my short story

The Aqueous Ghost

I was an aqueous ghost.

I dreamt of falling so gently I couldn’t even wake up.

It was as if I’ve been lulled into a sleep that made me feel like I’ve been stuck in a bell-jar. I couldn’t tell how long I’ve been wandering around seeking for the fragmented pieces of myself and piecing them back together. There are 206 bones in my body and I could barely feel them at all, except for the meteorite rushes of nostalgia through my veins and the subtle tingles under the marrow in my spine. Perhaps there was a vague pulsation of my heartbeat, for which I wasn’t sure of, and it grew stronger by the minute, becoming viscous sounding notes and suddenly impalpable bells that sounded in my ears like ocean shells.

Then I heard voices, a young girl spoke, with little mellifluous chimes, from which I noticed from her tone, a slight bit of familiarity. “Mum, is she dead?”

There was a shifting silence that lingered, remaining present in the walls of vacancy, and my mother spoke a minute later.

“I don’t know, sweetie.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s somewhere far away, perhaps on the other side of the universe, perhaps sailing the seven seas, perhaps visiting places we can’t ever go to.”

“Will she come back?”

“Maybe she will, maybe she will never.”

The girl remained quiet after that, and I could hear a quiet ruffling of coats as they left the room, leaving me alone in the clingy atmosphere, the air stale and muggy as I breathed in the sourness of my own air from my dream residue.

Tiny fragments of my memories were slowly coming back into me, like a golden thread tightening the seams between the parts of my brain, and I suddenly remembered the crashing waves that were undulating down, the ocean swallowing me, drenching me with salt water. I remember the way my limbs were tangling together like a mess, the string and threads holding them together were fraying; and I was sinking and drowning, as if I had a million times before. The waves were etching their secrets into my pale skin like choirs, the waters seeping into my bones. The clouds were tearing themselves apart and filling up the lonely banks of the rivers. Then there was the sand, those glittering tiny grains that were holding up the weight of infinite ghostly wails of sunken ships and corpses and my screams that shook the entire ocean. I knew I had become an aqueous ghost, diluted and trembling under the deathly grasp of the ocean floors.

My bones were aching and my skin was pale and fragile and every atom of my body was hurting with great intensity. Oh I could’ve been everywhere if I weren’t lying here, rigid and decaying into the atmosphere if I haven’t entered this dreamy state. I could be reading The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Little Women over and over again and get riveted by the vividness of the story; I could write endless enchanting lullabies and collect old glass jars; I could pretend that there were ghosts lurking beneath my shadows and take pictures of inanimate objects and study the spaces between my fingers.

All of a sudden, there was a dim, a dim glower of light towards the opposite end that appeared before me, a shaded yellow haze that flickered; it grew stronger by the second, becoming a brightening orange glow, a sharp neon yellow that was piercing to the eye. I stood there with fleeting thoughts encircling me like little fireflies, leaving me with an ultimatum of the dark murky waters or the glowing neon light.

I was trembling and shivering so hard that my palms began sweating out lakes. I had to choose. I had to choose. I took one unsteady step towards the glowering yellow light; one step after another.

I put in all efforts to open my eyes, I saw, through my blurred vision was the blank white walls and the blank white skies. I couldn’t move, I felt small and motionless as if the world had stopped spinning.

“I’m incredibly sorry for your loss, Missus. We have tried our very best but I’m afraid her body remains to be unresponsive. We hope you understand.”

A few quiet sniffles were heard, but my mother did not speak.

“You may pull the plug.”

The nurses worked with great efficiency, their hands worked expertly as they covered my body with white sheets and wheeled it to the morgue.

I couldn’t fathom why. I was screaming with all my might. What were they doing? Why are they taking me there? I wasn’t dead yet. I wasn’t dead yet. I wasn’t dead yet. I was breathing. I was alive.

I knew that I wasn’t dreaming, but I could no longer wake up.

I was an aqueous ghost.

Anyways, here's my short story and I am so not cool since I'm the first one posting on the blog. I'm a bit displeased with the title of my story and the ending.