Posted on by Lydia Ink

From Curious to Fodder

I wish my mother were here. Not that she’d do much good, but still I wish she were here.

You know sometimes I wonder if I want her here with me because, though I’m not much good, I feel, just a little, that she deserves this place more than me. I press the palms of my hands together and feel my bones just beneath my skin (more so now than ever) and think she should be here, not me.

Then the terror comes over me, and I just want her to hold me. Hold me, please mother, just once.

Just once.

When I was walking the streets of Chicago, I’d get as close to the lake as I could just to hear the lap of water. It was usually late, so the roar of the boats and the laughter of people did not interrupt me. In summer I might find late night lovers walking hand in hand. I thought them brave to walk and hold hands after dark in Chicago. I’d stay quiet and hide, not wanting them to think I was some thug or mugger.

See, yes, perhaps I’m not so bad. Perhaps somehow that will benefit me.

Also, if I die here, I’ll do it without a tattoo. My hair might be a blue one day and pink the next, but tattoos are too expensive and will look hideous after 50 years. I won’t live that long, I know.

It was the mist on the lake that attracted me. I’ve heard tourist wonder where all that water came from, they did not know Chicago sported a lake. What the hell people, do you think Chicago is in Kansas, (and not on the Missouri side, mind you)? Help me.

Yes, please help me.

Right, the mist on the lake. When I was younger, when my teachers tried, despite my mother, I would look out at this body of water and ache for it. Feel sorry for myself that I wasn’t on it, touching it, floating on it and freezing to numbness. It seemed so lonely, so forsaken, so beautiful, so cold, and I knew cold. We could only have our hats and gloves on while freezing on the playground, we couldn’t take them home and the bus ride home was so cold without them. The school would send home notes stating I needed a hat and some gloves, but the notes went unread and I grew older and more used to the freeze. So Lake Michigan drew me in during that frigid November day.

He was beautiful in the mist. He stood there, tall and lank and serene. How could I resist? At first I thought he wanted me for a night and though I never go to the Lake for that I shrugged and thought I would have him and revel in the thought I could find a secret place for secret self fulfilling desire. I guess I did. He keeps me here, in this bricked place, where I can’t see the lake. I hear it thunder in the wind, mostly I feel it within the walls of my prison. When I feel it, I feel the ache of cold and I know; I know he is here to feed upon the heat of my soul, and I’ll never see the lake in daylight again.

Posted on by Lydia Ink

Her Hunt His Folly

The best part of her day is when everyone she works with sets off for home or some other dubious spot that lends a sparkle to their otherwise lack-luster eyes. She enjoys her coworkers; feels no animosity towards them but enjoys the quiet promoted by their absence and the residue of relief, even joy they leave, calling it a day. 

There is no shuffling, no one-sided phone conversations, no opening and shutting of doors, no murmur of business as usual, just a silent desertion that most, her being the exception, would consider an eerie peace.

She goes about the small office, closing window blinds, locking necessary doors and making notes to help start her next working morning. These menial tasks comfort her in a rushed and bustling world. Her evening tasks give credence to the fact that she has survived another day.

She has kept to the job for five consecutive years. 

She is proud of that fact, and she is also proud of the fact that she has maintained her resolve not to hunt any longer, though pondering the drive, which lingers within her mind and tingles along her arms and legs keeps her up at night.

The last successful hunt wasn’t her fault, and that fiasco strengthened her resolve to retire from all the complications and angst a hunt can cause. She was tired, exhausted really, and there he was, ready to rescue her; they all wanted to rescue her. That was the crucible of her hunt; empowering a man to come to her rescue, which invoked her power. Her prowess.

Philadelphia went smoothly, the hunt lasted three years and basically she tired of it and finished it and moved to Atlanta. The heat in Atlanta was excruciating. She felt so mercenary in Atlanta. In each city she had fulfilled a hunt and that complicated things for the next hunt. Her success in Philly gave her too much confidence, she did not research Atlanta at all. The only fact she focused upon was that Atlanta seemed happening sharp, and she was in the mood to fit in. The heat hit her like a ton of bricks and she got messy, greedy. 

Minneapolis was just what the doctor ordered. But Minneapolis proved too fertile a place after Atlanta’s heat. She knew change was impossible. Philosophy of the ancients were for chumps and religion too. Trying to rise above the time bending reality of who we are today because of evolution, is contrary to the basic construction and purpose of the world. Humans are humans; some to hunt, some to be prey.

