The first time he tries to touch me it doesn't work.
His hand just goes right through me as if there's nothing there.
But there is something there.
At least....I think there is.....I think I'm real.
I think I exist......still.....even after all this time.
He makes me question things.
He makes me question myself.
At that point, our first meeting, I'm still not sure whether I actually like it or not.
His fingers are lost somewhere in the hazy outline that used to be my body.
At first I don't feel anything at all. I just notice it. Almost as if my body isn't my own at all.
As if it's just a dream.
Something I've made up to make the endless passing of time a little bit more bearable.
Over and over and over and over again.
Maybe it's something we've both made up.
Him and me.
At that moment I still know very little about him but I can tell he is lonely.
Maybe just as lonely as I am.
Maybe that's why I choose to stay.
Maybe it isn't.
Maybe it's the sudden sensation that shoots through me.
At first it is an ache somewhere in the background.
Something that can still be ignored.
But then it grows more persistent.
I shiver.
There is a cold that grabs a hold of me that reminds me of drowning in ice-cold water.
It reminds me of not knowing which way is up or down.
Of salt burning in my lungs.
Somehow it reminds me of life.
And then I realize it's his fingers.....his hand....as he looks at it with a stunned expression on his face, his eyes fixed on where he disappears into the hazy mist that used to be my body.
I haven't been able to feel anything in ages.
I can't help but wonder whether he feels it too.
Even so, even if the sensation is unpleasant, I find I actually like it.
It's different.
Things have been the same for me for so very, very long.
He is different.
In some way.
He makes me wonder whether there might still be a future for me after an endless monotony of just 'nows' and a past I can't remember.
Maybe things can change.
Maybe I can change.
Maybe he....
But before I can think on it for much longer he pulls his hand back.
YOU ARE READING
Light
General FictionA lonely lighthouse on the coast of England in 1986. A man desperate enough to try and end his life meets the resident lighthouse ghost. An unlikely bond forms but can something like that really last when one of the two is already dead?
