Ghost and the Writer

Half

He had slept a full eighteen hours and no longer looked that sleep deprived, he took a shower, had a coffee, ordered a take-out and then the ghost tackled him.

Yet rather than her passing through him, she had actually made him fall to her own shock.

"Oh dear, I'm so sorry!!" She flailed her hands. "I didn't think I..."

He sighed. "Did you think my writing talent was something a human should be capable of?"

"...Yeah?" She asked, confused.

"Fine, just get off, I don't enjoy laying on the floor." He looked irritated.

"Oh, that was a joke!" Gears clicked in her head as she got up.

He groaned. "Don't rub it in." But he could now get up as well. He rubbed his hip, but let it be a few moments later.

"Okay, so, my name is Mandy! What's yours?" The girl started the introductions. He had said he would talk with her and she had also waited for him to get a shower, coffee and... she thought he would need breakfast and calling the take-out answered that. She wasn't so insensitive that she would keep someone from taking basic care of themselves.

Yet rather than replying to that, he said. "Five questions. I will answer only five, so ask carefully."

"Uh--" The girl squinted her eyes like she had been cheated.

"I have another deadline coming up soon." He explained. "After eating I'll get to work."

She reluctantly nodded. "What's your name?" She didn't feel like it was right to call him by the name on the book without asking.

"August," he confirmed that the name on the book had been indeed his real one.

Well, it was a wasted question then, but Mandy hadn't wished to guess with something as important as a name. "August, why did you ignore me for three days?"

"I had no time to waste on conversations," he replied.

Her eyes squinted dangerously and her hands raised up ominously, so August felt like he had to keep speaking.

"Most humans don't see ghosts and I look human enough, so unless you were too fresh as a ghost you wouldn't have known I could see you, so no damage done?"

Mandy sighed. He had a point. "What are you then?"

"My Dad is a human my Mom was a ghost," August replied.

Mandy thought a bit, confusion written over her features. "How is that possible?"

August squinted. "A male and a female--"

"I mean - how? Humans can't touch or see us normally, except..."

August put up fingers and listed: "All hallows, solstices, anytime when someone holds walpurgis," he lowered his fingers, "and there are certain places in the world where that isn't a problem called dead zones."

"Oh," Mandy nodded. "So they met at an event?"

"No."

"How did they meet then?" Mandy leaned closer.

"Aren't you out of questions already?" August peered at her.

"Don't be that stingy, it counts as a reply to the previous one. 'Yes/No' isn't a proper answer." Mandy narrowed her eyes at August.

"Fine," he sighed. His breakfast hadn't arrived yet, so he told her the story as pieced together from bits and pieces told by his parents.

"It happened twenty-eight years ago..."

~~~

Inside a luxurious looking mansion, the second floor, behind high rococo style doors at the very end of a long hall was a pastel-colored bedroom. Furnished with white, elegant furniture, landscape paintings by the walls. Inside the room were two figures - an old man in the bed and a younger one standing beside it.

"I'll have you stay here for the night," the old man said, he was wrinkled and seemed to be close to seventy.

The young man nodded, no surprise on his features. If his eyes weren't moss green and his stance wasn't so firm, giving a sense of good health and strength, you might have mixed him up with the sleep-deprived writer of the present. He wore a classic casual outfit reminding of someone well off, the only slightly odd detail was him wearing silk-like black gloves.

"I'll turn off the lights then," the younger man said, this time it was the turn of the old man to nod.

The younger man went to a wall nearby and pressed a switch. With a faint click the lights went off and the man returned to the bedside of the old man, leaning by a wall.