Ghost by S. G. Ricketts (best books to read in your 20s .txt) 📕

The wind brushes icy fingertips across my skin. It fights with the obvious beauty of the day. The sun is out, the grass is green, the sky is blue. Somehow, though, I'm still wrapped in a blanket of ice.

If I had arms to get goosebumps on, I would have goosebumps.


They bustle around me, Mom welding the water sprinkler, Dad brandishing his spatula at the dog as she makes away with one of his burgers. Garret bounces the baby on his knee, smiling and laughing as the baby dribbles the potatoes down his little round face. Grandpa sits reclined in the living room; I can just see the top of his bald head, a beacon of shiny light in the sun. From the look Grandma gives him, he's either asleep or watching Nascar again.

The breeze sinks its teeth into me again. Shivers tingle up my spine. I watch them, their lives moving on, their faces growing older. It's barely been a month and I've already been forgotten.

Something tickles my cheek and I feel my arm move. It's barely visible, the shimmer of a heat wave on the background of life. A tiny tear rests on thin air. My hand wavers briefly, and then the tear falls through nothing on its way to earth. No one notices. It's as if I never was.

The cold is sucking at me, pulling, tugging me into an ever-colder darkness. I don't want to leave. Why can't they see me? My sister walks right through me and doesn't feel a thing. Mom looks right at me and sees only my brother. The blackness pulls, beckoning me, and I feel myself give, just a little. The melancholy suppresses me, oppresses me. I can't breath--if I could breathe...

They are happy. I can see it on each and every face. They are happy. My memory isn't holding them back. I guess I should be grateful for that. The edges of my vision are beginning to blur. Is it strange that I can blink invisible eyelids, and not see? My mind must be unraveling. Even it is demanding I give in. My chest feels tight, like I'm going to explode. One month, and it's better. One month. Mom is teasing Dad about his charcoal burgers, and the baby's crawling around. He wasn't crawling when I--

There is no light. They were my light. They tunnel out, getting farther and farther away. The cold is unbearable, numbing, dizzying. Soon I'll be asleep for good. Forever.

If only I wasn't forgotten.

Publication Date: 03-01-2011

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