Her hunt began in the primordial ooze, and the creation of an alphabet and a pulpit are props of defense for the weak. In each city there were those who seemed to sense that she wasn’t right. Men who either couldn’t find their socks in the morning or needed that deep mental and heartfelt connection avoided her. 

Conversations on Plato or meditation exercises she despised. Prey who talked fables and fairytales as if there was a basis other than deception about it sickened her. No, those were not her type. What brought about her hunt were men, prey, who insisted that she needed rescuing.

Sex was spontaneous to these types of men and well calculated to her. As any huntress, she had her role to play; the desperate moves, the weak knees, her weeping and his inevitable vitality expanding in his chest and the moving of heaven and earth to keep her safe.

She lasted in New York (before Philadelphia) for almost two entire years but woke up one morning, felt that driving urge to make him beg for mercy, and slipped the tiny needle in while he finished his last supplication for mercy.

She was grateful that in Atlanta there was no beneficiary money–not coming so quickly from Philadelphia. That would have definitely sent up some red flags to the densest of people. Philadelphia set her up for life–as wild a ride as that was. She even wondered if she couldn’t become capable of actual love, but she needed to feel him drain, fade away, dissipate. Now, five years later, not really needing to work but needing a place to belong, she had avoided the rescuing type. 

She tried hard not to involve herself at all with coworkers. There were too many knights in shining armor or bored husbands to go around. She kept to the company of women in the workplace. Her hunt did not include them. She knew what to avoid; the more expensive restaurants and upscale bars were the happy hunting grounds. No clubs. 

The fact of the matter was, however, she wasn’t getting any younger. She still liked to keep that perfect distance in age, but the rescuing type were not frequenting restaurants and bars as much. Perhaps she was finally seeing them go extinct. Though there was the hard working delivery man who expanded his chest when she signed for deliveries. Smelling his mind amused her.

Attempting to keep to herself, she let him know she was not from the area. She could almost hear his mind contemplate her history. Obviously hurt by some bastard, or perhaps the love of her life perished in some fiery crash flittered through his open mind. They would chit-chat about the weather and he would try to make eye contact with her… perhaps on Monday she could manage a little sorrow.

Posted on by Lydia Ink

She Wanted Me To Have It

I didn’t believe her.  I told her I did, but I didn’t.  She smiled at me in a half-hearted or perhaps a whimsical way and said, ‘thank you.’  She whispered the two words to me and looked away.  Her soft hair, straw colored and wavy, veiled the side of her face in a cascading shade of brilliance as she looked down at her hands.

I felt a surge of male adrenaline.  Here was a woman who just a year ago was one of the up and comings of our group, a bright and shining star.  One trip to Rome and she came back a recluse. Now she sat before me, a damsel in distress or that Victorian lady, even the mad Ophelia.  I once pictured myself (me and several men of our mutual acquaintance), falling in love with her.  She published in the New Yorker before she graduated from college; she contemplated a job at The Washington Post and she just a year ago, all blogs, rags, newspapers and magazines were ready to publish her journalism.  She was a like a dog with a bone when pursuing ‘the truth’ and everybody wanted her.

That was a year ago.  Now this up-and-coming journalist was soliciting help from me in a busy bistro in New York.   From me!  And looking like a girl from a 1940s golden Hollywood film, telling me stories about the supernatural.  Things I used to laugh about in catechism class at age 8.  This is the 21st century.  My Baby-Boomer father would have succumbed to her soft strength, I did not.  I pocketed my anxiety about her, along with my surge of Freudian awareness, paid the bill and walked away.

She was a third generation fallen away Methodist, for Pete’s sake. What was she doing holding onto a crucifix and asking me questions for?  When we were sophomores in college, we were lovers for a brief time and afterward we would laugh at the moralist who would shake their finger at us.  No moralist shook their finger at us, but still it was something to laugh about.

So, I left her there, at the cafe.  I paid the bill and asked if she needed any money.  She shook her head and wouldn’t look at me.  “Thank you, Michael,” she said again.  A bum found her the next day, cold and dead.  The police questioned me and determined that I was the last to see her alive–outside of her murderer.

I did not kill her.

