The Boy Who Loved a Ghost

The Boy Who Loved a Ghost

There was a boy who loved a ghost, and she, the ghost, loved him in return. He sought her first in the places they had known together—a forest glade where a stream gurgled and the branches of a pale green shrub with broad leaves bent to the ground. When he heard her voice in the dappled shadows, she, who did love him, said “Love the living, while you can.”

But the boy opened his heart to the shadows, to the play of light and dark, and added that to his love and carried it and, though the voice grew weaker, the ghost grew stronger.

He watched for her wherever trees caught the sun, sought her in the darks that mold women’s faces, listened for her in the movement of crowds, in the quiet before he slept, and in the cadence of his own gait walking home from town. And she, who did love him, said “Love the living, while you can.”

He built shrines for her, an alcove, a room, a garden, and, while the voice grew weaker, the ghost grew stronger.

He wanted her near and he made a bed for her in the curves of his shoulders and in the fold where breath entered his nose. He began to glimpse her whenever a breeze stirred, when leaves rustled or collected in brown piles. He began avoiding the sun and grew pale and often forgot to eat.

He grew weak himself, and thus, close to her, so that when she spoke to him a third time, her own voice now weakened to a whisper, telling him to love the living, while he could, he misunderstood and reached, his own faint whispers mixing with her, until it was indistinguishable from the stillness.