24.06.2014 - Something Vague*

   "The Japanese say you have three faces.
    The first face, you show to the world. The second face, you show to your close friends and your family.
    The third face, you never show anyone. It is the truest reflection of who you are."

    The tide was low. Looking down at the sand from the pier, I could see hundreds of shapeless footprints where the sea used to be - as if a crowd had stood there for hours, watching the arcade up there on the seafront.
    Where the hell did these footprints come from? Today's swimmers? Can't be, there are just too many of them.         
    "Have you seen the sign?"
    A kid's voice behind me. I turned my head to see a little girl - 9 or 10 years old - in a pink T-shirt, riding a bike. 
    Is she talking to me?     
    I looked around as she cycled behind me to stop her bike by my side, facing the sea. No one else on the pier. I pulled at my cigarette and she glanced up at me, a shy smile on her lips.
    "Have you seen the sign?" she asked again.
    "What sign?" I asked, trying to smile back. 
    "There's a weird sign over there," she said, pointing at the pier village.
    "Where is it?"
    "Right there, on that picture thing," she replied, turning her bike around and heading towards it.

    I'd noticed that 'picture thing' before. It was one of these wooden panels with painted characters on them, having holes instead of faces - so that you can go behind it and give them your own face. This particular panel showed a three-faced woman - which means there were three holes - wearing hats and a dark-green dress. It was like three women melted together by the hips.
    I pulled at my cigarette again, pushed myself off the fence over which I'd been leaning and followed her behind the panel. There was, indeed, a sign clipped on there, the size of a paper sheet. On the top, it read: 'The three-faced ghost'.  
    The girl started to read out loud.

    "On the evening of January 11th 1978, a violent gale raged over Herne Bay. 
    The next day, the inhabitants of the town found that a huge part of the pier had been destroyed by the elements, isolating the pier head from the shore forever."
    My eyes shifted towards the end of the pier. It looked like a lump - shortened and neglected; the useless remaining part of what probably used to be a majestic arm. The pier head was there, too, a mile into the sea. There was something achingly poetic about it, the way it stood there on its own, deprived of its purpose, like a cut-off hand slowly rotting away.
    "In the afternoon of the next day, which was a Tuesday, a thick mist wrapped itself around the town and the pier. 
    Through this mist, several people reported seeing a ghost walking on the pier head. It had three faces.
    Had three people found shelter from the storm at the end of the pier only to die from it all huddled together?
    The ghost has been seen several times since. It appears at sunset and floats up to the shore, stealing ice cream from little children."

    The girl laughed. So did I.
    "Do you believe it's true?" she asked.
    '"Nah," I said. "I don't think I believe in ghosts. Especially not the kind that would steal ice cream from kids."
    She thought about it for a few seconds. Then she said:
    "I think ghosts are the kind of things that only exist if you believe in them."
    Ugh. That's a fucking good point. Philosophical, almost. And she's said that so innocently. 
    "Have you ever seen one?" she asked.
    "No, never. Have you?"
    "Yes, once," she replied. "Well, it wasn't actually a ghost. It was the arm of a ghost. Floating up in the air. And then it disappeared. It was spooky."
    She turned her back to me and shivered.
    "My dad has a friend who sees them all the time," she added. "Whenever she comes over to our place, I try to see if there's one standing next to her. There never is."

    My cigarette had reached its end and died out. I spotted a bin nearby and walked over there to throw the butt in it. She followed me. 
    "I love it here," she said, pointing at the sky. "We get amazing sunsets."
    The sky was cloudy - a light grey lid over the sea - but there was a thin pink line, far East, brushing the horizon. 
    "Yes, the sunsets are beautiful around here."
    "It's a very nice place to live," she continued, as if I hadn't said anything. She made an embracing gesture towards the beaches on the coast. "My dad says it's my garden."
    "Do you come here often, then?" I asked, just because I didn't know what else to say but felt like she wanted to keep the conversation going.
    'Do you come here often?' Are you trying to hit on her?      
    She stared straight in my eyes. Hers were beautiful - a deep, dark shade of blue. Happy and alive. Pretty face. Blond curls. 
    Whether it's her garden or not, it might not be such a great idea to let her come down here on her own and converse with strangers.     
    "Yes, I do," she replied. "Most days after school. I live right up there, in this building. The second-floor apartment. My dad's girlfriend lives in the apartment below."
    "It must be something," I said, "to live right on the seafront like that. I bet you have a beautiful view over the sea."
    I suddenly found myself wanting to be alone again. I don't like small talk. Never have.  I'm not good at it. I get bored with it. She didn't seem like she was going to leave, though.
    "Yes," she said. "And on the week-ends, the beach huts on the pier are open. There are little shops inside of them. One of them sells food."
    Yeah, that's enough.     
    "Well, I've got to go now," I said, a bit bluntly perhaps. "Thanks for showing me the ghost story, it was quite interesting to read."

    On the way back home, a hazy memory sneaked into my mind. Something I hadn't thought about in years.
    I was alone at home, on a spring afternoon in 2001. I was 14 years old then. My mother was hospitalized for having almost died of a pulmonary embolism. My father was at work. 
    I needed to go to the bathroom, so I got out of my bedroom and started running down the stairs. Halfway down, I glanced to the left into the living room, the way I always did. That's when I saw it - for a split second. A feminine figure wearing a white veil was standing behind the far end of the dining table, bent over the laundry basket that had been left there, her head slightly tilted sideways. She looked like the Virgin Mary. 
    It stopped me dead. A punch in the stomach. The woman vanished as soon as I saw her, but I stood there on the stairs, frozen, for one or two minutes before I could move on. 
    I never considered that vision to be anything but a trick my mind played on itself. Still, by the time I got back into my bedroom, my heart hadn't stopped racing.

    I'd lied to that girl, though. I do believe in ghosts. They are as real as you and I. And you can see them, too, if you know where to look - that is, not on pier heads. 
    Ghosts aren't in manors or in cemeteries. They live inside your head, haunting you, taunting you. 
    They're keeping you awake. They're all over your dreams. They're poisoning your thoughts. They're speaking through your voice when you're losing control. 
    The tremor in your hands. The tension in your throat. Cold sweats on your forehead. 
    A head-flash from your past triggered by an old smell. A sharp scream in the night that only you can hear.
    They're fathers and brothers and lovers. They're mistakes and failures and set-backs. They are roads untravelled  and chances not taken. 
    Dead things that will not die. 

    So, what is haunting you?     
    That's the question to ask. The one single question I always want to ask when I meet someone new. 
    Yes, but what's haunting you?     
    Me?
    Life is haunting me. The way I handle it. Its purpose - my purpose. My place into the world. My place into myself. The chain of accidents leading me to get birthed - spat out into the world. The chain of accidents leading me where I am - to that point, that 'present'. The accidents to come. The past and the future. My losses - casualties. The damage and the pain - that I caused or suffered. Things I've seen. Things I've heard. Things I've felt or not felt. Things I've done to myself.
    Life is haunting me. Life. 
    Fucking life.

*Something Vague, Bright Eyes, Fevers And Mirrors.