GHOSTS, YEAH I KNOW ABOUT GHOSTS...

The year was 1895 - I was wandering the streets of London after seeing Charles Darwin in lecture. Suddenly I was set upon by three thugs, they smelled of death and their visage was that of any spectre more than any man. Being a meeker man then I ran for my life, but it would be that very thing that I would lose that night. Eventually they cornered and surrounded me. '"Take my money!" I screamed "Take IT!". There was no verbal answer from the foreboading goons - only a deep resounding voice echoing in my head reapeating the same phrase over and over; "Death is only the beginning..."

The next thing I remember I woke up in that same alley they tracked me into, everything seemed the same but my 'life' was changed forever - I just hadn't realized it yet. I stumbled out onto the street screaming for assistance. "Help! I've been robbed, help!" but all around me seemed to ignore me as if I didn't exist to them. Baffled and exusted I sat on the ground, and thats when I heard the scream. A womans scream from the alley in which I was attacked. "Oh no!" I thought, "One of the villains has remained and set upon a young lady!" I raced toward her voice but found her alone, her cries were directed at something on the ground, something cold and... dead. I walked forward to discover what lay there, and what I saw next shall be burned on my memory forever - it's vision unwavering and its affect unrelenting, it was my body, lying in a twisted heap in the alabaster gutter.

Well, to cut a long story short I couldn't stay in London anymore, surrounded by all the things I once loved and took for granted, things that couldn't see me or feel my presence, so I boarded the next ship bound for Austalia. Maybe the new southern land had some promise for a... a 'ghost'. And I've been here ever since. Its not all bad, I have met others like me here, spectres of life past, but we generally tend not to keep company, preferring to be alone in our eternal solitude. We merely look for things to bring a little light into our otherwise... dead world. Next time you see a ghostly man hovering over your bed he is probably just there because you remind him of a lost love or daughter - someone who has lived and died but not remained on Earth but ascended to heaven. We all wait for our time but it may never come, until then we just continue to wander around, looking for some reminder of something we once held dear, something to flash a little warmth into our eternity.

Death, unfortunately, was no end for us, it was only the beginning...