(SMSHC) To kill a Ghost.

Every journey into nothingness must begin with something real, if only to the one on the journey. That’s not a difficult concept for most people but try explaining it to someone who is dead, That even though they are still real the body that once was theirs is no longer, that its time to move on. It can get tricky at times.

These things came to me on an evening when all had been quiet. I had incense burning on my small alter as I meditated silently before it. Three candles lit the scene as I sat and quieted my mind from the day’s events. Then she entered the room.

I did not choose to know the things I know or feel the things I feel. Often I wish that this would pass from me and another more understanding or wise would take it on. I especially couldn’t stand the labels that were tossed at me such as Necromancer, Mystic, shaman, Indigo child and all manner of other invectives. This was not who I am.

Rising from the floor I turned to face the room, my shadow moving across the walls from the reflections of the candles. I could not see her, but I knew she watched me with intensity, I could feel it. Extending my arms out, palms up I whispered across the room, “Take my hands, let us talk.”

I felt a warmness begin in my palms, then work its way slowly up my arms and spread onto my chest. Gently I pushed her away and backed away myself. This is not how it’s supposed to be. Something is wrong.

There is coldness to the spiritual world, a deep hollow coldness that shivers the bones of the living. It can stand the hair up on your neck with just its closeness, you don’t even have to actually feel it against your skin, and your soul will sense it.

“Please.” I asked. “Can you speak?”

She stood directly before me, an ember that burned my soul and made sweat slip from my temple, yet she said nothing. My breathing was picking up and I had to make a conscious effort to slow it. I was not in danger, this much I knew. I just didn’t understand what was happening.

“OK, step away.” I whispered. “If you can’t come to me then I’m going to come to you.”

My mind raced with the clear understanding that I had lost it. No, You don’t enter the unknown unless you know what and why, which makes it the known. That actually makes sense when you’ve gone crazy. Yet I had to find a way to communicate, I had to find out what was wrong here.

Kneeling before my alter I invoked every guardian, archangel and spiritual karma seeker to protect me as I began to slip into a meditative state. This wasn’t just any state I was seeking as I slowed my heart and breathing as far as I safely could. With a slight turn to my left I slipped my mortal body and rose to face the one who had disturbed my home. Others were now around me, I was being protected.

Dark hair that flowed around an olive skin greeted me. She stood maybe 5’4” and weighed nothing as she hovered in the corner. In life she had never graced the cover of a magazine but she was beautiful non the less. I slowly began to move towards her.

“If you try anything.” I said, letting my warning trail off.

“I mean you no harm.” She replied. “It’s been so long since I’ve spoken with anyone.” She had tears on her cheeks. Again I extended my arms and she moved into them. Her warmth flooded thru my soul and I almost back away a second time but didn’t. I decided I’d just have to learn to deal with it.

What I knew so far was that she was dead. People who are alive and leave their bodies always have a strand that will lead them back, as if a tether to their mortal self. She did not have one. Glancing over my shoulder I made damn sure I did. Yet I felt death nowhere in this room. What I was experiencing could not, at least to my understanding, be happening.

Holding her close I had to ask, “What keeps you in this place?”

“It’s not my time to go.” She replied, looking up at me and smiling.

I knew this one wouldn’t be easy. I was going to have to convince her that it was her time. Hell, her time had already passed. Nothing can stop the growth of the eternal soul, but nothing could be gained by staying in the classroom when school had been let out for summer either.

“I want you to just hold me.” She said. “I’ve been alone for so long and need to just be with someone.”

“You’re supposed to be with others.” I told her. “They are waiting for you. If you free yourself to move on, you will find more people wanting to hug you than I’d ever be able to provide. You can free yourself, it’s just a choice.”

“Really?” She asked. Our vibrations had seemed to come together, as if in sync. Her heat was boiling my very soul yet I felt as though I’d rather die than move away. Surely I would be warned if I were in danger, yet no warnings could I detect.

