Givvup, the Ghost: A Bine-Hairy Situation

Good news, people of the ether!  I've met someone!

I know, I know...It's unlikely, to say the least! After all, I spend all my time in a burnt out house on the edge of town. And I'm a ghost, so how would I ever meet someone?

Gosh. I'm a ghost. No one can see me. Talk about being doused by a bucket of ice water. Wow.

It's true, though, so I suppose saying, "I met someone" is a little bit of a stretch. But I did!

Here's what happened:

I was just hanging around, minding my own business, when I heard someone. Let me repeat that:

I HEARD SOMEONE.

A human being! Do you know how long it's been since I have heard - or seen - another human? Ages! After being all by myself for so long it actually scared me! I jumped so high I went through the ceiling and found myself looking at the carpet in the second floor hallway. I hate that thing - it's charred and brown and rats have claimed parts of it for their nests. It probably smells. In fact, I know it smells, because HE said so.

Oh, can I tell you about HIM? He's a genius, I'm sure of it. He's tall - maybe six feet? - with brown hair that won't lie flat, no matter how many times he tries to smooth it (which really isn't all that much) and glasses.

So dreamy.

Anyway *ahem* - where was I? Oh yes, I was sitting in the room, wondering if the air vents would be a good way to travel, when I heard footsteps and a deep voice muttering. I told you already that it startled me straight through the roof.

Who on earth could be in my house?

I slowly slunk down the side of the room and to the hole in the wall - you know, the one people walk through? - and I saw him.  He was in my food room - not that I ever use it - and was digging through the drawers, talking to himself.

"I know I left it here," he said. "I know it's in one of these drawers."

I moved closer. Well?  Wouldn't you want to know why someone had put something in your kitchen? He stopped what he was doing and slowly turned. He looked right at me! Or rather, right at the place I stood. He took a step toward me.

"Hello?" he asked (could he really see me?). "Is anyone there?" His eyes looked through me, toward the door behind me, and then shifted away. He must have been satisfied that no one was in the house because he went back to searching the kitchen - albeit a little more quietly, and more than once throwing glances over his shoulder.

I was crushed.

How would you feel if you thought for a moment that someone would see you, but then realized that wasn't going to happen?

Yeah, exactly. Pretty crummy.

I didn't have long to feel sad because the guy yelled, "Gotcha!" and put his hand up in the air - VICTORY! His other hand held a small, green square covered in silver dots and with a couple wires attached to it. He put the little, green board in a backpack, slug that over his shoulder, slammed the drawer shut and turned to go.

What else could I do but follow him?

It was easy, obviously. Even with his hood pulled up over his head and the sudden cuts he made that resulted in him taking an odd, zig-zagging path through the city, following him to the brick apartment building was no challenge.

He opened a poorly painted beige door halfway down the hallway on the third floor. He shook the hood off his head and pulled off his backpack. After retrieving the little circuit board he tossed the pack into a corner of the small, one-bedroom apartment.

"Okay, my little beauty," he said, and I was suddenly jealous of that small square. "Let's see if you'll work."

He pulled a plastic chair to the messy desk that sat against one wall and opened the black case that had been resting there. I inched closer to see what was inside.

It was a computer - I was pretty sure of that. It was certainly crudely built - pieced together like a computer version of Frankenstein's monster - but it had a screen and a keyboard.

The guy, himself, suddenly looked a little like a mad scientist. He sat hunched over the desk, holding the small circuit board and looked at it with a mix of relief and excitement. He carefully turned the computer over so it made an awkward triangle with the desk's surface, exposing wires and some more of that green stuff he was so reverent of. In the middle was an empty space, square-shaped and about the size of the piece he held so carefully.  He picked up a small screwdriver and a pair of tweezers and, with hands as steady as a surgeon's, inserted the newest piece of the computer. After attaching the wires he gently turned the whole thing over so that it sat upright, at attention, ready for business.

"He we go" the guy said, and he pressed the primitively attached power button. The machine turned on with a quiet whir, and the guy smiled to himself. "Brian Nazaret," he said to the empty room. "You are one seriously cool dude." He sneezed then, which upset his glasses, and he sniffed as he used his forefinger to push them back up to the bridge of his nose. He scrubbed a hand under his nose and shook his head in disgust. "Darn dust."

The computer, in the meantime, had settles on a black screen, and a white cursor was blinking, waiting to be told what to do.

"Alright," Brian Nazaret (that cool dude) said. "Let's do this." He set his fingers on the keyboard and as he typed the most bizarre thing happened.

I WAS PULLED INTO THE COMPUTER.

You wouldn't believe what a power suck computers are. Seriously.