I did not.

I was at a party that night, celebrating my best friend’s engagement to a wonderful woman; strong, long legged, and well put together.  She an attorney and he an up-and-coming doctor.  Neither of them beyond child-bearing years, despite the time it took for them to fall in love between their accomplishments. Does that sound cynical?

I can still see her, living, breathing and frightened, sitting across from my incredulous self.  “Michael, nothing is certain.  Have some faith in me.  I’ve seen hell, please help me.  You’re the only one I know who was religious.  Help me!  What I saw was real. He snapped her like a twig and rose several stories.  He looked right at me while he killed her and smiled.  I know he is here.  I left Rome right away, but he is in New York.”

“I want to help you,” I said, reaching forward squeezing her delicate hands.  I was sincere.  Her hands, warm to my touch but only because they had held the warm paper coffee cup.  She looked frail, suffering.  I told her to stop, to leave it alone, but would she listen to me?  No, she had to know the truth.  What truth?  That such things existed, that the boogeyman was walking about New York, jet setting to Rome and picking his victims at his leisure around the world?  And since when did she worry about crime stories, the money and fame were in social issues, everyone knew that.

She was broke when she died.  It shocked me; I mean, she had money.  Her parents found old stuff in her apartment; rosaries, history books that looked handwritten, stuff that should have been in a museum.   Her parents couldn’t understand why she would have such superstitious things around her.

Don’t think me a total brute, please.  I would have taken her with me the night of the engagement party, fed her, introduced her back into the fold of our mutual friends, even though she looked a walking scarecrow, but she said no.

Anyway, so I’ll talk to this priest who called me and let it all go, get back to my life.  He said he got my number from her.  I will not wreck my life running after things that drive a sane person mad and raving about guys who levitate and break necks.  Demons left the world with leprechauns and the fairy queen, right?  I’ll get this Roman Catholic priest off my back and walk away.  I’ve had it with thinking about it.

Yeah, she made me take the rosary she was carrying.  She said she worried about me being seen with her.  I took it; she wanted me to have it. 

I felt a surge of male adrenaline.  Here was a woman who just a year ago was one of the up and comings of our group, a bright and shining star.  One trip to Rome and she came back a recluse. Now she sat before me, a damsel in distress or that Victorian lady, even the mad Ophelia.  I once pictured myself (me and several men of our mutual acquaintance), falling in love with her.  She published in the New Yorker before she graduated from college; she contemplated a job at The Washington Post and she just a year ago, all blogs, rags, newspapers and magazines were ready to publish her journalism.  She was a like a dog with a bone when pursuing ‘the truth’ and everybody wanted her.

That was a year ago.  Now this up-and-coming journalist was soliciting help from me in a busy bistro in New York.   From me!  And looking like a girl from a 1940s golden Hollywood film, telling me stories about the supernatural.  Things I used to laugh about in catechism class at age 8.  This is the 21st century.  My Baby-Boomer father would have succumbed to her soft strength, I did not.  I pocketed my anxiety about her, along with my surge of Freudian awareness, paid the bill and walked away.

She was a third generation fallen away Methodist, for Pete’s sake. What was she doing holding onto a crucifix and asking me questions for?  When we were sophomores in college, we were lovers for a brief time and afterward we would laugh at the moralist who would shake their finger at us.  No moralist shook their finger at us, but still it was something to laugh about.

So, I left her there, at the cafe.  I paid the bill and asked if she needed any money.  She shook her head and wouldn’t look at me.  “Thank you, Michael,” she said again.  A bum found her the next day, cold and dead.  The police questioned me and determined that I was the last to see her alive–outside of her murderer.

I did not kill her.

I did not.

I was at a party that night, celebrating my best friend’s engagement to a wonderful woman; strong, long legged, and well put together.  She an attorney and he an up-and-coming doctor.  Neither of them beyond child-bearing years, despite the time it took for them to fall in love between their accomplishments. Does that sound cynical?

I can still see her, living, breathing and frightened, sitting across from my incredulous self.  “Michael, nothing is certain.  Have some faith in me.  I’ve seen hell, please help me.  You’re the only one I know who was religious.  Help me!  What I saw was real. He snapped her like a twig and rose several stories.  He looked right at me while he killed her and smiled.  I know he is here.  I left Rome right away, but he is in New York.”

