When he first started to see the ghosts, he was terrified.
The first time had been on the small walkway hugging the side of the bay. Out for an early evening walk, he had been engrossed in an audiobook, and was paying little attention to his surroundings. Turning a corner, something had caught his eye, and looking up, his breath faltered in his chest.
It was standing by the cast iron railing, staring out across the water.
Silent and unmoving.
For a moment, he didn’t know what to think. His eyes slipped past it, as if they couldn’t grasp what they were seeing. His mind tried desperately to make sense of it. Struggling to find meaning in the faint, shimmering form, that was somehow both there, and not.
In the moment of incomprehension, part of him wanted to reach out and and see if it was really there. If it was something that could be touched. Something tangible. Something real. The other part wanted to run, and was already searching for ways to rationalise the sight out of existence.
But he did neither. He was utterly transfixed by what he saw.
He could feel the sea breeze tugging gently at his jacket, ruffling his hair. He could feel his cheeks warm and slowly redden from the cool touch of late autumn. But the figure before him was untouched. A small wave splashed against the side of the promenade and threw spray over the railing. He felt the fine mist against his skin. Cold and salty. But it had passed right through the lonely figure.
He shivered, torn between the desire to run, and a growing reluctance to turn his back on the apparition. There was an overwhelming feeling of being watched tickling the back of his neck. He resisted the urge to look over his shoulder; afraid of what he might see.
He didn’t know how long he had been standing there, looking at the pale ghost, but when he finally managed to draw his attention away, the sun had started to sink below the mountains, and the railings cast long shadows across the cracked cement walkway.
The ghost still hadn’t moved, it just stood by the railing, looking out across the water. Against his better judgement, he had begun to feel a kind of kinship with the pale figure. The rest of the world had faded into the distance, and it was just the two of them, the slow lapping of the waves, and the gentle spray carried by the soft evening wind.
A profound sense of sadness overtook him as he finally turned away, and started back along the promenade. He looked back once, just before he turned the corner and she disappeared from view. She looked lonely, and he surprised himself by reciprocating the emotion.
Walking home, there had been more.
All the same pale blue; translucent and unmoving. All of them standing still, gazing into the distance. The next one was by a set of traffic lights, standing right at the edge of the footpath. Traffic passed by inches from them, but they stood undisturbed by the noise and motion.
He passed by quickly, not sparing more than a cursory glance for the ghost, but the same feeling of loneliness followed him. Loneliness, and something else intertwined in the emotion. Expectation maybe? Longing?
The next was standing by a shopfront, staring in the window. He glanced past him, a sudden curiosity for the contents of the display gripping him. The ghost’s gaze was fixed on a cluttered display of stationary; pens, pencils, sticks of charcoal and sketch pads. He hurried past, trying to ignore how the other pedestrians passed straight through the young man.
By the time he reached his apartment, he was seeing them everywhere.
Most of them were by themselves, radiating the same sense of loneliness and longing. Staring distantly at some object of interest, but completely detached from the rest of the world around them. Others stood clustered in groups, particularly at busy intersections; staring silently at the flowing traffic. All of them facing the same direction. All of them alone, but still part of the group.
They were standing, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs, outside every building on his street. He hurried past them nervously, afraid to glance back at their silent stares. Reaching his apartment, he fumbled his key into the lock and slammed the door shut behind him.
He sank to the ground with his back to the door, breathing heavily. What the hell was going on? It felt like his entire world had been turned upside down in the space of a few hours. Was he sick? A fever maybe, causing hallucinations? Maybe he had just straight up lost it, somewhere between leaving work and going on the walk. Perhaps the stress of answering the litany of questions involved in ordering a coffee had finally gotten too much for him.
An unexpected chuckle escaped him, and he stamped down hard on the laughter. It had sounded a bit too on edge, a bit too desperate. He could feel it hammering at the gates, an uncontrolled and hysterical cackling. He didn’t think he could bottle it up again if he left it out.
Then he looked up and saw the pale, blue figure slouched in the corner, staring at the ground between her feet. He was glad he was sitting when the world swayed and went dark.
Over the next six months he got used to the company, even the ghostly child that had taken up residence in his wardrobe. She had terrified him at first. A couple of weeks after he first started to see the ghosts, he had opened the door to take out a suit jacket, and there she was, standing mutely at the back. Her gaze focused slightly above his head, at something on the other side of the room.
He slammed the door shut reflexively, and decided shirtsleeves would be fine for the day.
After a week of rushed laundry and avoiding the wardrobe, he finally worked up the courage to open it again. The girl was still there, which didn’t surprise him. Sometimes new ghosts appeared, but once he saw them, they remained where they were. He’d gotten used to this fact at that stage, so after he had recovered from the shock of finding one in his wardrobe, he accepted their presence quite readily. More readily in fact, than he ever thought he would.
Although, that acceptance only stretched so far. He had removed his clothes from the wardrobe and purchased a small collapsible clothes rack to hang them on. Whether he was getting used to their presence or not, it was still creepy.
Some days when he was tired or distracted, they would catch him off guard, and he would remember how strange it was to see the pale apparitions. It now seemed to him like that was the most natural thing in the world, and he had to remind himself that it was not a regular occurrence for people.
But the one thing he had still not become accustomed to was the eerie stillness of the figures. None of them ever moved. They just sat or stood, staring silently at some clearly defined point in the distance. It wasn’t an unfocused stare. They were all clearly looking at something, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what.
Shortly after this, he visited a medium. Someone that a friend of a friend from work swore by. He’d overheard them talking about their experience, and decided to give it a shot. He had always dismissed the idea before, but if he was seeing ghosts everywhere, then why expect that other people didn’t?
