The Ghost Is in the Eye of the Beholder
The Ghost Is in the Eye of the Beholder
Each week, a story prompting you to reflect on your choices, habits, and contexts. If you can relate, it may also inspire you.
The fine rain comes down steadily and covers the cobbled street with an eerie gloss of a soaked-up planet –
But through the night through the rain I must run from the hunching figure that blabbers gibberish at me whenever it catches up. Leave me alone get lost! I yell, but my voice melts away into the night. At one corner it grabs my arm, and stutters words I can’t make out; I draw my arm back in horror and run off again. Whatever it is the cloaked figure wants I’m not giving it away, whether coins or a cup of tea. I dash past windows of lights going out, on the darkest lane down from the market place, hoping to lose the stalker in the blackness of oblivion.
But at the bottom of the lane there’s suddenly no turn left to take. Here it is, my pursuer, approaching me almost with reverence.
“Help”, it begs, down on the knees, clutching at the lap of my coat. “Please don’t leave me! Please like me!”
It’s the familiar words that startle me. I look down and see my teenage schoolgirl face washed with tears.
What ghost have I been running away from?
I like this story for showing how the two roles can only exist together: no chaser, no chased – and no runner, no stalker.
There are two actors, as there are two stories: one of avoidance or suppression, the other, of neediness and dependence.
The story is told from the point of view of the one chased, which makes it easier for us to identify with this character. But they are no better than their stalker: both behaviours are equally compulsive.
Which actor do you most spontaneously relate to? Have you played that role? Do you still do it?
Do you know a particular person who embodies the other role?
If you can relate to this story as a past “you”, how did you leave that condition? How was the chasing / avoidance solved?
Has anyone’s unsolicited love, excessive appreciation, or interest in your fate been troubling to the point that you flipped off, exasperated? Have you found a way to put an end to it?
What IS a way to put an end to a circle of compulsive love, or abhorrence?
If there a past version of yourself you might substitute for the ghost in the story above? Did you spend a significant time of your life begging to be liked? Chasing a compulsive need?
If you can relate to any aspect in this story, does it maybe turn on some light?
I wrote this story years ago, in a writing club session. It’s precisely 200 words, which is why I’ve tagged it as Short form.
This is so well written. The closest I come to embodying this feeling is that of writing. There is a series in me that is begging to be written, and I do want to write it but the voice can sometimes be too strong and insistent. While "stalking" is too strongly stated, I have an internal presence that doesn't let me forget there is something I need to tend to--in this case it's getting Hannah's story (book 2 after Alfred) told.
Thanks a lot, Jill! Interesting how you connected it with writing and a presence inside of you! I love how you departed from the more obvious reading to a very personal experience! I wanted to respond here, too, directly under the post. This is what I want Mentatrix to be all about: telling a story, detecting a deeper level of meaning, and relating it to our individual experience.