“I want to help you,” I said, reaching forward squeezing her delicate hands.  I was sincere.  Her hands, warm to my touch but only because they had held the warm paper coffee cup.  She looked frail, suffering.  I told her to stop, to leave it alone, but would she listen to me?  No, she had to know the truth.  What truth?  That such things existed, that the boogeyman was walking about New York, jet setting to Rome and picking his victims at his leisure around the world?  And since when did she worry about crime stories, the money and fame were in social issues, everyone knew that.

She was broke when she died.  It shocked me; I mean, she had money.  Her parents found old stuff in her apartment; rosaries, history books that looked handwritten, stuff that should have been in a museum.   Her parents couldn’t understand why she would have such superstitious things around her.

Don’t think me a total brute, please.  I would have taken her with me the night of the engagement party, fed her, introduced her back into the fold of our mutual friends, even though she looked a walking scarecrow, but she said no.

Anyway, so I’ll talk to this priest who called me and let it all go, get back to my life.  He said he got my number from her.  I will not wreck my life running after things that drive a sane person mad and raving about guys who levitate and break necks.  Demons left the world with leprechauns and the fairy queen, right?  I’ll get this Roman Catholic priest off my back and walk away.  I’ve had it with thinking about it.

Yeah, she made me take the rosary she was carrying.  She said she worried about me being seen with her.  I took it; she wanted me to have it. 

Posted on by Lydia Ink

Into the Asylum

There are days I wish it were over.  I don’t want to know who I am and I don’t want to face another night.  It’s different when the sun goes down.  I know and they know and the world just goes on, ignorant.

When I was a kid, I would read every fantasy novel I could get my hands on.  I was the skinny kid saving his pennies for the dictionaries on Middle Earth and I was the kid alone on the playground acting out the last epic battle of good versus evil.

Teachers would pull my mother aside and tell her I made other children uncomfortable.  They told her the reason other kids picked on me and ridiculed me was because she allowed me to stay in my fantasy world.  I’ll give my mother this; as overworked as she was, she stood up for me.

Occasionally she would pick me up early from school, sign me out, and we would have ice cream in the full light of day.  I know that she felt it was us against them, but I didn’t know how many battles fronts she was fighting.

She didn’t come home one night.  They found her remains three months later, down by Navy Pier.  She didn’t die there.  The police still call it an open case.  The cops that investigated her murder even came around to check on me in foster care. I know she didn’t die easy; it wasn’t quick.

I was thirteen when she died, and foster care was one of the worst things that could have happened.  When they tapped on my window and I cried for help, my foster parents didn’t believe me.  At one point they institutionalized me for schizophrenic behavior.   That was worse because then the bastards could walk right in–the loons invited them in all the time.  Nobody questions why a homeless schizoid dies alone–they pack them off to cold storage with a shrug and a “too bad.”

Strange, though, the loons never turned.  Never.

I would have won if a weary old priest hadn’t heard my screams one night.  He didn’t believe they could crawl along the ceiling and hide in shadows, but he gave me a golden crucifix that has never left me. That stops them, scoffers be damned.

You don’t know how desperate and crazy you can sound when a white clad orderly is standing in the doorway with a straight jacket for you and one of the cursed ones is smiling at you from the ceiling; they would crawl around like flies.   I think many of the inmates went crazy after they arrived.

I sleep in the church’s basement now.  I do odd jobs, so they let me.  I sleep well there, despite the unbelief of the old priest who saved me.

I miss my mother.

I work hard to avenge her.  That’s what she did, worked hard.  Maybe it will all end with me.  Or end me.

Posted on by Lydia Ink

Clever Girl

“Rick Murphy, you must be Cecelia.”

“I am but…” her blue eyes widened in fear. “I thought I was meeting or rather I thought…”  Her hands shook as she groped through her purse; A rather tattered black leather rectangle which had a secondhand shop air about it.   I watched her hands, balled up little fists, knock about the contents of her bag, looking for perhaps an address or slip of paper that would confirm she had not blundered in her own mind although I had called her by name.  Nerves, no doubt.

“Roger Caprice.  Yeah, that’s a pen name – caprice, thought it would be fun.” Her blank stare made me worry; The resume was concise and well written, perhaps the references were a little vague but time didn’t allow several hours in conversation about a temporary editor.

