The Boarding House by Toni Castillo Girona (best books for 20 year olds txt) 📕

a ghost could interact with the real world, then it was for granted that that very same ghost would be able to pass messages to others of the same condition, namely dead. He could remember her forehead's coldness when he touched it that last time, and how she couldn't see him though he was almost upon her and despite her illness she smelled of fresh roses. His first night in the boarding house he sensed something, something lurking in his room, willing to show up but eventually vanishing; could that be her

? He closed his eyes and summoned her face; who cared when that ghost decided to appear? Who the hell cared why he decided to stay in that room instead of lodging elsewhere? Who cared about anything else than a possibility

? A connection

, he thought. That was it. The reason

that brought him here, to Holland, to that boarding house; all his life since her death had been converging, though he did not know then, to that momentous instant.
“I think I know what I am going to do as soon as he gets trapped.”, he murmured.
She looked questioningly at him.
“I'm going to ask him something

.”, he concluded.
She nodded, because she understood perfectly. He stared at his porcelain cup, now empty because he had finished the whole thing already, and in doing so he felt depressed. A cup which had been emptied made him feel that way; now he could see its clear bottom; the porcelain which had been so hot not five minutes ago, now was as cold as his wife's forehead. He wondered how many guests had drunk coffee from that same cup he was holding, and thought it obscenely impersonal and cold. Disgusted, he put that cup upon the table, and then shoved it slightly, until he was sure it was far from reach.
“It's about time.”, he said whilst standing up: “Let's hunt that ghost down.”

10

H

e heard the key clicking in the door's latch and moved himself quickly under the bed. He did not want to be right there when that came in. He laid down upon the tiled cold floor, his eyes looking at that blackness of the bed frame, which had become, quite suddenly, his private ceiling; he closed his eyes tight and hoped for the worst to pass; he could hear now the door being shut and someone moving slowly in the flat. He tried to hold his breath.
“Hello?”

That unexpected voice startled him. That thing was not supposed to speak, not to mention to do so using a well-known

voice. He realised that that thing, standing somewhere in the flat - the kitchen probably -, was, in fact, their neighbour; so nothing to be scared of, after all. But still, the mere idea of pushing himself out of that shelter, and meet her seemed preposterous. So he stayed down there, still holding his breath, not even daring to do the slightest move, wishing her to go away. Another hello

would come, of course, because that neighbour was sure he was there; whether that was because she managed to perceive him or she had been told he would be there

, he couldn't tell. He thought she was moving towards his bedroom, so he squeezed beneath the bed and put his right hand over his mouth to silence any sound. His eyes got used to that unnatural darkness, so he could see one slipper with its flat-sole facing up, resting clumsily over a couple of white long-forgotten socks; the other slipper was nowhere to be seen. “Hello?”

, it came again. He guessed she was by his bedroom's doorway, probably bending herself over to catch a better glimpse of the room's interior. A terrible thought shook him all over: maybe the blanket would allow her to see him sheltering under the bed. That was so because in order to get down there he had lifted it slightly and now he was unable to say for sure if he had put it back down. Thus, he opened his eyes, turning his head left vaguely, in order to find out. No; he had not. He could see a perfect gap which that blanket was supposed to cover; so that certainty, that dreadful realization, would finally come: he had been exposed to her

all the time. However, she would say Hello

just one more time, and then she would be headed for the flat's front door, without even trying to peer under the bed. Not much after that, the door would be slammed shut and he would be left alone.
It would be later on, one October rainy evening, when his mother would ask him about that; he could recall that perfectly well: his father was seated on that impressive black-furred armchair, smoking his cigar; she was peeling some potatoes for dinner; the telly was on because he was watching a Japanese cartoon called Captain Herlock; and he was seated on the sofa, holding the remote proudly. Now tell me, darling

, she would start asking, what possible reason would you have to do something like that?

