Nothing is stagnant, even if you leave it behind. The house will get sold, likely renovated. The street might see a new development. The road will see new cars. The train tracks you recklessly rode your bike alongside will disappear underneath moss and weeds. You will watch your sister fill boxes with your worn-out band t-shirts and all the books you never read and all the books you did. Eventually, the room will be made empty for someone new. And so you must stay. Are those the rules? You died here so this is your forever home? The unspoken ghost rule, you suppose. You’re made to watch the change. The only certainty: endless change. Every moment, new.
God no, you think. I can’t stay here. I’m already bored and it’s only been… Only you’ve no idea how long it’s been. Time isn’t something you can quite grasp anymore. Was it ever? You’ve no heartbeat to steady yourself to. No breath to count to ten with. There is no before or after, only now. And so you must stay. Watch silently as she packs the books. That one was a Christmas present, you protest to no one, it’s got a note written on the first page from your ex-girlfriend. But that was then and this is now. In the box it goes. Someone else will read and enjoy it someday, you hope. Though you never even read it yourself.
Most of you don’t resist quite this much. Most settle quietly into a dusty corner, locking into a cold spot to watch the great change. A quiet acceptance that this is what comes next. But you think you’re different, don’t you? That you can challenge how it’s always been. Since the world and time began and things died and spirits walked and watched and stayed no matter what you or I or anyone tried to do differently. Sure, let’s say you’re special, why the hell not? It’s not like you’re the first to think so.
She’s taping the last box in the room now, your sister. You don’t feel much, though this surprises you. It’s just stuff. She can recycle the old school books and revision notes but you still went to school. And she still walked you to the bus stop every morning before your exams, quizzing you on the way with flashcards you had scrawled on with your barely legible handwriting. It’s a miracle she could read them at all. You smile at the memory of her serious frowning face trying so hard to do so.
In the kitchen now. Not sure how you got here, though – you don’t remember phasing through any walls or ceilings. You wonder if travel is more instantaneous rather than a floating spectral thing like you had assumed. Then you realise that you’re not even sure what you look like. You don’t show up in any of the mirrors within the house. Perhaps you’re slightly translucent. Are you wearing the clothes you died in, some generic ‘you’ uniform, or any clothes at all? Do you look like a white-domed legless thing? No one could tell you, I’m afraid. You suppose it’s more likely that you don’t look like anything at all. Nothing to see here. Move along.
The kitchen is gloomy. It’s raining outside and this room always had the least light of any room in the house. Your mother sits alone at the small oval-shaped dining table in the middle of the room. A too-small off-white crochet table cloth only just covers the various stains and marks from your careless colouring as a child. Wow, the table has been in this house even longer than I have, you think. Your mother is thinking the exact same. And so you must stay.
She sits with her hands flat facing down, looking ahead at nothing in particular, but looking particularly sad. You’re unsure how long you’ve been here at this point. ‘Here’ as in ghostly, I suspect you mean. It could be the funeral tomorrow, or it could well have already happened. You wonder if you could go back up to your bedroom, unpack that book from your ex – was her name Vanessa? Is that already gone? – and perhaps finally read it if you’re really stuck here. Is ‘stuck’ the right word? You ask no one. Would you want to be anywhere else? Do you really want to walk away from your mother, alone at the dining table tracing the faint lines of your name that you etched into the wood with the compass from maths class? She shouted at you, yes. But don’t you know now that it’s her favourite part of the house?
Back to the bedroom. No memory of making your way here, but you’ll get used to it. Your sister has left – off to procure more cardboard boxes. You reach for the sealed one by the end of the bed, thinking that ‘poltergeist’ was never a word you’d anticipated ascribing to yourself. The book from Vanessa was Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. You cringe at the irony, letting a half-hearted laugh slip. She loved the movie with Keira Knightley – always wanted you to grow out your hair like Andrew Garfield –and to read the book together. There is no time like the present, and there is no time. Now you’re getting it.
Through the window you spy on the garden below, overgrown and unkempt, a South London tropical jungle. That was dad’s job to manage, then it was yours, now it is no one’s. You roll out the dusty lawnmower from inside the shed, leaving it in front of the back door; a message from the beyond for your sister. Sort it out for mum, please – you untangle the long difficult cord for her in advance – I love you. And so you must stay, because where else would you want to be?