Ghost Story

They say I’m the life and soul of the party they say that I can get a party going like no one else. They tell me I’m the life and soul of the party only I’m not because I’m a hungry ghost haunting the highways and byways of my own mind. I don’t even exist in reality any more I’m like a grey smudge of something obscure on the very edge of your vision a dirty mark on the window that you’ll never pay any heed to because you’re far too busy getting on with your life because you’ve actually got a life to get on with. I’m not in the world at all just in my own private world that no one else is invited to and I’ve been rattling around in there for a long time now. Rattling around, rattling around. Checking out the possibilities, of which there are none. I check them out automatically at this stage; everything happens automatically now, there’s no such thing as something that doesn’t happen automatically any more. No such thing, no such thing. There’s just my mind running through its possibilities over and over again. The non-existent possibilities. Hoping for a different outcome, hoping for a different result. Hoping, hoping. Always hoping for a different result. Only the hope’s very faded at this stage, as you might expect. It’s a faded reflex, as faded and insubstantial as everything else in this grey world.

 

They say I’m a laugh a minute they say I’m a real card only they don’t because I’m a hungry ghost haunting the highways and byways of my own closed mind, obsessing over meaningless details in the neurotic ghost realm. Going over and over things in my mind, unable to let go of them even though they don’t matter now and never did. Going over them and over them, unable to let go of the rubbish in my mind. Unable to let go, unable to let go. Going over the rubbish, going over the rubbish. Hoping that something will come out of it this time even though there’s nothing there for anything to come out of.  I’m playing with dust, I’m building sand-castles with dust that keep getting blown away by the wind. The wind that’s always howling around me, trying to carry me off. I’m playing with ghostly beads on a loop of ghostly string trying to make something happen that was never going to happen anyway, even before I became a hungry ghost in the neurotic ghost realms. I’m trying to make me happen – even though I don’t realize it. I don’t realize anything at this stage – I’ve gone long past realization of any sort. I’m trying to conjure myself out of the ashes but I was never there in the first place…

 

They say I’m the life and soul of the party but the party’s long since gone now. They say I’m a real live wire but you can’t really see me I’m like a smudge of dirty air in the corner of the room. You’d hardly notice me. I’m like an old stale fart that’s somehow managed to hang around the corridor for centuries, long since the point at which it should have dispersed. Talking to itself obsessively. Muttering and complaining. Worrying about problems that don’t exist. Problems that never actually existed in the first place. I’m having a conversation with myself in the privacy of my own mind only the conversation’s gone a bit flat at this stage. It’s gone a bit stale. They say I’m a hoot they say I’m a gas they say I’m a real live wire but I’ve been dead for a long time now. I just don’t know it…

 

 

 

 

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