Only Breath: A Ghost Story

Only Breath: A Ghost Story

by Dennis Vickers

Published by Sunny Waters Books

Distributed by Smashwords

Copyright © 2015 Dennis Vickers

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

θεοί· ἠερίων ἐπέων ἄρχομαι ἀθανάτων –My words are ONLY BREATH, yet they live forever – Sappho

Acknowledgements

Rebecca Vickers applied her considerable artistic talent to the design of the book cover.

Dr. Jim Fix and Kathy Vickers Fix read an early version of this work and shared their keen literary insights, much to its benefit.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

HIS INNER VOICE WHISPERS SOLILOQUY,

HIS SEETHING BRAIN IS FILLED WITH COVERT WORDS,

WHILE LOST HIS HEART CONVERTS TO MELODY,

THIS TEEMING FLOCK OF SWARMING CACKLING BIRDS.

WHEN WORDS ARISE INSIDE TO TEST THEIR WINGS,

TO WHISPER SINS NO OTHER EARS CAN HEAR,

WHOSE MOUTH IS THIS WHO SPEAKS THESE FADING THINGS,

THAT RATTLE INNER AIR THEN DISAPPEAR?

WHOSE SECRET VOICE IS THIS THAT DARES TO TALK,

AND BRINGS THESE AIRY THOUGHTS FROM MUTE TO BREATH?

WHOSE SECRETS FALL WHEN INNER DOORS UNLOCK?

WHAT LONG SUBMERGED IDEAS FROM THIS DEPTH,

RISE AND FLY LIKE LIBERATED BIRDS,

WHEN THOUGHTS TRANSFORM TO BREATHING BURNING WORDS?

HIS INNER VOICE WHISPERS SOLILOQUY,

A beginning is that which is not a necessary consequent of anything else but after which something else exists or happens as a natural result. – Aristotle, Poetics

The world of literature is a sacred mirror that shows not the reality around us but the dreams and fears that reality stimulates: It’s not where we live, but life itself. What follows are images in that mirror, manifestations of thoughts, reflections within a reflection, ghosts of spirits once alive. But, what else are ghosts but spirits brought back to life?

This is a ghost story and a ghost story must soon have its ghost, so I’ll begin with circumstances that caused William to encounter the demon haunting the statue of Saint Francis in D’Angelo’s park. The other phantom, the one William dispelled as he became the person he was supposed to be, is background for the first story. I knew William Kepler ten years before the events I relate here took place, so I could begin earlier, but frankly, he wasn’t that interesting before he took up ghost hunting.

It was a Sunday in late May. William sat on a park bench under a towering maple in spring leaf and waited for the rose-breasted grosbeak he called Prince Charles. He didn’t wait long. Sweet whistling melody drifted down from high in the tree a few minutes after he sat down. He couldn’t see the bird, too high and obscured in leaves, but he recognized Charles’s voice instantly. William formed his lips and blew his response, pinching and opening his mouth and fluttering his tongue to mimic the bird. It was a good imitation and Charles responded eagerly – clear, loud, and mellifluous. William sat alone on the bench and continued this dialog, never tiring of the chirping and whistling, never quite satisfied with his part. A few pedestrians strolled down the path throughout the afternoon but no one sat with him on the bench; no one slowed long enough to mark his peculiar behavior.

From birth, William followed his own drum. He experimented with language of his own devising before he could walk, and when his mother coached him to say mama, he cooed a gurgling, incomprehensible chirp and smiled the toothless smile that melted her heart. When other children put color onto line drawings with crayons, some staying within the lines, some not, he chewed crayons into wet paste he applied with the tips of his stubby fingers. He insisted on blank paper only; any suggestion he should color another artist’s drawn figures made him cry. While other children made friends and adopted socialized behaviors, William kept to his own company and developed idiosyncrasies. For him, every action was new and required careful contemplation of alternatives. There was no one he cared to mimic; indeed, he scarcely noticed others. Nothing came easily; nothing came quickly. He chose his own destinations and set his own course.

