The Man and the Ghost

Author's Note: This story is a rewritten version of the Tibetan folktale, "The Man and the Ghost," and, as all folktales, is prone to different tellings and versions of the story. This was written based off of the version that can be found on ww/asia/tft/tft15.htm and if you know a different version of the story and this one doesn't match that, that is probably why. The setting is ancient Tibet, and as such, certain terms must be clarified in case you don't know their definitions:

Lama: an honorific title applied to a spiritual leader in Tibetan Buddhism, whether a reincarnate lama (such as the Dalai Lama) or one who has earned the title in life, or a Tibetan or Mongolian Buddhist monk.

Fenugreek: a white-flowered herbaceous plant of the pea family, with aromatic seeds that are used for flavoring, especially ground and used in curry powder.

That's about it! Happy reading!

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Tshering calmly walked through the narrow mountain pass, hopping over jagged rocks that threatened to cut his worn sandals and bypassing shaky portions of the cliff near the edge that was a whisper away from crashing into the bottom of the large chasm to his side. He kept one hand on the wall of the mountain beside him, and let his feet carry him down the road he had been down so many times before.

The air then started to slowly turn cold, prickling Tshering's skin and making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The pass, normally so clear and simple, blew a slow fog into the path, and Tshering gripped the mountain wall beside him with white fists, making his feet step slower as the white soup grew thicker and thicker. An eery feeling wormed its way into the man's gut, but Tshering pressed onward, ignoring the feeling of eyes drilling into the back of his head and the fog gripping his ankles as he walked further down the narrow mountain pass.

A human-like shape could be seen in the distance, fog covering the wisp of a shape as it drifted over Tshering's field of vision. The figure then seemed to walk down the path, just like him, and Tshering's mouth grew dry as the eery feeling screamed inside him and the prickling feeling of an unnatural presence dug its way further its way into his skin. For a few deafening heartbeats, the figure walked towards him, covered by the fog, and then it was right in front of his eyes, moving to the right and preparing to pass him by. The thing was almost behind him when it whipped its head around and stared at Tshering, two dark holes in the fog where its eyes should be scanning Tshering, who was frozen in fear. It almost seemed to cock its head, before stopping and simply staring at the traveler.

The two stared at each other for a long while, fog soaking Tshering's tattered clothes and feet growing sore from standing in place as the sun slowly fell, one inch at a time. After a long, long while, Tshering tried moving, shifting his foot to the right and keeping its gaze with the creature, and upon finding no reaction, shifted his other foot as well. Soon enough the man had taken a step, and with still no reaction, he took another. The man was then walking back down the path, slowly, but surely, putting distance between him and the strange being, and breaking their shared gaze, though the creature had no reaction to anything the traveler did. Tshering rushed down the path, involuntarily taking a deep breath and releasing the one he had held while looking at the figure in the fog.

Now with the thing far behind him, he calmly looked beside him to see how close he was to the chasm when his eyes met the creatures dark pits once again. Tshering squeaked and stepped back, and the figure continued to watch him. Its form was a bit clearer now, and if one squinted they could see the shape of a face in the human-like piece of fog that followed him, along with a long braid and makeshift armor. The more Tshering hurried along the pass, the more it seemed to grow more human-like, until it looked like a human was walking beside him. As the pass grew even more narrow, Tshering's mind screamed in fear, but he said nothing as he contemplated the situation. Clearly, this thing was a ghost of some sort, he reasoned, trying to keep his mind off the pair of holes that tracked his every move. If it is a ghost, I should not try to anger it or show it how afraid I am, or else it might kill me, he concluded.