He had been dubious when he first arrived, especially when he entered the room that looked, and smelled, exactly like he imagined it would, based on his limited knowledge of TV and film. He coughed at the heavy incense that pervaded the air. Between the haze and the dim candlelight, he couldn’t make out much detail beyond the round table in the centre of the room.
The medium gestured to one of the chairs and he sat awkwardly, feeling out of place. Why was he even there? It didn’t feel right to disturb the ghosts from their silent vigil. They had done nothing to him except maybe, make he feel a little uncomfortable, although by then most of that feeling had faded.
The medium pulled another chair closer to him and sat watching him, with a curious expression on their face. He had mentioned seeing a ghost in his apartment when he made the appointment, but hadn’t bothered to tell them of the myriad of others that haunted his life.
His discomfort only increased as the medium started the session. They made a big fuss of gesticulating, chanting and speaking in a loud monotone that threatened to put him to sleep along with the heavy atmosphere. He knew as it started that it would be a waste of time. He had tried in good faith, he told himself, but this simply wasn’t going to work.
His suspicions were confirmed when in the middle of the everything, a girl sitting cross legged on the floor looked up, met his eyes, and shook her head. That was the first time one of his apparitions had interacted with him, or even shown awareness of the world around them.
It sent a chill down his spine, but still, he had grinned at the gesture, stifled a laugh, and then continued to nod and play along with the medium. He decided that it wasn’t all bad. As he sat, listening to the medium drone on, he realised that he was starting to look forward to seeing his unusual new companions.
And this was probably a good thing.
Because they were everywhere he went now. Every street and shop. Every cafe, restaurant and bar.
Despite his appreciation of their unusual companionship, he found that he couldn’t bring himself to go to the cinema anymore. He had grown used to them and even welcomed their presence most of the time, but sitting in a dark room with dozens of them made him feel uncomfortable. Especially when the majority of them were looking everywhere but the screen.
He even started to give them names. At first, just the ones he was closest to, but it wasn’t long before he was thinking and assigning names to every one he passed, even the ones that were part of larger groups.
As he got to know them better, he began to intuit the individual stories behind their silent waiting. And many of those stories broke his heart.
There was the young man with the bunch of flowers on a street corner, staring longingly down the road.
A small baby in a pram on one of the bridges crossing the river.
The young couple hugging on the park bench, locked in a never ending embrace.
He tried to avoid those when he could. It was too easy to think about the tragic stories behind their presence.
However, as strange as living with ghosts was, if you had asked him, it was generally a positive experience. He had been lonely before, and now, even though they never responded, he felt better having someone to talk at, even if the whole situation was unorthodox and sometimes downright creepy.
About eight months after that first day, things changed.
There had been no further interaction since the girl at the medium. But now, the ghosts abruptly stopped being still and disinterested. Their distant stare was now focused on him and followed him around as he passed.
He thought he had accepted them as simply another part of his life, but their gaze now made him feel uncomfortable all over again.
The ones in his house were fine, as were most of the individuals, especially the ones he passed the most and looked forward to seeing. But the groups freaked him out, especially the large ones he found at those busy intersections.
It was hard not to be disconcerted when thirty pale blue, barely visible people turned in unison to look at you as you passed. It was a was uniquely disturbing phenomenon, even to someone who lived with ghosts.
Then one morning, a year after he first saw the woman on the promenade, he woke and things felt different.
It was late autumn again and his breath was cold in the air as he sat up in bed. He could see frost glinting off the trees outside his bedroom window. It was one of those autumn mornings where he would have liked nothing more than to turn over and wrap himself back up in his duvet.
But something was different this morning. A feeling deep down in his gut told him that something had fundamentally changed about the world. He got out of bed and moved to the window. His window ledge was covered in a thick layer of frost, and he could see the tracks of a small bird tracing a line across the glistening whiteness. Outside, on the street below, stood the ghosts. Their gaze directed up at him, expectantly.
Something inside of him moved and he finally understood. It wasn’t a sledgehammer blow, or an earth-shaking revelation. It was a slow blossoming that started in his throat and spread outwards, until the melange of emotions suffused him with an unexpected warmth. He took one last regretful look at his bed and turned from the window.
He didn’t stop to check for the woman in the closet, or the elderly gentleman that had taken up abode in his bathroom, or the teenager moping by his fridge. He even neglected to wave to the girl in the corner of the his sitting room. He already knew what he would see.
He went straight to his front door and stepped outside.
The morning was of the kind that he had always thought of as beautiful. It was one of those cool, crisp autumn days, where you can’t quite see your breath in the air. The day had a clarity and brightness in the way that only the blue-shifted light of the year’s end can bring. A good day, he thought as he walked out onto the street, still in the track pants and t-shirt he slept in.
They were waiting for him on the road outside the apartment.
He recognised the pale faces of the crowd. The faces that he had grown so fond of over the previous year.
At first they had the quiet, distant stare he had grown so used to, but then, they all turned noiselessly to face him as he stepped out onto the footpath.
They watched him in silence, waiting and patient. Expectant.
Not a bad day at all, he thought.
Such a beautiful morning, and he didn’t even feel the cold.
They parted ways as he walked towards them.
Their smiles welcoming as he passed.
Two of the ghosts stepped out from the crowd and held out their hands; the young woman from the promenade and the girl from his sitting room. It felt strange seeing them out of their usual context, but that was quickly overridden by an overwhelming feeling of peace.
He stepped forward and placed his hands in theirs. The girl smiled, and he felt the last of his doubts melt away.
He nodded at them and they walked away in silence.
LooseVerse 
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