Living a Nightmare

MARKUS KRAUSE

The room is quite bare. There is only one single painting in the entire room and it is a painting of a sunset. Otherwise, there is a bed on the one side of the room and a little table with a chair on the other. Oh yeah, and there is still a television hanging on the wall opposite the bed. In general, the room feels quite cold and deserted.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Markus is sitting in the chair, reading a newspaper. He looks up as we enter.

"Hello, are you Markus Christopher Krause?" Cedric asks carefully, unsure if he is being too quiet and Markus has not heared his question.

"Yes, that would be me," he replies, lowering his newspaper and eying us closely. "And who exactly is asking?"

"Sorry, how rude. This is Riley, a friend, Jay here is my brother and I am Cedric."

"I haven't heard anyone speak English for roughly eight years now. Never really realised how much I miss it... What can I do for you? You must have come a long way."

"Yeah, actually we have come all the way from Aberystwyth, sir," Jay explains.

"From Aberystwyth you say? To what do I owe the pleasure?" he looks shocked to hear that we have come all the way from Aberystwyth to Düsseldorf, just to see him.

"We are here because of your old house back in Aberystwyth, where you and Jane, that was your wife's name, was it not, lived in together," I start to explain, then wait for him to understand exactly what is going on.

"Yes, our old house. I remember...," his gaze falls out of the window, "...Jane loved that house, she did. Loved everything about it. My poor beautiful love, why did she have to disappear..."

He keeps gazing out of the window and falls silent, his face filled with pain, as if remembering his wife's disappearance. I feel really sorry for him but do not know how to cheer him up.

"I am sorry about that...," he breaks the silence, "I tend to do that a lot, get lost in my thoughts and memories. Anyway, is there a problem with the house?"

"Well, not exactly with the house, sir. There is more a problem with something inside the house...," Cedric begins, but then struggles to find the words to finish his sentence.

"... go on boy. What is inside the house that is such a big problem that you have come all the way from Aberystwyth to Düsseldorf, just to tell me," Markus gets a little impatient now, probably because he is really confused about what is going on.

"Well, your wife is somehow haunting the house, as a ghost I mean," Cedric tries to tell it Markus as carefully as possible, afraid of how he will react.

But instead of getting a typical reaction from him, like shouting or telling them that they are being crazy, Markus just sits in his chair and gazes out of the window once again, not saying a word.

'Oh my god, is he in shock or has he stopped breathing?' I start to panic a little, which Jay notices and puts a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

"Sir?" he says carefully, hoping that Markus will answer.

And thankfully he does answer. "My wife, you say... a ghost, you say... haunting my old house, you say... are you sure it is my wife's ghost haunting the house?" he looks at us, waiting for an answer.

"Is this your wife in the photo here?" Cedric takes the photo of Jane out of his inner jacket pocket and hands it to Markus.

"Yes, that is my Jane," Markus smiles a little, when he sees the picture of his wife.

"Then yes, it is the ghost of your wife, I am afraid," Cedric replies.

"We were hoping that you could come back to Aberystwyth with us. Maybe your wife's ghost will listen to you," Jay explains.

'Yes, yes, maybe she will... I guess it is worth a try. And anyway, I would be able to see her again... even if she is a ghost,' Markus thinks and then turns to us still standing in the room.

"Okay, I will come back to Aberystwyth with you and I will try to talk to my wife."

'Wow, I really didn't think he'd actually believe us,' my thoughts are interrupted by Jay, who must have had exactly the same impression.

"You believe us?" he looks at Markus in bewilderment.

"Yes, I do. I have been a detective for many years and I have solved the strangest cases, believe me," he explains, "so if you say that my wife is a ghost, who has come back to haunt our old home, then I believe you."