Goya

Ghost

She ran along the corridor darting inbetween people dodging bags and backpacks, until she reached me, gasping for breath and plucking at my sleeve like it was her violin, as if she was attempting to find a tune, have a response, "Come on Johana, lets go into the room of doom for tutor time then shall we?" She was laughing having come up with the notion of drab, old room 14 being 'of doom' minutes before, I guessed.

"Jo-hana," she said lengthening the words emphasising them more and more, "I saw a ghost on Friday." She articulated it so 'matter-of-factly' that I supposed she was joking around.

"Okay,"

"Well, I was in Awnford picking my brothers up from their youth club place they go to, and my dad went in to the building to get them whilst I stayed in the car. It was, like really dark 'cos it is November and this was at 8pm, so, like I couldn't really see except for the ghostly pools of light from the flickering streetlights that adorned the pavements." She was actually really freaking me out and my heartbeat quickened, urging for the dreaded bell to signal for science, to get me out of the 'room of doom'. "I was waiting, bored, and began to think about all the good times we'd had together all of us lot, and then I remembered the sad times, the break-ups, the anxiety..."

"Stop! Alis, please stop... I don't want to be reminded of those times, they were difficult, even for me and I wasn't involved in the drama." She'd reminded me of those times of peril where it seemed like Unicornlandia was the only place were dreams could come true and there were no fights, and my heart throbbed inside my ribcage, there was a deadly pause... 

"Okay, I'll skip my little thought track which went along those lines and continue,"

"Alright, Alis, but don't make me scared again,"

"Well it is a ghost story," she laughed it off, "I looked out of the windscreen, out onto the pavement, stared, for a while, and a figure, clearly in a hoodie, potentially with headphones, was there, for a split second..."

The bell went, right then and right there.

We where shoved out of room 14 by hoards upon hoards of rough students, and as we were separated I could just make out her stammers, "He was so sad and reminded me how sad I had been, he could of just been a car's exhaust fumes but I swear he was real, Johana... You must think I'm mad, Johana..."

She was gone.