Ghost

“My name is Trevor Collins, and for as long as I can remember, I could see and talk to ghosts.”

“That’s great Trevor, but you tell me this every single week.” The doctor leaned back in his chair, sighing deeply. He tapped a pen absentmindedly against his clipboard, then shrugged and set them both on the floor. This patient never said anything new.

“But you don’t believe me.” Trevor stated, his bottom lip sticking out in a slight pout. Doctor Blunt wondered how this man never got bored of this same conversation. It added credence to the idea that Mr Collins was indeed insane.

“I’ve offered you the chance to prove it to me, but all you do is proceed to have a conversation with yourself.” He leaned forward, adjusting his glasses on his nose to peer right into Trevor’s eyes, as he stared at the ceiling.
“It’s not my fault if you can’t have faith.”
“It has nothing to do faith! I have faith, I believe in God.”
“Do you believe in Jesus?”
“Yes.”
“Well he died, so he’s a ghost.” Trevor folded his arms on his chest, looking smug.

“Jesus is not a ghost, Trevor, we’ve been over this a thousand times.”
“You can’t prove that.”
“You can’t prove he is.”
“You won’t let me.” He was always so stubborn, like a child.

Doctor Blunt stood up and began pacing the room, Trevor knew he did this when he was about to lose his temper. A slight smile crept across his gaunt and ghostly white face.
“Let me show you, I can prove it.”
“I will not allow you to use a Ouija Board on these premises! Blunt Asylum is a place of science and reason, not of magic and hocus-pocus.” His face had gone red and a vein was pulsing like a little worm on his wrinkly temple.

“Your great-grandfather told me that Blunt Asylum is a place to help the mentally ill, in whatever way possible.” Trevor stated, reasonably.
“That’s impossible, he told you nothing! He’s dead.” The doctor was practically screaming now, how very unprofessional.

“I know… but I can talk to ghosts.” Blunt’s face turned a funny sort of beetroot colour. His left hand began to clutch his chest. He got chest pains when he was anxious, his grandfather and his father had both died of heart problems, and he was getting older now. He kept forgetting to get it checked out with his GP.

Trevor continued, “And now he’s a ghost, so I can talk to him. Honestly after these last few years you’d think you’d get that part.” The smile on his face grew wider. Life was boring here; getting the good doctor all worked up was one of his favourite ways to keep him amused. His huge grin on his gaunt face made him look like that Joker guy from the Batman comics one of the orderlies sometimes gave to him.

The doctor stumbled around to the back of his desk, knocking papers and pens askew as he pulled open the drawer, looking for his heartburn pills, trying to calm down.
“Ghosts aren’t real, Trevor.” He wheezed, between gasping breaths.

“They’re as real as you or me, if I can see them they must be!” The grin stayed planted on his face, and his eyes boggled wildly. The doctor’s obvious distress and pain was giving him some amount of satisfaction. He hoped it hurt more than the electro-shock treatment he faced.

Blunt found a bottle of pills and tipped a few into his mouth, swallowing them dry. He turned to face Trevor, who was now sitting up on one elbow watching him intently. The doctor sat down and the pills seemed to kick in almost immediately, numbing the pain to a distance annoyance, like a fly buzzing around the room.

He laced his hands under his chin and regarded Trevor calmly.
“You have classic symptoms of schizophrenia and paranoid delusions, as I have told you many times before. If you keep on your current course of pills and therapy you should be able to reintegrate into society within a year.” He was in control again, behind his huge, decades old mahogany desk.

“I don’t like my pills, they taste like chalk. Besides, I like talking to the ghosts, they’re interesting.” Trevor leaned back down on the couch and began fidgeting with the buttons on his gown; he could tell things weren’t going his way. His face looked as gaunt and tired as ever.
“Trevor, it’s all in your head.”
“Even if it is all in my head, at least in my head people take the time to talk to me and notice me.” Trevor was suddenly very interested in his fingers.

Doctor Blunt got to his feet and paced around the desk towards Trevor. This was the closest he had ever came towards some sort of breakthrough, the first time Trevor had ever shown anything other than confidence in his beliefs and snide criticism towards those who didn’t.

“Trevor, why do you feel like people don’t notice you?” Softly, treading carefully.
“They don’t, they never have. Ever since I was a child I’ve always been ignored, by everyone.” A single tear ran down his cheek, but he still refused to make eye contact with the doctor. His cheeks were flushed red and Blunt could tell he was ashamed.

“Maybe that’s why I can see ghosts, they’re ignored, no one listens to them, and maybe I’m just like them.” He wiped his eyes. The doctor paused, trying to think of what to say.
“That’s not true Trevor, I’m listening to you.”
Trevor looked up at him, smiling ironically.

Both men fell silent for what seemed like a long time, eventually the doctor’s curiosity got the better of him.
“Trevor, why are you telling me this now? After all this time?”
Trevor regarded him a long time, and finally spoke softly and slowly.

“Because you’ll understand now, you’re just like we are.”
The doctor looked at him with utter bemusement, feeling that he had just lost his glimpse at the real man beneath Trevor’s insane façade. Trevor gestured towards the doctor’s desk.

The doctor turned to see a body slumped behind the desk, its eyes lolled back in its sockets, and it’s glasses askew on its large nose. There was a prominent vein on the bald head, but it was no longer pulsing. Blunt recognised his own corpse right in front of him.

He looked down to see his hands were grey and foggy, as if made of a thick, rolling mist. As comprehension dawned in his mind that now physically sat inside a dead skull filled with congealing blood. Trevor elaborated for him.

“You died a few minutes ago Doctor Blunt, I’m sorry. It must have been your heart condition, your father, grandfather and great-grandfather told me it would probably get you.” Trevor sighed deeply, as if in pity, then quickly brightened up and sat up to look at the doctor.
“Do you believe in ghosts yet?” he said excitedly.