nothing among the trees. For just an instant I had imagined that there had been a figure standing in the copse of pines. It had been taller than any person could be, almost the height of the surrounding pines. I thought it was the form of a man, seemingly composed of the limbs of trees, a gangling coniferous Colossus. dark as the shadowed bark gazing out over the water with an air of infinite sorrow. It was a trick of the light conspiring with my overstimulated imagination that made the shadows of branches resolve themselves into a pine tree giant straight out of a fairy tale illustration or off the screen of Monster Push. Even knowing that it couldn't possibly be real, the impression stuck powerfully and eerily with me. I decided that it would probably be best if I took a break from that game for a few days and resumed paddling. My momentary lapse in concentration had caused me to fall an embarrassing distance behind.


I strained my shoulders for almost ten minutes behind the paddle. My redoubled efforts seemed to do little to close the distance. For fear of pulling a muscle I called out to Dave to slow down and let me catch up. He slowed his strokes to a stop I saw his grinning head turn towards me. His arm broke the surface to give me the OK signal. Dave tread water for a moment or two before, to my horror, his head vanished beneath the glassy water with barely a ripple. A shout of panic escaped my lips as I began to paddle with all my might. From the cold water rescue course we had taken, I knew that every second underwater was potentially lethal. I was still to far away to reach. Dave and he had already been under for longer than was safe. I had just reached the point where I saw him disappear when an explosive inhale shattered the silence. Dave had re emerged supported by two other swimmers. His face was drained of color except for the sickly bleached violet of his lips.

“Get him aboard now” commanded a woman's voice from the smaller figure in the pale blue wetsuit. We heaved Dave's dead weight onto the canoe. I hastily tore open the package of a Mylar blanket and wrapped it around my friend's shivering body


“We'll start a fire onshore. Meet us there, quick as you can” With that order the woman and her companion shot away swiftly and gracefully as a pair of otters.


“Cold grabbed me all the sudden” sputtered Dave “Must've hit a thermocline. Froze right through me.”


“Hold still, man. I'm so sorry! I got distracted and fell behind. It's just lucky those two turned up.”


“Yeah, lucky” agreed Dave, teeth chattering.


By the time we made it to shore, the woman was already tending the beginnings of a good sized campfire. I could see her companion's yellow and black suit clearly among the trees as he searched for more wood. She helped me beach the canoe, and lift Dave onto the shale by the fireside.


“Blankets and dry clothes in the big orange float bag” I instructed her as I peeled away the wetsuit.


We helped Dave into a dry sweatpants, sweater and draped a wool blanket over him.


“I can still move my fingers and toes. No permanent damage” Dave announced. He attempted to sound clinical, but I could hear relief pouring from each syllable.


“It's really lucky you guys showed up” I told our new companions “Do you live around here?”

The woman made a sound halfway between a laugh and a grunt.


“That's one way of putting it. I'm Megan Sorrel. He's called Quinn. He doesn't say much.”


I shook hands and introduced myself. I was astonished at how cold their hands remained even after drying by the fire. With their hoods and masks removed, I finally could get a good look at them. Megan was a handsome woman with her dark hair cropped in a fashionable short style I couldn't pinpoint it, but she looked familiar somehow. Quinn would have been a perfect specimen of a blonde breezy Californian were it not for an unusual network of facial scars and his pale skin. Both of them had skin even paler than Dave's when he was first pulled from the water and the same unusual shade of green eyes. I wanted to ask if they were related and how Quinn had come by his injury, but I felt that it might be impolite. Instead we sat for several moments in mildly oppressive silence.


“The Lodgepole man says that you have come from far away” said Megan, more as a statement than a question


“That's right. We live down towards Carson.” I affirmed. “Dave wanted to swim the lakes.”

“Thanks for saving my life, by the way” Dave chimed from beneath the blanket


“I haven't yet, but I will” Megan told him “I will save both of you. Take my word on this. You do not belong here. You should go and never come back. Forget your swim”


“Okay, I choked up a bit, but I'm sure I can make it across after a few days rest” Dave protested


“You aren't listening. We're showing you a kindness because you are strangers here. Get in your boat and turn back. If you swim another stroke the lake will claim you and you will never leave it again. Tuurngiat Lake is protected ”


“Look, Don't think I'm not grateful to you and all, but you can't scare me with whatever superstitious nonsense there is about this lake. I don't believe...Where'd they go?”


