FICTION • 1
BY JAMIE HENDERSON
“D
o you believe in ghosts?” We were sitting on the roof of your house, staring at the stars as they slowly appeared over the tops of the distant evergreens. The sky was falling into darkness like coffee into a pot—one drop at a time. I looked at you, my arms wrapped around my legs and chin resting on my knees, but you kept your eyes on the stars. “I don’t know,” I uttered then shrugged, unafraid to be wrong with you. “Do you?” You were quiet, thinking, the way you usually were. The cicadas chirped in harmony with the reedy timbre of a nearby brook while my heart beat a solo for only me; all waiting
for what you might say. I imagine, if it had been winter, our breath would have mingled in the air in front of us, floating into the ether like wax on water. “Maybe,” you said, only when I was ready to beg for an answer. “Maybe there’s a ghost in all of us.” “Care to explain?” I asked. You finally looked at me, that soft smile reclining into your dimples. “You know I’m not as philosophical as you are.” “I think,” you said, crystal eyes shining in the moonlight, “that each of us has a ghost . . . something inside that grabs onto things and memories and moments and collects them. Keeps them safe. Makes us who we are.”
