Ghosted...

fiction

She thought being a ghost would be more fun.

When she was alive she used to read stories about hauntings and thought the ghosts must be having a great time.

A chance to torment the people that did you wrong while you were alive. A chance to be a warm presence for those that didn't. Blow a butterfly someone's way to make them remember you, that sort of thing. It actually sounded really nice.

And fun. The mischief part really did appeal to her.

She had been a rule follower while she was living and the chance to act up a little bit sounded like a great time. Move stuff around, blow out some candles, turn on and off some lights. Just mess with people a little bit. It appealed to her sense of whimsy.

Okay, she had a really low bar for whimsy, but she had hoped that by being a ghost she could work at it. Find a little more joy in her afterlife than she had her life life. Maybe fall in with a group of poltergeists and really have some fun. But poltergeists were solitary creatures. They didn't even hang out with other poltergeists.

Other ghosts weren't much better. Ghosts tended to hang out with their own kind, the people that had died when they had. That's why living people felt some places were more haunted than others. Only a small percentage of the population turned into ghosts when they died, but if a large amount of people died in the same place at the same time even a small percentage can feel like a lot of ghosts.

But those ghosts were always standoffish and kind of smug. "Oh you died in your sleep? Must have been nice. WE died from a plane crash. The last moments of your life were spent snoring, OURS were spend screaming."

Which made her crazy. They were all dead, why did it matter how they died? Couldn't they hang out together now? They had a pretty major thing in common after all. But no. She wasn't welcome. She had died a boring way all by herself. Even as a ghost she was not part of the in crowd. Or any crowd. Even in death she was left watching from the outside while everyone else seemed to be having more fun.

For a few years she had done all of the things she had thought sounded cool. Haunted a few people she hadn't cared for. Comforted a few that she had. Practiced her cold chills and someone's staring at me moves. But eventually the people that she had known while she was alive no longer were. And none of them became ghosts. And haunting strangers was no fun.

She was on her own.

"Are you done then?"

The voice came out of nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

"Are you done then?"

She sighed, "I really thought it would be more fun."

"Maybe next time."

"Wait what? Next ti......."

"Oh, honey, look at her eyes, you can already see the mischief in them, we're so in for it."

She wasn't going to wait to have fun this time.