The mysterious pair had vanished as suddenly as they appeared, leaving not even a footprint. The campfire was the only sign that anyone else had ever been there.


*****************************************************
Once we had loaded up the last of the gear, we sat in the cab of the truck with the heater blasting watching the sun descend behind the peaks.


“Okay, that was a little weird, but I think we ought to try again next weekend, don't you?” Dave announced, breaking the silence.


“No.” I said “I think that's a really bad idea.”


“Oh come on! Just because they slipped away and hid while we weren't looking? I thought you had more sense than that Tim.”

I took a deep breath and weighed my words carefully, scarcely believing what I was about to say.
“It's not that. Well, it's not just that. If it were just the disappearance, I might think it was just some sort of trick but-”
“But what?”


I considered telling him about what I had seen, but after I regarded my friend's incredulous expression, I knew Dave would think I had completely lost my mind. Another detail, no less uncanny, floated to the top of my recollection .

“Do you remember the girl who was supposed to have drowned here last year?”

“Yeah, sure. What about her?”


“Well when you got up to use the bathroom back at the bar, I read the clipping. I just remembered. Her name was Meg Sorrel.”

“Are you kidding me? That's your reason? It's either some locals messing with us or a coincidence. It can't be the same person.”


“I think it was. There was a picture”

Dave sighed heavily
“Unbelievable! I'm the one who has a near death experience, and somehow you are the one coming unhinged. Tell you what, Let's go back to Barrelhead. We'll have some dinner at the Lodgepole, you can take another look at your article, and you'll see how stupid you're being. Maybe then we can talk about this like reasonable people. All right?”


***************************************************


An hour later, as we were arguing over the map on the shoulder of the road, a highway patrol cruiser pulled up behind us in the dark.


“There any trouble, fellas?” The trooper was a large suet-y man in his late fifties His gleaming pink face appeared as though it had been shaped from pressed ham


“Hi officer, we're a little lost. We're trying to get back into Barrelhead.” I said


When he burst into laughter, it occurred to me that I had never actually heard anyone guffaw before.


“Now what on earth would you want to go there for?”

“We thought we'd get a bite to eat, and maybe spend the night” Dave told him


“I suppose you can if you want” the trooper chuckled, “But you'd be the first people to do so for about a hundred years. Barrelhead's a ghost town, boys. I have no idea why they keep putting it on the map. The only road in has been totally grown over for at least sixty years. What you want to do is push on for Smokesville. That's about forty to forty five minutes south on Route 18. Tell Erma at the diner that Officer Daniels sent you. She'll treat you allright. Drive safe now.”


Still chortling to himself, Officer Daniels swaggered back to his car and sped off.


Dave's face was a mask of disbelief.
“Okay, now I'm freaking out.” he muttered “ What the hell did we eat for breakfast?”



-J. Ryan 2013

Fiction: Haunted, Part Three (final chapter)

                              III

Without raising his eyes from the chess board, Anselm rises slowly until his head was directly between the bowed heads of the two old men. He then lets loose a deafening raw animal scream. His bellow would have certainly emptied his lungs and left him gasping if he were alive.  The chess player to his right scratches his bald head and toys with his bishop before replacing it. Anselm bounds onto the tabletop and plants himself in the dead center of the game. Spreading his arms wide, he announces to the park at large:

“Achtung,  Froggies! Germany has re-occupied Paris! I have been appointed as your new emperor! I decree that you all must wear socks with sandals and Bavarian Polka must be played over the public address at all times!  Now you must all bring your daughters before me at once so that I can start my harem!”   The bald chess player checkmated his opponent through Anselm’s foot.

“Hey! Frenchies! Did you not hear?  Bring me your daughters! Mach scnell! Scnell!  You there! Where are you going?”

Anselm leapt down in front of a large mustachioed delivery man. Behind him the two chess players shook hands and reset the board. 

“I demand that you do as I say at once! Are you paying attention?”

 The delivery man wheels his dolly towards the bakers humming quietly to himself. Anselm follows, flailing his arms wildly and shouting.

“Don’t you know it’s a crime to ignore your emperor? For you insolence I condemn you to wear a really large moustache!  Let’s see you try to live with that humiliation!” Anselm walks off haughtily to make faces at a small child who is nagging his mother for sweets.   