Little surprise, then, he took only what classes interested him through college and failed to find a job after graduation. Living with his parents and marginally employed through most of his twenties, he eventually returned to college at the end of that decade to earn a master’s degree, something he told his parents would surely lead to a good job, but, since his masters degree was also in English literature, didn’t.

Follow your passion. That’s what you said. That’s what I did, William said to his father later that day. He pushed out his chest in his valiant attempt at assertiveness and blinked furiously. I should mention William has an exceptionally resonant voice, rich and mellow, like one of those country-and-western baritones you hear on the radio. His course brown hair, ruffled by fretful head rubbing, was a jumble of curls covering his forehead and ears. His eyes watered. He blinked but refused to wipe them; he hated it when they did that. The modest living room of his parents’ house seemed small with his father, Alan, pacing across the long dimension and his mother, Emma, folded fretfully on the chair in the corner. The curtains over the large window behind the couch glowed dull red from the light of the late-spring sun setting; this was the only light in the room. William leaned forward, shoulders pulled in, and rubbed his hands together between his knees.

Alan drew a deep breath and exhaled an exaggerated sigh. When I said look into your heart, I meant look to your future. He paused to let this sink in. What will you do with your life? He turned 180 degrees in front of the door leading to the kitchen and reversed course, crossing again in front of the couch where his son sat. You insisted on studying English literature. Wonderful, very fulfilling, life enriching. Now it’s time to translate all that into a job that will allow you to be independent. With long, awkward limbs and fret-lined forehead, he was an older version of his son. His voice had a peculiar tonality too, but too many years talking around issues had fractured the resonance. You’ll find independence fulfilling and enriching too, once you get there. Alan stopped pacing to give his next point full emphasis. Your mother and I won’t be around forever.

I thought about how –

"You already had an undergraduate degree in English. Fine. No job. Four years, four expensive years, no job."

William pressed his lips together. I looked –

Yes, you looked. Of course you looked! You looked until looking was hopeless, and even then you kept looking, though by that time you weren’t really looking anymore, were you? You were pretending to look.

I thought an advanced degree might –

And then, when English literature doesn’t get you a job, what did we do? Alan stopped and stood with his hands out, palms up. We doubled down on English literature! We spent three years earning a master’s and what then? Still no job!

William pressed his lips together and remained silent.

We agreed to continue supporting you when you promised you wouldn’t end up stranded like some goose who refuses to migrate with the others. Give him one shot at this dream he has, at least until he graduates; maybe he’ll win the lottery, we thought.

Because it seemed –

We thought you’d give in eventually and take a job in a bank.

Something might come through –

A goddamned hardware store. We don’t care.

My favorite place –

Have you thought about your mother and me? I think you’ll agree we’ve gone the extra mile. We waited; we watched your final semester, while you left yourself little to do so you could search for a good job; we watched it slip away, day by day. Now you have your diploma in hand and spring’s almost over and here we are. He held his arms out again.

The job market’s not good right now. Maybe when –

We foot the bills all through college, never asked you to work, and now you have your diploma, your two diplomas; we think it’s time you took responsibility for yourself.

William began to say something but stopped with the words on his lips.

A long silence ensued, making the room feel even darker, even smaller, until Emma spoke. We’ll be here for you, of course, should some emergency come up, but we can’t be responsible for you forever. It’s no good for you and it’s no good for us. She clutched a tissue in her hand and held it under each eye in turn.

Alan stopped pacing and stood next to the chair where Emma sat. We only want what’s best for everyone, he said.

If you need to keep your things here until you’re settled in a place of your own, we understand. Emma reached out and took up Alan’s hand. But, you can’t stay here forever. Her eyes were swimming.

Predictably, when Alan and Emma finished their prepared speeches ejecting William from the nest, he went to Carver’s Grove, the place he always went to brood, whatever the provocation, whatever the season, whatever the time of day. The old park, with its ancient trees, quiet pond, and expanses of mowed grass settled his nerves when nothing else could.

