Style Montage...

fiction

"How do you do that?"

"How do I do what?"

"Have a new outfit every time I see you."

"Every time? Really? I've never repeated one?"

"No, every time. Always something new. How do you do that?"

"I change clothes?"

"Very funny. Look around, nobody else has on a new outfit, don't you think that's weird?"

"I try not to judge. I just assume that everyone has a favorite that they wear."

"Oh you know that's not it."

"Ah, no. You KNOW that's not it. I don't. Thus I have a new outfit every time you see me."

"You think it's just because you believe you can, even though everybody knows the outfit you die in is what you wear for the rest of your existence."

"Again, not everybody knows that. Everybody has been told that. But I bet you were told there were no such things as ghosts as well and yet..."

"That's not the same."

"Isn't it? The living world loves to tell people what to think, what to believe, what to fucking wear. I refuse to continue that game. I mean, I'm dead. Isn't that enough for them?"

"So you just decided they were all wrong? Everyone through the ages is just wrong?"

"Everyone through the ages can't even agree. Some people do that whole white sheet thing. Like we are all running around in our bed linens. Some people think it's what you're buried in. The ancient Egyptians packed a freaking lunch for goodness sake. There have been disagreements, is all I'm saying. And since you don't know until you're here, I think we're the experts, not them."

"But they were us."

"Some of us were them, but they are not us. Not yet."

"That's the same thing."

"No, it's not, what I'm saying is accurate. We were them, they are not us. What they think isn't what we know. It's not my fault that you want everything to be simple. We have to think the same things as the living because we were once living...we have to follow rules some old writer made up because people decided they liked it and repeated it. No thank you."

"You think someone made it up and that's why we're stuck with it?"

"Again, and honestly, listen to me this time, you aren't stuck with it. But yes, I think at some point someone writing a ghost story didn't want to come up with what ghosts wore in the afterlife and just decided what you die in is what you wear as a ghost. Afterall in most of their stories ghosts have unfinished business with the living and so of course they'd wear what the were wearing their last moment of being alive."

"So you don't think ghosts have unfinished business?"

"Do you have unfinished business?"

"Well I must, right? Or I wouldn't be here."

"So what is it?"

"I don't know. I've been trying to figure it out for a long time."

"I can tell."

"You can tell I've been trying to figure it out? How?"

"Look at what you're wearing. I mean...it's pretty old fashioned."

"I'll have you know it was very stylish."

"I have no doubt, and if you love it, keep wearing it. But don't think you have to. And don't keep wasting your time looking for your unfinished business. If you haven't figured it out by now, it's been finished by time."

"So if it's not unfinished business why are we still here?"

"I don't know for sure. I don't know why some of us are hanging out on this plane of existence. I don't know why some people never have this stop over. And I don't know what triggers leaving. But I do know that in the time I've been here I've seen a lot of coming and going, and very rarely, though it does happen, is the going triggered by finishing some spot of business in their world."

"Do you want to move on?"

"Sure. Eventually. I don't know what's next but I've had a good time here. Listening to everyone's stories. Having an unlimited wardrobe. Never being hungry or cold or lonely or...let's just say it's better than it was there. I don't know if the next stop will be better or worse so I'll just enjoy this one for as long as I can."

"All I've done is wander around in their world trying to figure out what I need to finish."

"Maybe don't."

"What?"

"Maybe stop wandering. I'm not saying it's your unfinished business that is holding you here, I'm saying maybe it's time to let go of there and enjoy here."

"Maybe."

"So are you ready to change clothes?"

"No, I don't think so. I really do like this outfit. It was my favorite."

"Okay."

"Wait...it was my favorite. I...I don't think I died in this outfit."

"How did you die?"

"I don't know."

"Most of us don't."

"How did I not realize that?"

"Because you were locked into to believing what you had been told. Now you aren't. Now you have choices. Wear what you want. Go where you want. Do what you want. I mean, within your limitations, but you know what I mean. Travel through their plane if you want to, but you can explore ours as well. It's pretty interesting."

"I...I think I will. Thank you."

She watched as the older ghost wandered away, fading more and more as they left. Another one she was able to free from the old chains binding them in this limbo.

She didn't know what was next, but she did know what her purpose was now.

And she had the perfect thing to wear...