“Knock it off, you lunatic Hun,” I tell him

Anselm turns to me with an air of injured innocence.

“Do you know something? I don’t think they have noticed! Maybe I need to yell louder, do you think?”

“No. Stop it. You’ve made your point. The living can’t see or hear us,” I concede with bad grace.

“I’m certain that everyone is not reacting because they are so happy and content with me in power. The French people have always loved us Germans, you know.”

“Will you cut that out? All I said was: what if she did see me?”

Anselm waves his hand in front of his face as if shooing away midges

“What if, What if!”, he grumbles irritably. “You are seeing what you wish to see. That is all. Your young lady is special. Do you know why?  Because you believe this. You want her to see you and so in your mind, she does. She is really no different than anyone else, and none of the living know we are here. Not even if they stare into a crystal ball all day long. “

“It could be possible though”.  

He groans with exasperation. 

“Of course it could be possible! Anything in the world ‘could be possible’. It could be possible that The Fuerher never rose to power, and I lived to become a very old with a hundred fat grandchildren in Stuttgart.  This is possible, but it did not happen.  This is the way things are”, his tone was final but not unkind. “We are still here when most of the rest of the dead have gone on to whatever happens after life. We cannot eat drink or touch. The living can not see or hear us. I do not know why it should be so, but to pretend otherwise is a good way to make yourself crazy. There is however, one good thing about being a ghost.”

I know exactly what he is going to say. It is the same thing he always says. I ask him what it is anyway. He flashes a huge wolfish grin

“We no longer need to buy tickets to the cinema!”

With only token protest I allow him to drag me to yet another film. It’s a loud flashy American movie with subtitles about travelling to distant planets. Anselm enjoys it immensely and laughs uproariously throughout. The film provides a welcome but all too temporary distraction. I leave wondering what generations to come will think of this latest interpretation of the future. I hope not to find out.

In a dismal, dusty corner of the town museum hangs a formal photograph of my unit. The picture is dated 1915. There are thirty eight of us posed uncomfortably in front of the barracks in dress uniform. Were it not for those uniforms and rifles, we could be a town cricket team.  These were my comrades, men who were barely more than boys. I remember their voices and their laughter.  There was Bingo Fletchworth who wrote his sweetheart every day and always borrowed my cigarettes, Mike Jones who was teaching himself to play banjo, Chalky Stevens who would cut the strings of the banjo while Mike slept.  Ace Miller with his lucky helmet that had a bullet hole straight through it, and our radioman Pete Tooley who could fix just about anything.  All that remains of them is this photo, my memory, a few artifacts in a display case beneath it. Several years back a tractor unearthed my engraved pocket watch and now it gathers dust in this display case. Tourists wander solemnly by the photograph and dutifully mutter: “So young, they were so young”, before moving on to the next display.  I despise it here, yet I have forced myself to stay all afternoon to avoid seeing Sabrina.

Anselm is probably right and I resent him for it. I have decided that there is no point in deluding myself any further.  Aside from one incident, which I may have imagined, Sabrina has given no other indication that she is aware of my existence.  I have told her my name, all the secrets of my heart and my entire story, yet she never heard any of it. No matter how pleasant the delusion, I cannot pretend any longer. She is a living, breathing young woman whose future lies ahead, while I am nothing more than a fading memory.  To pretend otherwise is fruitless. Though it strains every sinew of my resolve, I know I must stay away from her.  For a full week I have eschewed the places that I know she frequents.  I cannot prevent myself from hoping for a forbidden glance of her face in a crowd. The small electric thrill I get from a chance sighting of dark locks or a swishing skirt and the crashing disappointment when it invariably turns out to be someone else are unavoidable, so I stay to the most isolated places I can think of.

The museum staff is turning off the lights and locking the doors now. This place is depressing enough during daylight. After closing it becomes unbearable. I slip out into the twilight unnoticed.  The buds are unraveling into nascent leaves and the world once again is becoming warmer and greener. Before I realize where I am going, I am following the path to the wheat field. I consider changing direction until I realize Sabrina must have gone back to her dormitory by now and continue on.  My solitude is assured, I think with melancholy satisfaction.