Sometimes, like a shaft of sunlight suddenly showing itself from an overcast sky, an insight that has waited behind the curtain for its moment on stage appears suddenly. Perhaps such insights, like crust on toast, egg white turning milky, are transformations of what is already there, brought out by the heat, or perhaps they simply appear from unknown places like swallows of spring. Whatever the origin, William suddenly saw himself in new light. He was no longer a lingering adolescent trapped in this day, this hour, this moment, a single, isolated, vulnerable, living being.

He was a lifetime.

He was a lifetime that was partly spent, certainly, but the larger, better part was yet to happen. For the first time in his young life, his fears subsided and he was excited to see what would come next. Sinking into his safe place on the park bench, and with his vision dazzled by the light of this insight, William found confidence to reconsider options he’d rejected before. All along, both in the initial phase, bachelor’s degree to master’s, and the second phase, up to finishing his master’s, his job search was guided not by what he wanted to do, but by what he didn’t want to do, mainly interact much with people. He hoped something would come along out of the blue that was solitary, yet interesting, at least as much as his two passions – reading and watching birds. Every opportunity fell short of this bar. Since he had no objective, nothing could match his objective, or even come close. For six years the first time around this merry-go-round, and nearly three months his last ride, he was constantly sucking on his lower lip and determining that each possibility life offered wasn’t what he sought, not what he sought at all. In this, he was profoundly stubborn. Six years and three months looking for work was nothing stacked up against a lifetime refusing to accept what life first served up, persisting in inaction, sometimes-silent bullheadedness, until something came along he found to his liking. Obduracy was a fact of William’s psyche since pre-birth. His path through college and his fruitless search for employment were eddies in a much larger river.

Now it seemed his father’s persistence would match his own. Alan developed his intransigence on the matter of William’s unemployment day-by-day, hour-by-hour, since William returned home with his unemployable undergraduate degree only to go back to college and return again with an unemployable master’s. Still, even though Alan’s stubbornness was patched together from remnants of disappointment, and not innate, it was no less unyielding than William’s, and, since it grew stronger with each disappointment, eventually prevailed.

William sat where he always sat, on the bench under the maple trees. He listened, as he always listened, to the birds flitting through the upper branches, foraging in the leaf clutter on the ground, suspended impossibly from vertical tree trunks. He felt, as he always felt, completely at peace. Sometimes he thought he was meant to be a bird and was somehow misdirected into a human body and family. Stake out a territory, find a mate, build a nest – life would be so much simpler. He’ll never change his mind, he said aloud, though no human ears would hear. I might as well get on with my life. He rubbed his shoe against the dirt path leading past the bench. I can take care of myself. Though it seemed he was about to stand, instead he leaned back into the bench and folded his arms across his chest. A pair of crows flew over the grove, slightly above treetop level, cawing critically. Time I tested my wings, he whispered. A fat robin hopped across the wet grass under the largest of the maples, one eye watching him.

Meanwhile, Alan and Emma talked through their intervention with Will. He’s functioning so well now, it’s easy to forget he has a disorder, Emma said as she filled the teakettle and put it on the stove.

He’s high functioning, but I’m certain his difficulties finding a job result from his impairments. Alan paused to let this point sink in. Not directly, when he applies himself he’s fine, but indirectly."

Not so long ago people called somebody like William shy and didn’t worry about it. Nobody thought it was an illness; it was a personality type. So and so is shy; understand he doesn’t want to engage people much and let him be.

Alan sucked in his cheek, making a hollow on that side. He prefers his own company, always has; I get that. But, who wants to hire somebody like that? What can he possibly do?

It’s a difficult job market, like he said.

That accounts for the delay, but not for his lack of success all these years.

I remember how difficult he found fitting in when he was little. Day care, I first noticed we had a problem at day care.

And school. He found the first years so difficult.

Emma smiled, accentuating the lines across her forehead. But look how far he’s come.

He grew to enjoy school, once he figured out how to fit in. I swear he’d stay in school until social security kicked in, if he could find a way to do it.

So now the next step. Now he finally gets a job. Now he finally moves out on his own.

You think he will? You think he can?

"Of course he can. He simply needs to buck up, find something, and learn to live with it. That’s coping. That’s the essence of life. Alan bit his lip and looked at Emma for confirmation. It’s like that for everybody."