“A pen name, sure.  Caprice, that’s good.”  Her eyes blinked rapidly, and I suspected she fought biting her bottom lip. “I’ll be frank, I don’t read your books and I’m nervous.  I never thought I’d land an editor’s job.”

My hopes lifted; Sure a little stardust in her eyes but nothing she couldn’t work through, if she wanted the job.   I stepped aside and motioned her in.  Cecelia peered past the door as if she were looking down a dark alley. Edging her way in to my apartment she halted, giving me just enough room to shut the door behind her.  The young woman didn’t wince, but I suspected she steeled herself against the desire to do so.  “This is an interesting apartment…” she said.  She remained silent which said volumes.  Her opinion of my taste in decor flickered across her features; She had the good manners to not babble on.  I smiled at her but she determinedly looked out my large dinning room window trying to admire the view.

“An early 20th century tycoon built it.  The place warehoused commodities shipped in through the Great Lakes and later there was some light manufacturing; furniture makers even some papermakers.  Now is houses hip writers and artists who don’t mind freezing in the winter.”  I tried to give her my best, I’m-a-good-guy-smile.  I needed her help.  She didn’t read my books, that was essential, she looked half starved which told me she was a poet and needed the money, she had passed the strenuous testing that I put her through in English grammar.  Everything I needed and wanted; thank God for the online jungle.
Taking a deep breath, muttering something under her breath she turned to me like the condemned facing her judge.  A deep pink blushed spread across her gaunt cheek bones but none the less a pretty girl faced me.  Yes, she was nervous; Her first day on the job jitters.  “Mr. Murphy, I’m so sorry.  I must have looked like a complete idiot.  I had my speech all thought out, and it started out as ‘Mr. Caprice thank you so much for this opportunity’…”

A genuine laugh welled up in me; She would work out just fine.  “Well, you seem to be quick on your feet.  Let me show you around.”
I was rather vain about the place.  Living on sixth floor of eight, I picked the apartment because it was the most spacious out of all and the original brick with all its industrial scars still decorated the walls.  It was on the northeast corner of the building so had a decent view of Lake Michigan despite the taller, steel and glass buildings blocking much of that incredible freshwater sea.  In the winter months those tall buildings came in handy when the famous winds of Chicago became entrapped in wild and lost gusts of vengeance.  Though the windows rattled, I believed that it was the taller buildings which took most of the beatings.   I didn’t mind the seasons the city offered including winter. In Chicago no matter what time of the year, one feels the big lake in its one mood – grating intolerance of human habitation.

My apartment also allowed a panorama of those clueless human habitants. I spent many an enjoyable hour watching the passers-by either sweating or freezing their life away in Chicago; It gives a writer pause and fodder for pen and ink.   The view also gave me time to ponder the arrogance of late 20th and early 21st century architecture; The lake’s brutal history of drowned sailors and with names like Al Capone and Eliot Ness echoing down the timeline there should have been more stone work and gargoyles in Chicago, but hey, it’s Chicago.  The citizens bustle about too busy to remember last week, let alone recall the significance of a gargoyle.  Chicago’s ignorance is its best defense, besides stone crosses and quiet chapels are for chumps.

The tour of the apartment was brief because though it was spacious it was empty; I had little time to stuff it full of memorabilia.  Guest toilet, galley kitchen, the drawer in the fridge I reserved for my temporary staff-all the amenities; All natural all legitimate, all meant to give her a sense of ease.  The ability to make someone comfortable whom you pay for showing up is difficult.  The workplace is old, the floorboards creak, doors have a tendency to slam for no reason and though the ceiling is high, it’s still no reason for the frigidity of the cold spots that persist about the place.  I blamed the anomaly on the Lake, if it was a bad day I took a walk.

It takes a courageous mind or a desperate employee to put up with the physical aspects of a haunted apartment.  I think of myself as courageous but I cannot count on the temporary help to be brave so I try to find the desperate.  The place is my home and I’m used to it though the dimming of the lights bothers me. A flicker is explainable but the draining away of light especially late at night, saps the energy out of inspiration.  I won’t call myself frightened, but it is a new phenomenon in the place and I disliked it.   How in the hell do the supernatural in an old factory cum bohemian apartment building in Chicago dim the damn lights?  Why bother?  I always understood ghosts as having some agenda which didn’t coincide with electricity. So I fiddled with the light switch and called maintenance every once in a while.  The cold spots, slamming door etc., only meant I couldn’t have a dog, I told myself.  I tried it once, but Bullseye didn’t understand me.

