#although my scanner helpfully deleted all the pink again

[isbergillustration]

This is a Ghost Story: Part II

After that first séance, things get easier. The ghost eases up on the spookiness, and now instead of threats in the steamed up mirror, it says things like YOU ARE GOING TO BE LATE, and the concern is touching. It is still a bit ominous, but that has got to be part of the job, being a ghost. Part of the style. They still haven’t told me their name, or when they died, or if they want anything other than late night TV, and also maybe some nice scented candles.

I see those words, that ominous warning in the mirror, and check my mobile to see that the ghost is in fact correct. Shit.

“Hey,” I yell through the door while hurriedly towelling my hair off, “we need to have a talk about privacy! About you maybe not being in the bathroom while I shower!”

Hopefully, if my neighbours hear, they will assume I’ve just gotten a lover of some sort. Hah. If only. But I don’t think anyone cares. The building is dense, but the plumbing is actually an antique, and sound travels through the pipes in unsettling ways.

This building is actually pretty nice. The facade is nice and ornate, and the sides and back are mostly brick covered in some sort of crumbling layer and poorly overpainted graffiti. It used to be two massive flats on each floor, for rich people, on either side of a long corridor, but at some point someone decided it would be more economical to split them into three units each. Mine is the smallest size, and if the old blueprints I found at the library were right, my bedroom used to be a tiny maid’s room. But there are nice things about it. The flat has very high ceilings, with one of those fancy relief things where there might once have been a ceiling lamp. The windows are massive, too. Which makes the place nice and light, but it also means it gets cold as fuck in the winter.

The building faces a big park, filled with tall trees as the ground rises into a hill. If you’re on the right side, you look out at a playground, where people do drugs at night. I’m on the other side, though, so my view is of the car park behind an all night supermarket. Which could be worse, I could be looking right into the window of a neighbouring window, but I can’t help but envy the old lady across the hall from me who gets the park view.

I work in a café, because that’s what you get, doing a degree in fine art. It’s across the city, a long commute, but I’ve been there for a year now, and I like it. My co-workers are nice, everyone respects my pronouns and the owner lets us ban people if they’re being homophobic. It does mean having to get up at five in the morning four days a week, though, which is not something I enjoy. Especially not when there are mysterious howls from the basement. There’s only one flat down there, and whoever lives there is into some weird shit. Or maybe they just watch horror movies with some seriously impressive speakers.

Today, though, I’ve switched with a co-worker, the one with a thirty centimetre tall mohawk, so I’m on afternoon till evening. The sun is low by the time I start, and the first few hours are slow. A few hours in, though, after it has gotten dark, a familiar face walks in. One of my neighbours. He’s got bright red hair, ridiculously pale skin and wears exclusively clashing neon colours, so he’s quite recognisable. I don’t know exactly which flat he lives in, but it’s below mine somewhere, I think. I see him around occasionally, and it’s enough that I see him recognise me too as I take his order. Some ridiculously suryp laden and intensely caffeinated monstrosity. Maybe he works nights. Would explain the pallor. He goes to talk to a woman I think I might have seen around our building too, but she looks more normal so it’s more difficult to say. They’re not there together, though, because he sits at a different table.

I get busy with orders for a while, and by the time I look over, there is a woman at the table with him. She looks quite intense, and has a notebook and pen, so maybe it’s some sort of job interview? The woman who might live in my building keeps very obviously watching them, while badly pretending not to do so. I can see her type nonsense into her laptop while looking at the conversation out of the corner of her eye. Well. That’s none of my business.

When I get home, the words TV DOESNT WORK arewritten on my living room wall in dripping bloody letters. Great. I really need to get some of those letter magnets for the fridge or something. The blood is a pain to get out of the wallpaper, which is vintage, so I’m not allowed to switch it out or anything. I roll my eyes, and turn the thing off and on again, and the screen lights up. Suddenly, the atmosphere in the room fells lighter, less oppressive. Huh. Neat.

“Boring day?” I ask.

The kitchen cupboard doors slam in some approximation of Morse code. I take that to mean yes. I start a list on my phone. Fridge letter magnets. Spirit Box (too expensive). Sheet with holes in (for joke) (offensive?).