Maybe we should have pushed harder when he was younger; maybe he'd find this easier now.

He’s stronger now than he’s ever been, and better adjusted. Now is his best chance to be normal.

Emma smiled. And happy. His best chance to be normal and happy.

Right. Normal and happy.

We’ve come a long way. Emma smiled broadly and blinked back tears. If William could be normal and happy, she was a good mother after all.

Emma’s solace in her belief that William could now overcome his behavioral abnormalities originated in her anxiety that she or Alan had passed on some sort of gene-based malady, though neither exhibited any symptoms. In fact, she alone was the cause of his do-called disorder, but through nurture, not nature. When William was a baby, from birth to the time she first noticed his reluctance to engage others, Emma sang the same ditty to calm him, often to coax him to sleep. Because it seemed to have remarkable calming effect, she repeated it whenever he was agitated, or whenever she was agitated, or whenever the world seemed agitated. Her soothing words came through his baby ears and into his baby brain, where processing them helped him learn to recognize sounds used in his native tongue – ooo, iii, ess –and helped arrange the very structures of the circuitry.

Sweet boy baby, eyes so blue, birdies sing to comfort you. They like little boy quiet and shy, turn away your head and close your eye; when you’re quiet and shy and ready to rest, that’s the time I love you best.

It was something she found in a magazine for new mothers. Since these words went into William’s fermenting little brain not as word memories, but as circuitry for storing word memories, bricks used to build the kiln for firing bricks, he has no recollection of the rhyme, yet the ideas in it are axioms of his mental geometry. Emma never linked the poem with her son’s socialization issues, and hasn’t thought about it in years, though she hears it sometimes in her sleep when happy memories of her times with baby William return.

*****

William might have stayed on the park bench all night but an evening squall brought chilling drizzle, so he pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and walked back to his parent’s house. He slipped unnoticed into his room in the basement. He didn’t sleep well, but spent the night lying in his room thinking through employment possibilities he considered before and rejected but now seemed better than the alternative. Indeed, there was no alternative. Early next morning he sent a text message to a friend. She was not an intimate friend – he had no intimate friends – but one of only half-dozen numbers in his phone and as close a friend as he had. R U Home? Need a favor.

A few minutes later, his phone buzzed. Till 10. Whaz up?

He responded immediately, I’ll come by. He packed what clothes he could fit into a single suitcase and lugged it to the bus stop. He rode the bus to her apartment, where he hoped he could sleep on the couch a day or two. Lisa will take me in, he predicted on the bus, though he had little reason to believe this true.

William first met Lisa Hart in a medieval literature course. Both were English majors, juniors, passionate about literature, disinterested in the practical concerns that occupy most people’s attention. Though they’d been friends since college, they were still awkward around each other. After college, Lisa found work in a public library, rented a small apartment, and settled into quiet contentment, working early mornings and late evenings because there were fewer interruptions. She remained much as she was in college – still refused to wear makeup, still wore her dark brown hair long across the back and sides, but cropped severely in a straight line across the middle of her forehead, still hid her eyes behind owl-like lenses in wire frames. She saw William occasionally, when he spent time in her library, and sometimes, rarely, she initiated a rendezvous. Twice they went to movies together, both times to see film versions of books they loved. Both times they stopped for coffee afterwards and shared their disappointment with the film compared to the book. These conversations, because they grew from common experiences and, more importantly, common feelings, brought them as close as they had been, ever.

It’s Will Kepler, William said into the speaker outside Lisa’s apartment door.

William...? she repeated apprehensively.

I hope you’ll help me. I need a favor.

William?

That’s right. I texted you.

Lisa met him at the top of the stairs and looked with concern at the suitcase he carried. You’re going somewhere? She led him through the door into her living room.

I’m sorry. I need a place to stay for a night or two.

Something happened to your parents? She twisted her finger in the hair hanging from her temple. Oh no! It wasn’t a fire, was it?

They’re fine. Their house is fine. They told me I have to move; that’s all.

Why?