At first he wasn't sure what she meant by that question. He was so concentrated on the way that certain Captain Herlock

was vaporizing some improbable extraterrestrial creature with his laser-pistol, that it would be a question yet to be answered, even when he pushed the power button on the remote in order to turn off the TV. Thus, his mother would ask him again. At some point or another, he would understand; and yet it would be absolutely impossible to answer that question. His father would keep smoking his cigar impassibly, his deep dark eyes narrowed because of all the smoke; he would decide to remain silent because nothing was what he could tell his mother; and she would let the matter go, eventually.
I miss you both

, he thought. That most certainly was: his father smoking those awful cigars, the house always stinking of tobacco, and that dreadful idea that someday, somehow, that old black-furred armchair would be set on fire: his father sometimes fell asleep seated on it holding the cigar lit up among his fingers; his mum would be the one in charge of keeping an eye on him for years on end, until his death. When he passed away, no-one would dare to seat on that armchair; from time to time, they both would look at it sadly, and more than once he would catch a glimpse of his mother crying silently. That empty armchair would symbolize how exposed anyone's life could be from then on. He wondered where it would be now; he thought his mother decided to get rid of it not long after his father's death. He could recall a framed gap on the floor where that old black-furred armchair had once stood; his mother would mop it restlessly until it shone.
It turned out the door was locked; so he had entered the room and had slid himself under the bed without hesitation. His landlady would be outside, mainly in the kitchen, waiting for him to get out. It was uncomfortable down there; he was grown up now, so there was not much room beneath the bed frame. He had to keep his head turned to one side, otherwise he would have touched the back of the bed frame with the tip of his nose. Instead of resting upon the tiled floor as when he was merely a kid hiding himself from his neighbour, now he laid upon a carpeted one, thus after two or three hours of unease waiting, he felt his back completely sweaty. He thought about his parents, the way his mother used to rescue him from his terrible nightmares; how his father kept smoking even when the doctor said to him he had cancer; and that incessant feeling of betraying them, all the time they asked him about his life, if he was with someone else, because in their own private and somehow simplistic world a man without love could not be happy at all. He pushed the bed frame slightly using his two hands, in a foolish attempt to make himself more room down there. This time, the blanket was covering him completely, and thus it was pitch back in there. From time to time he would use his own wristwatch, which was retro-illuminated, to light that small and suffocating space, evoking that single slipper resting all by itself, as if willing to go back to his long-ago childhood. Everybody was long-dead now, so he was more or less the last one standing. He was still young, but he felt old. He realised he had spent a lot of time since his wife passed away thinking about death. Curiously, instead of feeling depressed because of that, he smiled for the first time since then, liberated. Laying there, under that anonymous bed, he felt a bit sick because of the central heating, still on, warming that bedroom up. He wanted to ask her landlady to turn it off, but there was no way he could do that without revealing himself where he was sheltering; he did not want to take any chances, so he stayed down there resignedly. He had a quick look at his wristwatch once again. Sooner or later, that ghost would be back. He was completely sure he could hear the door getting open, and probably some weight upon the bed. Such an odd ghost in need of doing things the old way, he reckoned, was either a fool or a one without any ghostly-stuff previous experience. That was an old yet stupid theory he would discuss with his wife back then, during those old golden days of never-ending happiness. The first time it was her who would bring that matter up as if, in doing so, she would be piling additional arguments up to enforce her scepticism; they were seated on the sofa, listening to the last Dark Sanctuary album, and he was almost sleepy: Do you think someone who has just passed away, as a ghost, would be able to do things like, let's say, go trough a door without opening it before, right from the beginning?

He would consider for a while, but being sleepy it would be impossible to discuss about that properly; therefore they would put the matter at rest for a bit; in the days to come they would go back to those same weird theories. Maybe it was so; that writer had died quite suddenly, and now he was still wandering around the streets of that old medieval city, returning after a huge tourist stroll, exhausted, willing to have a shower and go to bed. And because he hadn't had neither the time nor the opportunity, he was unaware of the ghost ways of getting things done.
At some point, he fell asleep; maybe it was because of that awful central heating. He dreamed of his wife and his parents, and his old suicidal acquaintance would be there, as well. All of them were standing upright, looking and smiling stupidly at him. His mother wore a long black night gown so long he could not see her feet; his father was dressed in a magnificent smoking, a bit loose on his shoulders that he looked a bit uncomfortable; his acquaintance was completely naked, barely covering his thigh with that run out Liverpool calendar, which was still wrapped in that transparent foil, now completely stained with blood, and yet, despite his evident vulnerability, he seemed to be looking at him not the least bit embarrassed. He wanted to ask them why she was not among them, but he suddenly realized he did not know how to do that in dreams, therefore no words would be finally uttered.
Then, it came the squeaking: he awoke almost instantly, for a bit not remembering where he was, disoriented. The thick