I wanted to tell her these things as she walked behind me during the tour.  Hey don’t worry if you get cold it will pass and the lights, I just don’t know, it happens, but I kept my mouth shut on the matter.  I told her she was welcome to the coffee in the pot (just brewed), and I showed her the hall closet for coats, umbrellas and galoshes.   She had none of that apparatus however because it was a summer day in Chicago. I doubted she would have anything more than a rather seedy overcoat if it was a howling January day in Chicago.  The economic differences between a storyteller and an editor isn’t fair, I’m the first to admit it.  One loves the thrill of a turning page the other loves the language in a sick over the top way.  I left her to become acclimated to working with me and working within my ‘haunted’ rooms.  When she shivered, I looked up from my manuscript.

“You okay?”

“Yes, felt like someone just walked over my grave.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, that’s something my grandmother used to say.” Her big blue eyes widened and her shocking long blonde hair sort of bounced around her narrow face.  She seemed to be relaxing.  “When Grandma felt a cold shiver run down her back or over her shoulders, she always said that, ‘someone just walked across my grave’.”

I stared at her a moment, nodded and went back to work; I in no way wanted to encourage past conversations with Grandma.  It was rude but these Indiana (one can always spot a Hoosier) girls had to keep their back-water statements to themselves.  Typical of those coming from the sinkhole side of Lake Michigan she got right back to work with no sniffs or huffs; I admired her pluck.  The girls from outside the city were usually very conscientious, and she was no exception.  When we broke for lunch, I asked her how long she had been living in Chicago.

“About 12 weeks.  I was ready to give it up, I felt so overwhelmed.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t.” I was sincere as I passed her the salt.  I needed her help and, well, I needed someone around for a while.  The cold spots were getting worse.  One night I thought I had heard the sounds of footsteps; The quick tap and click of a woman’s step.  I turned expecting a stranger, but I saw nothing but a blank apartment.  I went out to dinner that night and got half sloshed.  God help me I thought I had heard a few sighs so stopped by Saint Something or Other Catholic church and pilfered some Holy Water.  I’m a professed atheist.  Oddly enough things quieted down for a while.  The experience put me behind and my agent, a steely no nonsense older woman let me know that books like mine, though they sell are forgettable.  I needed to pick up the pace.   I needed someone who would come every morning, work hard and make human noises, human movement, human scents, and human residue; I had been alone too long.

“So this used to be an old warehouse, huh?  It makes a beautiful apartment.”

“It is nice,” I said  “I like the view all around.  I think the realtor thought I should be here because she found out I was a writer.”

She nodded as if she understood everyone classified writers as Bohemian by nature; I wasn’t I was just a writer.  The apartment suited me for other reasons; One the city isolated it and two, the noise of the city didn’t crowd in upon my work.  The screams of the outside world didn’t penetrate nor did the screams of my inner beast escape the solid brick building.  I knew from the start that the space was perfect for me.

We worked together for 13 glorious weeks and the manuscript began to take shape.  I know how cliché my words must sound but she wasn’t like other editors who focused on the rules; She allowed for creativity.  She didn’t let me get away with anything in grammar but came up with clever ways around rules; She pushed my abilities, made me think through my use of words.  I began to understand that this work would be something beyond what I had done before.  I felt triumphant that she had not read my books or she may hint at adding her own nom de plume to my own.  She may have comprehended my excitement in suspecting that the book was a damn good piece of work for I often caught her give me a worried look.

One night we made a timeline of the plot and pounded out the conclusion.  We became so consumed with the work she lost track of the time. I looked up, pinched the bridge of my nose and realized what I was seeing was true, it was 11 P.M.  After 10 PM Chicago sounded different; the city took on a low rumble and sinister rattle.  I looked over at her, framed against the windows of the night-time city.  Her hair began to fall out of its pins and curl down around her neck.  Her freckles began to glow through her smudged makeup.  Purplish smudges of weariness deepened her large aqua blue eyes and her wide but well sculptured mouth frowned in a pout.  My heart started to pound, but I understood we were both tired.  Time for attraction later, this was business, all business and I couldn’t mix it with pleasure.  I asked her to text my cell when she arrived at her hovel across town; Public transportation was dangerous late at night.  I remember feeling nervous as the clock started to tick closer to midnight, and I had not heard from her.  I had forgotten about the sighs of those forgotten souls within the bricked walls of my apartment.  At last the soft bell of my phone sounded – she was home safe.  I went to bed exhausted, relieved and not bothered at all by cold spots and dimming lights.  It was as if the apartment was holding its breath too.