Also, I want you to imagine that you're stuck behind a pane of glass - you know, like those things you look out of? - but that you're right up against it. And the giant on the other side (because I had somehow shrunk to fit inside the screen), that giant can't see you.

I pounded on the glass. I yelled.

Nothing.

So frustrating, let me tell you.

With all that I figured I would settle in. What else was I going to do? I looked at him (so cute with his eyebrows drawn together in concentration) as he started typing. I heard the tapping of the keys, and in the next instant I felt myself being drawn back, away from the screen. Symbols appeared, letters and numbers falling in columns beside me with loud crashes and bangs. I pivoted sharply to avoid being crushed and sprinted to the side. I ran full speed toward the screen, hoping I could break out of the computer.

I fell to the ground with a crash that rattled my brain.

Then Brian spoke, muttering, I'm sure, but in a voice too loud for my small size. I slapped my hands over my ears with a yelp. "Alright, boo. Let's build a little something. Maybe a game, just to see if you're working."

The column of letters and digits lined up and stacked with more intention. I ran toward the screen again and whirled around, trying to read what he was typing:

while feeling_brave:

    ghost_door= radiant(1, 3)

    print ('Three doors ahead...')

What on earth was he doing?

I had no time to consider because the letters shifted and sorted and fell into a new formation: zeros and ones now surrounded me.

"What is going on?" I asked. My voice echoed in the silence. "What is happening?"

And then I shrieked, because out of the rows and columns rose a door. It was made up of tiny squares, like something out of the old video games my brother used to play, but it was clearly —
Just a minute.  

Wait.

I need a minute.

I had a brother? Was he at my funeral? Why wasn't he with the crying lady?

Why can't I remember him?

Sorry. Where was I? Oh, right, the pixelated door that rose out of the floor. It opened and I ran through it, slamming it shut behind me.

Brian of the loud voice yelled and then jumped back from the chair. I squinted up at him through my side of the screen. His head shook and his mouth hung open. Fear, and possibly excitement, showed on his face.

"That's not what I typed,” he said in that magnified murmur. I wished he would have quieted even that to a whisper. "I typed, 'print ('A ghost is behind one.')' Ghost. Not....

Annie."

He pulled his chair close to the desk again and bent over the computer once more. "Annie?" he bellowed. (Well, it sounded like a bellow to my ears, at least.)  "Why would you replace 'ghost' with 'Annie'?"

My world turned upside down as he flipped the machine over. "No!" I yelled, suddenly terrified that he would pull that green board out, the green board that had allowed the computer to start. "No!" I yelled again. My terror grew as Brian disappeared completely from my sight. "Not okay!" I screamed.

I felt myself grow - I willed myself to grow - and the strangest sensation filled my body. I grew warm - hot - and my fingertips zapped with electricity. I felt the computer tumble; Brian must have dropped it. With a final burst of energy I exploded from the computer, leaving it smoldering on the desktop.

I didn't even spare a glance for Brian as I fled from the room. Home, that's all I was thinking about.

And I made it. I'm not going to lie: I was a little nervous to start up the GhostWriter tonight. What would have happened if he had cut the power while I was still inside? I don't even want to think about it.

There's a lot I don't want to think about.

And on that cheerful note, I'm signing off. I'll catch you on the flipside....when you get here. Wink emoticon.

Ugh. I'm going to have to work on that.  

Till next time, then.

Heeeeeere's Annie!

Okay.  Let's see here.  How to get this thing to work....

Is it on?  It sounds like it's on, but the screen is black.  Maybe the monitor is off?

Turn on.

Turn on, monitor.

What - How - How does it turn on?  Hmmm...let's see...What if I try this?

Oh!  It worked.  Cool.  Alright.  It's on.  So now to delete all that.  So...delete.

Delete.

No, delete.  DELETE.

Delete.  Delete all.

Ugh.

Now that's not even a real word, so why would it type that?

Hmm...Maybe if I think more clearly?

D E L E T E   A L L.

Oh, for crying out loud!

I'll just go from here, I guess.  Sheesh.

Alright, people of the ether - prepare yourself for this:

My name is Annie Givvup and I am dead.

Oh gosh, that's a bit abrupt, isn't it?  Well, there's no going back now, I guess.  Okay, moving on: I don't remember what happened, at least, not all of it.  But I can tell you what I DO remember.

I was walking home from school - work?  No, school...I think?  I was walking home from somewhere when everything went dark.  Not dark like I got knocked unconscious or anything.  No, one second there was sunlight and trees and those things that fly and then the next second there was nothing, like I somehow walked into a pitch-black tunnel.  It didn't matter how wide I opened my eyes; I couldn't see anything.  There was nothing to see!

