I think I may have made a mistake.
My life was dull and lackluster. Nothing seemed to ever change: days just turned into weeks, weeks into months, months into years. Until one day I didn’t see Him. Charley, this magical boy.
The most attentive of you may remember him. I told how fascinated by him I was, how he made the medical science seem so easy and charming, and how his entire visage, like a kaleidoscope, was perpetually shapeshifting. I’d wished I could come up to him, talk to him, befriend him. And so I did. But I shouldn’t have. But let me start from the very beginning. I saw him, saw him reading a book and I thought, “This will be just the right excuse to start a conversation.” And I came up to him, and hesitantly said, “Hey. I noticed you were reading this book on medicine. What exactly is this?”
Immediately after uttering those words I understood how weird, untimely and far-fetched the question must have seemed to him. To my great surprise, he didn’t look at me with an expression of disinterest, loathing, or outrage. Quite the opposite, he looked at me, sparks in his eyes, and started telling me all about the book and much, much more:
“Oh, this is a book on pathology. I am currently reading a chapter about pathogenesis. I won’t say this is not an exciting read, but the last book I have read was about genetic chimerism and, I must say, it was written quite brilliantly. This book by now seems just… uninspired,” he sounded so exhilarated, so euphoric that somebody came up and asked him. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Charley. Charley Fay.” Fay! I knew he was intertwined with sorcery.
“I’m Brando. You know, like Marlon. So, anyway, you are a doctor?”
“Actually, no. I’m a historian. Well, in the making – I study at a university there. As for the books, I just like reading about, well, everything. I kind of have a knack for learning all things new.”
We talked like that for hours and when he was leaving, I promised to wait for him on this same spot the following noon. I knew I was playing a dangerous game, but I couldn’t help myself.
The following day Charley showed up with a different book – the one about chimerism he told me about the day before. “It is breathtaking. I read it in just a couple of hours. You must give it a try!” I sure will. “What are we going to do today?” he asked.
“I don’t know… Want to go check out all the haunted houses in this area?”
Having heard this, Charley chuckled, but then agreed, “It must be big fun.”
The eeriest and most definitely haunted house was that one on the hill. It was so old no one really remembered its real name but everyone just referred to it as Beauregard Manor. So we went for this misadventure. Inside, the house was as spooky as on the outside, but I’ve seen spookier on the other side. Charley, to my astonishment, wasn’t frightened – contrarily, he was agitated.
Just as I suspected, there was nothing scarier than the interior of the house, no ghosts. Well, there was one – me. And I decided to confess it to Charley because I thought the surroundings were suitable for the occasion. “Hey, lookee here!” I cried and when Charley looked at me, drove my arm through the wall. I realized it would be a more persuasive way of confessing yourself being a ghost than just telling about it.
“What the… How did you do that?”
“Listen, I know this might be a hard thing to take in, but it is what I am. I am… not alive. Namely, a ghost. I can become invisible from most people’s eyes if I wish and it takes a lot of effort to communicate with physical objects.”
“How long have you been a ghost then?”
“For the last fifty years or so, I think? I weren’t joking about Marlon Brando – my old pals were like his biggest fans in the 1950s. That’s where my name comes from. I was born in 1955, the same year Guys and Dolls came out. My parents named me Brando Sky after both Marlon Brando and his character in the flick.
“I was a whizz-kid, my parents had high hopes for my future. I finished school top of the class, entered the university and everything seemed to be so perfect.
“But then this damned truck…” I couldn’t hold my tears. Until that moment I thought I didn’t have the physical ability to cry any longer.
“It’s okay, Brando, it’s okay,” Charley tried to comfort me. “You don’t have to tell the whole story if you don’t want to. What I’ve heard is enough.”
“Listen. Bottom line is: I died. But for some reason, I didn’t go to heaven. Or to hell. For some reason, fate decided to play this trick on me and made me into a ghost. I wanted to travel the world, but now I couldn’t even cross the border of this town. I can’t cross over into the afterlife, either.”
Charley looked at me with an expression of sorrow and compassion on his face. “I don’t know how, but we’ll figure this out.” For the first time in my unlife I felt like I was connecting with someone.
The following day Charley brought to me a bunch of books about ghosts and esoteric and stuff. “We’re going to find a way to help you!” Were I alive, I wouldn’t have believed this nonsense. Now, though, I wasn’t in a place where I could just discard a belief because it wasn’t scientific.
“Are you sure this is going to work, Charley?” I asked. “I am not even sure real ghosts have the same abilities as people tell. I mean, what if all that’s written in all these books is nothing but fiction?”
“Listen, we have to at least try. Here, see? It says here if a ghost possesses a living body, it will be able to physically transfer to anywhere in the world. No more boundaries, you won’t be bound to this town.”
“But isn’t in… inhumane? I don’t want to parasite somebody’s body. Let’s try to find a different way.”
“What about this? You can obtain a physical body by… wearing a charmed amulet,” he sounded terribly frustrated on these last words. “Where in hell’s name are we going to find a witch to make a charmed amulet? Can’t believe I just said that.”
“Wait… When we first met, you said your last name was Fay, right?”
“Right.”
“You know what that means? Fay means fairy. You know, this winged magical creature? Maybe you are a warlock yourself?”