When I come to the break in the stone wall I am convinced that I must be dreaming, but as I draw closer I see that this cannot possibly be a trick of the shadows. Sabrina is leaning against the wall she is clutching a paper cup as if it were a talisman. Plumes of her breath mingle with the steam from the beverage. She is wearing a baggy brown sweater and blue canvas trousers. Her hair is pulled back loosely revealing her pale anxious face. There are dark circles beneath her eyes and I believe she is thinner. I have never seen Sabrina looking so fragile or tired. She is the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. I cannot imagine how or why I have avoided her for so long.  I want more than I have ever wanted anything to take her in my arms and comfort her.  I may no longer be able to breathe but a sigh escapes me, nonetheless.

Sabrina turns towards me and all traces of worry melt from her. Her face is aglow with a pure luminous smile, the exact perfect expression she wore on the first day watching the roebuck drink.  This time there is no ambiguity or doubt. I was wrong, Anselm was wrong!  Sabrina’s shining dark eyes look directly into mine

“Hello Robert”, she says in a voice like brushed velvet “I’ve missed you!”

The End

C. John A. Ryan 2011

Fiction: Haunted, Part Two

                                                      II

“They used to carry our bodies down the hill over there from the hospital tents to the cemetery on mule carts. My remains are somewhere in there but they couldn’t find any identification, so my grave is unmarked.”

Sabrina wouldn’t be listening even if she could hear me. She is bent over the neck of her guitar. Her expression of intense concentration is partially concealed by curtain of inky curls. She strums a chord pattern, pulls a face, and tweaks one of the tuning pegs.  Another attempt results in another grimace.  I find myself telling Sabrina things I would never say to anyone else, things about the horrors of battle and secret places from my childhood. I wonder sometimes if it is because I know she cannot possibly hear that I feel so free to unburden my soul.  

We are resting beneath what I have come to think of as “our tree”, a magnificent ancient spreading oak that is starting to blush with the first green of early spring. Sabrina enjoys coming here to pretend to study.  I believe that she always intends to concentrate on her coursework, but within twenty minutes of settling here, “The Essays of Montaigne”, “Practical French Grammar” and “The World in the Twentieth Century” are usurped in her attention by a bottle of wine, bread and cheese, and whatever novel has managed to slip in the bag along with the notebooks. Sometimes the distraction is provided by the cat, a half grown piebald animal that is transparently devoted to her. Often Sabrina just lies back on her blanket, contentedly watching the sky drift behind the branches. In these moments I wish more than anything that I could ask her what she was thinking, but I would hate to disturb the sublime tranquility.

Even if you had seen these fields torn asunder by violence as I have, it is nearly impossible to imagine on days like this. How very strange it is to watch time pass without you. During my life this massive oak was a mere sapling.  In Sabrina’s bag and pockets are wonders that even the wildest imaginations of my generation could not have conceived.  I’ve seen her use a small rectangular device with no wires that can act as a camera, telephone, radio and a myriad of other functions, a computing device barely larger than a magazine, and speakers so miniscule that they can fit into a person’s ears and allow them to listen to music privately.  Everything has become so much smaller and more complex now.  While these nearly magical contraptions make me feel ancient and out of place, nothing brings the impossibility of my situation into sharp relief like music. Nearly every song Sabrina knows is unfamiliar to me, played in unusual rhythmic patterns and lyrics that ring oddly in the ear.  She has a pleasant soft singing voice and plays well, so far as I can judge, but the fact that we know almost none of the same songs saddens me greatly. How many millions of songs, paintings and books have been created since my demise? I ache to know what the world has become. Oh, to be able to pick up and read “the World in the Twentieth Century” for just ten minutes!

“Merde!” 

Sabrina’s sudden expletive sends a brace of turtledoves whistling terrified into the air.

“All this time I’ve been playing it in the wrong damn key!”  

“Darling,” I told her once I had stopped laughing “I don’t know why, but it is the funniest thing in the world when you curse!”

She chuckles ruefully and with a shake of her head starts the song over. It is a pretty French tune that she is learning it to improve her French. La Vie en Rose, I believe it is called. About halfway through the second verse, a woman’s voice with a heavy local accent interrupts.

“Your pronunciation is becoming less horrible, I think’ the voice observes dryly.

Standing by the fencerow is a willowy girl with wheaten hair and lynx eyes. She is exactly the sort of fragile looking young lady my contemporaries would have called a hot-house flower.

“Bonjour Yvonne!” Sabrina grins like a sunbeam, getting up to greet the newcomer with a kiss on either cheek. “What brings you out into the wilds?”