And I was stuck there.  FOREVER.

Well, it felt like forever.  I don't actually know how long I was in there.  Regardless, not only was it dark, but there was a loud humming noise.  This was not a pleasant humming, though.  No, there something really strange about its frequency.  It gave me a stomachache, and THE WORST headache.

Do you know what that's like?  Being stuck in the pitch black with aching ears, nausea, a migraine, and the worst possible noise you could imagine??

Well, let me tell you.  IT'S HORRIBLE.

It makes me cranky just thinking about -
Whoa.  I need to calm down, maybe take a deep breath.

Oh, that's right.  I don't need to take a breath because I'm DEAD.  Remember that part?

I do.

Anyway, back to my story.  There I was, in the land of the humming nothing, feeling pretty darn terrified and in pain when it all suddenly stopped.  There was sunlight again, and birds, and those tall, wood things with the leaves on them.  Trees - that's it.  And trees.

All that was there - and so much more.  Cars and people and loud noises.  And, strangest of all, I kept hearing my name.  It was faint, but someone definitely said it over and over.

So I followed.  I kept at it until I stood before an odd looking building.  It was almost as though someone had taken a tall but narrow triangle and just stuck it in the ground.  The roof was bleached from the sun, and the building - protected by the extreme overhang- starkly contrasted the roof in its too-dark brown paint.

It was certainly not a welcoming building, but I walked through the open doors anyway.

It was a church, I think.  Wooden pews lined either side of an uncomfortably narrow aisle, and there was a pulpit or stage of some sort at the front of the room.  Nothing in the building signified a particular religion, though.  There were no crosses, no symbols of any sort.  It was depressing and stark.  Barren.

On the stage was a shiny black coffin.  Mine, of course, although I didn't know it at the time.  Next to the coffin stood a woman.  She was attempting to say something, but it wasn't clear because she was crying too hard.  I stared at her, willing her to stop crying for one second so she could speak the word that was stuck in her throat.  She drew a deep breath and then she did.  She said one word:

"Annie."

My name.  I turned sharply and looked at the photos displayed next to the coffin.  All of them featured the same girl with curly blonde hair and brown eyes that squinted when she smiled.  Me.  

Let me take a moment here to ask you a question.  Have you ever attended your own funeral?  Do you know how bizarre that is?  Take my word for it - "bizarre" doesn't even begin to cover it.  Let me put it this way: if I was still breathing I would have hyperventilated.  No doubt.

But I wasn't breathing.  And no one noticed me.  That should have clued me in, but I don't think my brain was working too well because I had somehow missed the fact that when I walked down the aisle at a funeral (in a T-shirt and jeans, no less) NO ONE noticed.

Well, my brain caught up and did so suddenly.  I got so overwhelmed and freaked out that I turned to go, but people started moving.  They must have been coming down the center aisle for their final goodbyes or something, because they were moving toward the casket.

Okay, I know they could have gone through me, that no one would have accidentally crashed into me, but old habits die hard.  (HA - dead person joke)

I turned and ran toward the coffin.  There was nowhere to go - I swear, there was nowhere to go!  They were a stampede in slow motion.  I turned to face them, took a step back and realized I was standing IN THE COFFIN.

There was no time to move, because the crying lady who now led the stampede - was she my mom? - reached out a hand to touch the coffin.  I didn't want her to touch me, although I can't say why.  Cut me some slack, okay?  Anyway, I didn't want her to touch me and so I ducked into the coffin.

I wasn't thinking!!  I didn't even consider what I might find in there, or how it might affect me!  But I don't think anything could have prepared me for what I saw.

The coffin was empty.  EMPTY!!

I wasn't there!

Well, needless to say I freaked out and screamed.  I don't think anyone heard the scream, although a few light bulbs burst so then they freaked out and their stampede went from slow motion to full speed in the opposite direction.

Only the crying lady was left.

I felt a little guilty leaving her, but what else could I do?

I wandered around for a bit until I came to an abandoned house on the edge of town.  I'm not sure what happened here, but it looks like it was ransacked and burned out and like no one has been near it in ages.  I've been bumming around on my own, quite possibly going mad, but I made an amazing discovery:

I found this GhostWriter word processing program!  You know, the programs you speak into and they type for you?  This particular edition is the Catalog of Registered Personal Spoken Expression and so far, so good.

Maybe pretending someone will read this will keep me sane.

A girl can hope.

Alright then, world.  I'm out.

Okay, post.  Post?  Sheesh, how do I post it?  Oh!  Maybe this will work...Okay then, till next time, I guess.  Catch you on the other side.