Ghost Girl

Written by Jia Zhang

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It was a lovely funeral.

Dozens came. Family, friends, acquaintances, or random strangers; they all came to pay their subservient respects. It was an assembly of people who both know and did not know the owner of this mahogany casket. For what reasons did they come?—there were many. Some came to pay their last regards, some came because they believed it the right thing to do, and some came without their own volitions in hand.

The massive organism of people was drenched in élan ebony, packed together in two crowds of five rows, each on the opposing side of the coffin. White tulips and lilies were showered all around like a colossal burial for flowers. The guests sat still, wordless, their voices lost to the wind that shuddered between all the leaves of the green Maple trees. The little sepulcher known as Lancaster Memorial Cemetery was a place of deadly Eden—there were trees made of lush, emerald stones all around this elegant little mausoleum of white bones, with tombstones of fantastically carved gray marble lined up all in rolls as if the dead were waiting for some inspection, and all the grass was as green as the heart of a virginal maiden. Everything held such a deadly beauty.

But all the company of this farcical funeral was oblivious to the observant gaze of a many spirits. These damned and forgotten souls of those who loved and were loved one spring afternoon were all mere translucent specters—now—gazing at this proceeding with a mildly-dead interest. They were regular patrons at this necropolis.

And they watched, these curious apparitions, gazing innocuously at this collection of living people—at their crying, at their weeping, at their mourning. But they knew, after seeing this film a thousand times, all these people, these strangers of strangers, would go home and think not of this owner of the coffin ever again, till perhaps, one obscure day, when their thoughts drift to the remembrance of that person whom they watched buried under six layers of dirty-cake. But then, that thought is quite brief and never lingering.

Funerals were always such amnesiac spells.

The pastor made his presence known. He mumbles and humbles a few words, and begins this bitter parting ceremony—he says all the appropriate things for this master of the coffin, but he, too, is a stranger to this body that would soon be living with worms.

It was such a tragedy, that was what they said. Such a tragedy, a child died so young, that was what the pastor said. Died too young, too tragic, and yet they can only make such presumptions because no living mortal, even with a death note, can understand the perspectives of this bride of suicide.

On some strange day a week and a day previous, this owner of the coffin, a girl who had barely seen two decades of her life, drowned herself in a well of white, crystalline gems. And she fell asleep, this Briar Rose, but was never woken by any Prince Charming. The news sent tides of shock through all those who thought they knew her—but, even with a parting letter, they still couldn’t comprehend why she took her own life.

This girl had been a jester with garments of resplendently decorated multi-coloured hues and a thousand masks on her wall, one for everyday of her dreary existence. She had a happy one, painted with whimsical colours of bright gold and orange and red, with feathered boas and sparkling sequences; and she had a sad one, covered with a pallet of blue and green hues, tied with an ebony ribbon and glitters of black silver. She had one mask for everyday that she saw the Sun, and for everyday for everyone to see. So long she had worn these marvelously bejeweled masquerades that she soon found herself melded into those comical facades; they became a layer of plastic skin over her visage, glued there by some peculiar permanency.

And then, one miraculous day, much like any other mundane day, she woke to find all her masks smashed and broken into fragments—and she could not help but feel utterly delirious, utterly alive and new. That day, she did all she had to do, completed all her tasks, said her cheerful goodbyes, went home and became a ghost. She left a letter of unapology to all those she had left behind—and she spoke words of such joy and insanity that it was impossible for those who read her last words to comprehend.

She had come to a queer understand something, this girl, something that would morph her whole entirety till she was walking in a field of fair Apple trees and luscious Plum trees. And so she died—in a strange, happy way that no one can appreciate and sympathize.

The ceremony concluded.

The mother and the father of the owner of the coffin thanked the guests of the funeral for their visit, as a nanny watched over the couple’s remaining child. The little boy, a child no older than five or six rotations, gazed in austere curiousity at this farcical tragedy, with a group of faceless adults as the players. The nanny was abruptly diverted by a few guests, and the boy suddenly found himself alone. Mechanically, he reached up and grasped the ethereally translucent hand of the ghost girl standing by his side, the girl only his childish eyes could see. He clutched the hand securely in his small first.

“Why’s Mommy crying?” he asks, whisperingly.

“Because I’m gone,” the ghost girl replied.

“Is Mommy sad?”

“I dunno. Maybe. I dunno.”

“Is Daddy sad, too?”

“Dunno.”

The little boy and the ghost girl continue to hold hands as they watched the people depart from the little mausoleum, each of them taking an automobile to another locale for yet another false remembrance, tainted with a false pity, for a girl they did not know, a girl they did not care for, and a girl that they will ultimately never remember. The ghost laughs a little, mockingly, as she tightens her hand around the boy.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” says the ghost. “Something you will learn when you get older. You can see me now, right?”

The boy nods.

“But one day, you will be like those people—” she points to the crowd of clowns, “—one day, you will be one of them. One day, you will forget me, and who I was. One day, you won’t be you, anymore. But don’t be afraid; be brave, Sam, I believe in you.” The ghost smiles at the little boy kindly. “When you are one of them, on that brightly lit stage, don’t be afraid. Speak with your voice, let it echo, and let it ripple.”

“Were you afraid?”

The ghost thinks a little. “Maybe I was. I don’t remember anymore. I just wanted to see, Sam, I wanted to see what it was all about—cheat, if you will, to get all the answers. I don’t belong in this world, Sam. I was always a ghost amongst people with flesh and blood. I was always opaque and translucent.” The ghost stares at her audience. “I didn’t want to be part of that circus. It was…too painful, I think now. But, it doesn’t have to be that way for you, Sam.”

The ghost girl squeezes the tiny hand of the little boy and smiles at him lovingly.

“Remember this, Sam, life is naught without borderline; you and I are a pendulum, and it’s okay to sway back and forth. It’s okay to be a jester, and to laugh and cry; it’s okay to be part of the circus. I know you don’t understand, and you probably never will, and that’s okay too. It’s going to be okay.”

The mother and the father finish greeting the guests, and the ghost girl feels the completion of her last hour.

“I have to go.”

“No…”

“Sorry. It’s going to be okay, Sam. It’s going to be okay.”

“I love you…I’ll miss you.”

“I love you, too, Sam.”

She smiles nostalgically as she plants a soft, ghostly kiss on the boy’s forehead. With a final, parting farewell wave, she disappears.

“Sweetie…are you all right?”

“Yes, son—who were you just waving at?”

“I was waving at Rachel. I was saying good-bye.”