“You are again not answering your mobile” accuses Yvonne.

“Reception is awful out here. I usually just shut it off” Sabrina explains.

Yvonne examines a leaf that she has plucked from her sweater with mild distaste before flicking it away.

“The girls from our floor are all in the café on the square. They sent me to find you and bring you there.” she sniffs.

“Let me gather my things. I’ll just take a minute.” The books, blanket, and half filled bottle disappear into Sabrina’s shapeless black bag.  Yvonne leans against a fencepost disinterestedly fiddling with a small flat black device.

“Bridgette tells for you to hurry” she announces. “She misses you”

“Tell her I’m on my way” Sabrina replies snapping the latches of the guitar case. She looks around straightening her jacket “I think that’s everything. C’mon”

The two young women start off on the path towards the village arm in arm.  Yvonne gestures critically at the landscape.

“I can never understand for what you always want to come out here. Out here, there is just nothing” she complains.

“Maybe there is and you don’t know how to look properly “teases Sabrina. “Besides I like it here. It’s peaceful”

Sabrina smiles back over her shoulder with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. The two friends soon vanish around the bend.  I stay rooted to the spot until the sun is touching the horizon, unable to believe what I have just seen. It cannot be possible. It must have been a trick of the light or an illusion created by my hungry desires. Yet I can’t shake the impression that when Sabrina glanced over her shoulder, she looked directly at me…

…and winked! 

John A. Ryan 2011

Fiction: Haunted

    I can only credit myself with making a few genuinely wise decisions in my life. One of which occurred when I was fairly young. I must have been about six or seven at the time. I had just explained some detail of my inner world to a teacher and went back to drawing. The teacher turned to one of her colleagues and said
            "I  wish I still had the imagination that I did when I was that age".
I can't remember what I was talking about or who this teacher was, but I remember thinking "Aha! this imagination stuff must be pretty important if the adults wish they still had it.I'd  better not lose mine!"
So I didn't. Instead I cultivated my imagination, feeding it new bits of information and teasing out it's ideas. It grew up with me. During my worst moments I had any number of worlds to retreat into. Fits of boredom could always be assuaged by a visit one of my characters or inventing some new creature.
    While it may have lost some of the technicolor sparkle it had when I was younger, my imagination still regularly provides me with my best ideas. Even though I think I am well acquainted with the way it functions, my imagination still has the capacity whip around and catch me completely off guard with something like this short story. It almost seems as though someone else wrote this. I still don't know what to think of it.
Hope you like it


 Haunted

Black is the color of my true love’s hair.  She plays the guitar, reads constantly, and doodles in the margins of her journal. She dresses like a gypsy from story books. Her name is Sabrina. She speaks halting French with an American accent.  Her eyes are dark. She is one of the funniest people I have ever encountered and I strongly suspect that she is brighter than I ever was. Her eyes are dark and mysterious.  Her laugh is full of mischief.  Her voice is dark and calm. She constantly amazes me surprises me, and leaves me feeling breathless.  Sabrina’s presence is intoxicating. She is 20 years old, a year younger than I was when I died.

      They called it the Great War and it was more terrible than anyone could have ever imagined.  Brave fools that we all were, we all truly believed that this war would end all others. Our brave boys would take one last glorious charge to make the world safe and free forever more. We’d show the Hun what we were made of for King and Country and be back in London by Christmas.  It turned out that we were made of fragile sinew and blood like everyone else. None of my battalion would ever see England again.  A tide of artillery fire washed us all out of history on the fields of France. Infants who were born that year are now old men and women.  Barely anyone remembers.  Wheat is planted where I fell. Wars still rage around the world. Nothing has changed. Nearly a hundred years later and I still don’t understand what I died for.

     Being a ghost is like watching at the window of a train. You can see and hear the world moving on around you but you cannot touch it or affect it. Nobody knows you are there.  For the longest time I sought out mediums and spiritualists. Not because I had any great message to pass along, but simply to connect with someone. They were as unaware of my presence as anyone else. The living simply cannot see or hear us. We are not tied to any one place or object, but most of us stay put out of habit. Where else are we to go? Ghosts are merely echoes of the past, unable to change or move forward. We are stones in a brook.  I have met a few others of my kind, Most of us soldiers from a long ago battle. Romans and Gauls, Revolutionaries, Napoleon and Charlemagne’s men, Warriors from the Hundred Years War and The Second World War all still wander. When we can make ourselves understood to each other, we reminisce about what we miss most about being alive, things we barely noticed when we had them: Lungs filled with breath sunlight on our skin and the taste of water. German, British or Carthaginian, it makes no difference.  The thing that everyone misses the most is the touch of another person.  We all long for a simple hand on our arm or a kiss on the cheek.  Any ghost would readily shake hands with their worst enemy just to feel the press of flesh once more.