“Isn’t that too far-fetched?”
“No suggestion is too absurd in a crisis situation. You have any books on witchcraft?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. I used to study magical folklore a couple of months back. You want me to go and fetch them?”
After he returned with more books, we started to look for a chapter about everything charmed.
“Eureka! Here it is! Do you have anything which could be charmed, like an amulet or a pendant?” I didn’t have. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’ll give you one of my pendants.” Then Charley started reciting the spell from the book:
Come winds of the South,
Come winds of the North,
I am your master,
And will be henceforth.
Summon the breeze,
Summon the storm,
Help this revenant
And give him form.
After an awfully long while, I finally broke the silence: “Did it work?”
“Well, you may try this pendant on and see.” And try it on I did right away. But it didn’t work. I guess I was wrong after all.
I was broken. Nothing seemed to make sense any longer. I failed. So I pretty literally ghosted on Charley because I couldn’t take it anymore.
We didn’t communicate for weeks, but he came to our spot every day hoping to see me. I couldn’t help myself at one point, “Go home, Charley, there’s nothing to look for in here.”
“Brando, I really, really need to talk to you. There is one last way of helping you. I know we may not ever find a witch to help you obtain a physical form, but there truly is a way to help you cross over.”
“A way to… what?” I was confused.
“Listen, I know we’ve met just a couple of weeks ago, but I think I may have developed a deep connection to you. I enjoy spending time with you. I adore you.
And more than anything in this world I want you to be happy. I know you can’t bear being a ghost. So in order to stop your perpetual suffering, you need to cross over into the afterlife.”
“…And how do you plan to get me there?”
“You need to say your goodbyes to everyone you hold dear and fulfill your life’s unfinished business. Do you know what your unfinished business is?”
“As a matter of fact I do. You know, I never told you but I was writing stories when I was alive. If they get published, I suppose my purpose will be fulfilled?”
“Let’s do this!”
In just a few of hours, Charley was reading the old dusty manuscripts. “What the hell, these are really good! It’s a shame you were…” he stuttered, realizing where he was going. I had one concern though: how were we going to publish the stories?
“Don’t worry. We’ll create your personal blog. You can write anything in it, including your stories. We’ll post them online for everyone to see!” again, he seemed as excited as the first time we met, when he was telling me about pathology and chimeras. I couldn’t help but agree to this one last misadventure.
“And here’s your blog. Now let’s publish your stories!”
With my writing published, the only thing left was to say my goodbyes. “We will have to go to your parents’ house, Brando,” for a moment it felt like I had an ever-growing lump in my throat.
“I can’t go to them. Not like that,” I replied. “We have to think of a different way.” I was too afraid to appear before my parents, unchanged after all these years. “Maybe I could write them a letter? I will write them a letter.” Charley only nodded his head.
I sat at the table and started singing my heart out in a most heartfelt piece I could ever produce:
“Dear Mom and Dad,
“I just want to say that I treasure you and care about the two of you deeply. I know I am not the most dutiful son and I could do better. “Words couldn’t express my deepest admiration and appreciation for you and all the love you gave me. But I tried. “You were the ones who taught me to be strong and not afraid. You were the ones who taught me to laugh in the face of danger. You taught me to live and you taught me to love. You told me to look for light even in the darkest day. For that I thank you deeply.
“Yours truly,
“Brando.
“13 Nov. 1974”
“You wrote a fake date on the bottom. Why?”
“November 13 was just a few days before I died. I know they’ll be heartbroken, but they’ll think I wrote this and just didn’t have the chance to post it.”
Then we headed out on a quest of delivering the letter to my parents. Knock, knock, knock and the door was opened. An elderly woman was standing at the doorstep and looked at Charley as he was saying: “Good afternoon. My name is Charley Fay, you don’t know me. I found this envelope, your address was written on it. I thought you might want to read this? It says the sender’s name is Brando.”
Having heard my name, mom couldn’t hold her tears. She opened the envelope right there, on the doorstep. She sobbed as she read, every word pinching her heartstrings harder than the previous. By the end of this small letter she could only say a mute thank you.
We returned to Charley’s place in silence. Then, he asked, “So, what now?” “Now, I suppose, I have to say my goodbyes to you,” I looked at him and saw tears welling up in his eyes. “Don’t cry. Listen, you may be brokenhearted after this moment, but I command you: Don’t you dare cry for me. One day is all the time you have. If you sob after me longer than that, I swear I’ll come from heaven, or hell, or Avalon, or wherever I end up and kick your ass myself so that you hate me more than anything in your life. I may be gone now, or I may be not. But remember, I am still here. I am still with you; I will guide you through whatever trouble you may have in the future. I’ll be in your heart, for forever. Remember that.”
Then something happened which I didn’t expect. He kissed me! I saw violets in his eyes and knew I couldn’t stay here even a single while longer. I had to go now. “Goodbye, Charley,” with these words, I disappeared.
Weeks passed and Charley returned to his regular state of living, only remembering me and our small misadventure as a pleasant dream or a golden memory from long ago. What he didn’t know is that I didn’t go anywhere.
I don’t think there’s such thing as afterlife and I am stuck on earth forever, condemned to wander it as an illusion without any physical form. So there’s but one thing left for me to do.
So I opened the book about genetic chimerism and started reading.
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