“I give you my word I will move on.” She said, “If first you’ll do one thing for me.”

I was feeling incredible. Warm, safe and at peace with this stranger, I said the only thing I could. “Just name it.”

And she was in me. I was in her. Lost in a tumult of emotion and desire we spiraled thru both time and each other. Where she began and I ended was no longer a part of anything we had known. Pure love wrapped in spiritual entrapment and carnal lust took the one that we were beyond all possible feelings of the human coil, we were everything and everything was us. Beyond the stars we soared and beneath the earth we crawled as light and darkness blended into the gray that inevitably defines truth to the limited mind. How long this lasted I know not, for bliss will always end far too soon, and so we came to rest on the dark carpet of a room I did not know.

“I want to do that again.” I said.

She rolled her head to look at me with a weak but happy smile and said, “men.”

Slowly I rose to a sitting position and noticed my cord was still in place. I couldn’t believe I was still alive after that, but happy to be so.

“I need to show you something.” She said, rising from the floor and moving to the lone bed in the room.

I rose as well, not sure what to expect.

Though her soul stood beside me the remains of her body lay in the bed. A feeding tube was down her throat, a catheter removed her waste and a heart machine beat a terrible rhythm of a life prolonged.

“You’re alive!” I said.

“Not really.” She replied. “ I had an accident when I was 20. My body has been alive for twelve years, lying there. I haven’t been attached to it though. I taught myself to leave it and wonder about, never expecting to meet someone who I could actually talk to.”

That explained why she was warm, why I had trouble at first communicating with her. Why she had no cord attaching her to this body. Hell, She was alive!

I laughed. “I’m not that great for company my dear but it looks like it will be me and you for awhile.”

She just looked at me and gave a sad smile back, then said, “You were right, this is my choice. Besides, I gave you my word.”

“No.” I said. I knew at once what she meant. As if she hadn’t heard me she lay down within the body on the bed.

“NO!” I shouted, “YOU CAN’T DO THIS!” But she did. Instantly the monitor that recorded her heartbeats began to ring, then it flat lined.

“NO, NO, NO!” I screamed but nothing could stop the ringing of the machine or the voices that began yelling up and down the halls outside her room. I was being pulled away, I wanted to stay, to fight for her, but with every effort to remain, stronger forces were making me leave.

I felt it then, the horrible chill of death that comes for each of us. I would fight it, I would fight, I would,

Instantly I found myself back in my own body. In sheer anger I struck out and knocked the alter before me across the room. I was crying. I couldn’t stop. She wasn’t dead.


Marylyn was laid to rest on a warm autumn day earlier this very year in my hometown. I can’t stand going to funerals but I made sure to go to hers. I felt responsible somehow for her death. She would still be alive, though trapped in a body that didn’t respond, if she had not come across me.


I waited for days, then weeks, to see if she would come along just to say goodbye. She never did. I guess some places you’re so happy to leave you don’t worry about goodbyes, You’re willing to take the chance that we’ll meet again. Until that day Marylyn, I wish you hugs.


Note: I've published this story several times on this site. I just wanted to get it in again as my first entry into this contest.

[edit on 14-9-2006 by mrwupy]

[edit on 14-9-2006 by interestedalways]
Nevermind, technical difficulty

[edit on 14-9-2006 by interestedalways]

Ah, the coiling warmth of a ghostly embrace and sweet kisses in the otherworld.

Rivetting, tender, frightening coitus and lost love make this story complete.

Mrwupy: Until today, I did not have the pleasure of reading this story. What a gem!
Very detailed. At the end, I was asking myself if a favor had been done . . . . . . .
or . . . .? Did good come from a mistake made? Was there a chance for them to
meet again? Kept me asking myself question after question.

Great work, mrwupy.

It ends up being quite the moving love story.

The reluctant hero who is a mystery to everyone around him encounters a woman dealing with the same thing, only to accidently sentance himself to his old lonely life.

I like.

Thank you for the kind words my friends. Now if I can just find a way to make the story scarey