Sabrina came to Northern France to study history and literature. I first saw her walking across the winter stubble of the field where I lost my life.  She was wearing a lime green knitted hat, a too-large gray duster, a flowing patchwork skirt and a trailing striped scarf that I later learned she had made herself.  She sang a song under her breath that I didn’t recognize. It was something about gardening and an octopus.  The nonsensical lyrics and the way she hugged herself to keep out the cold reminded me of a child playing dress up.  I followed after her. Ghosts often follow people like fish following a boat. We don’t wish to frighten people or have any real purpose. It is just pleasant to be near someone again. I often wonder if people can feel that I am there. I remember the sensation of feeling someone’s presence in an empty place when I was alive.  It would be nice to think I kept some lonely spirit company at the time.  I enjoyed that first walk with Sabrina. She rambled slowly across the field and into the woodland, pausing frequently to investigate a toadstool or flip a clump of dirt over with the toe of her clunky boot.  Sabrina occasionally spoke her thoughts aloud, a habit I used to have when I was alive. People would tease me for it.  In Sabrina I find it charming. I can pretend that she is talking to me. That first day I learned that she was from Michigan. She had a younger sister who she missed she had only been in The Academy for a week   and was worried that she’d never master the language.  When we were walking along the banks of a stream in the low wood, a young Roebuck broke cover on the opposite bank. Sabrina stood stock still and breathless for the entire time the animal drank. An enormous grin spread slowly across her wind kissed face. Her eyes lit up and grew wide. It was one of the most perfect expressions of human joy I had ever witnessed. When the deer faded back into the woods she whispered “Wow!”  She gave a skip of delight as she continued on her way. I suspect this was the moment I first fell in love with her.

Ghosts of course have no heart to beat faster as the object of their desire approaches. I cannot blush when she glances toward me or even be seen. The whole situation is ludicrous and impossible. It should not be possible for one so long dead as me to fall in love. Had I survived the war, I would be old enough to be her great grandfather. Yet in spite of all reason I found myself waiting at the edge of the field impatiently every day for Sabrina to arrive for her daily walk. If she were but a few minutes late my imagination will concoct awful irrational scenarios where she had either suffered some horrible accident or met a young man.  I don’t know which I dread more.  I exist for the hour or two when we can walk together and relive every moment of our walks over again in my mind. I could easily follow her back to the dorms and spend every waking moment with her, but the few times I dared to return with her made me feel like a criminal and I left strait away. I never would have thought it possible, but there can be no doubt. This is Love. This is torture.  

                “This Fraulein can neither see nor hear you. She doesn’t even know you are there” Anselm tells me for what seems the thousandth time. “Forget about her. Why must you always dwell on what you can not change?”

Anselm’s ghost is tall muscular and blonde. He is my closest friend now.  He looks the way every German soldier would like to.  He was twenty four when he died in the Second World War, which makes him both older and younger than me. I wish we could have met when we were alive. Anselm speaks English fluently. He is clever and easygoing. His sense of humor is a bit fatalistic, which is understandable under the circumstances. He continues:

“It is like this obsession you have with wanting to know for what you died. What difference would it make now? Trust me. It does no good. I found out this too late. If I knew why we were fighting when I was alive, I would have turned my gun on my comrades. But this is all past. Nothing can be done anymore. If you can’t learn to let things go, Dummkopf, I’m afraid you will worry yourself to death!”

 We both laughed at this. Death is much funnier when it’s already happened

“Don’t you think if we knew the answers we could move on?” I ask him, more to distract myself than for an answer.

He looks at me with uncharacteristic solemnity.

“No. If that was the reason we are still here the world would be full of nothing but ghosts of soldiers who did not know why they died.” . 

I suspect that Anselm is right but it still doesn’t change anything. I still want to know the answers and  I cannot stop myself from thinking about her.

John Ryan, 2011