One Wednesday evening she was standing in front of the large window that some brilliant soul had installed in the dining room.  I used the dinning room as my work space when writing.  It may sound pagan but when I finished a book, I prepared my victory dinner and ate it alone on the long dark table with the city spread out before me.
Looking out toward Lake Michigan, framed against that window she reminded me of a young girl I once knew, we were together for a short time; A short intense time.  Standing up myself, moving next to her a spiritual sense of communion enveloped me.  The deep summer heat had passed and the early heat of fall turned into gentle puffs of wind which buffeted the old building prophesying of the brutal winter to come.  We were nearing completion of the book and I was glad she would not have to face crossing the city in the cold icy extremes.  The city was clear and gleamed before her, like some promising utopia.  The setting sun reflected on the building and left the lake, to the east, darkened and moving in blackened waves. Chicago looked alive but in an ancient, sinister way that drew me up taller beside her.

Standing beside me I admired her body by vicinity; She was so close. She studied the scene as some young virgin just before the sacrifice – perhaps as some young Aztec, pampered for a year of bliss but then feeling the effects of an ancient drug dulling her sense which would make her death easier, she began to tremble.  I blinked hard and shook my head we were so close to finishing the book I wanted to focus.  I stepped back and noticed her straight, sky-blue skirt,  too large by at least one size.  Her rather bony hips looked enticing through the folds of her skirt and her soft, buff colored sweater cascaded around her narrow shoulders and folded softly around her thin waist.  Her clothes always seemed a size too large, but she wore it well, oddly enough.
“You know,” she said a vacant tone resonated from her voice, “I know someone haunts this apartment.  I heard her crying in the bathroom.”
I stopped imaging her as anybody else but my editor.  She turned at my silence looking a little perplexed.  “What do you think happened?  Do you think she died in an accident while this place was still a factory?”
“No,” I said, relieved she was forming conclusions that didn’t include me.
She looked pouty and my heart beat hard.  “Are you sure?” she asked.  “How do you know?  When did you realize someone haunted the place?”
The sky darkened into a deep blue and for a moment the surrounding space expanded.  “Soon after I moved in, it didn’t take me long.”  I took a deep breath and heaved out a sigh of my own; “Have you ever been kissed?”  It was an awful question, and I didn’t want to ask but being tired I could not stop myself.  Her bright blue eyes widened and then she smiled.
“Yes,” she whispered, now shy. “I know you think me a bumpkin and maybe I am but I’ve kissed before.”  Her breath was soft on my face and even with her thin body standing apart from me I felt her shiver.  I grasped her tiny hips and pulled her toward me, wanting that one kiss not tainted by fear or hatred.  The kiss was moist and lingering, I felt a soft peace and heavy sagging along my shoulders. I would regret this one, I remembered thinking as I lead her to the sofa.  She seemed so desperate for touch and I wanted so much for her to trust me, to remain for just a little while within our first kiss, it made the drama to follow so much more enticing.  Then I heard her whisper in my ear as she arched her thin body under mine, her clothes twisting and pulling around her body.
“I know you killed her,” she whispered softly in my ear.  “I know you did, I knew her well.”

I felt her pull the trigger, felt the bullet rip through my shirt, my skin, my heart my back.  My weight muffled the rapport of the gun.  I remember standing next to her, both of us watching my bleeding body.  She wept and shook and through her sobs she told me she loved someone; I don’t know who.  I suppose I am to blame for I would have added her sighs to all the rest that echoed through the building.

I tried to follow her out but stopped at the door inhibited by nothing. I watched her pale face disappear as she quietly shut the door to my apartment.  She left me here to sigh, chill the air, press down upon the old floorboards and drain the electric lights when anger overcomes me.

No one stays for long.  I think of her often; Clever girl, a very clever girl.