The Man laid on His deathbed, the indifferent approach of death closing in on Him. He had lived a long life. A full life. Complete. He lay upon an unimportant bed in an unimportant room. An unimportant woman sat asleep on a chair an arm’s length away from Him, the ring of matrimony on her finger appearing to the Man as naught but a mere accessory, a maintenance of appearance.

Soon, the Man passed. His last breath was witnessed by none alive. However, there were five apparitions that bore witness. They did not exist, not as natural entities in any case, but merely as manifestations of memories, promises, sorrow and sins. Mere ghosts. They hovered above the Man’s fresh corpse aimlessly, nothing to possess or haunt any longer. They were unmoving, their figures vague and transparent, simply staring vacantly at the corpse. An unknown light source briefly illuminated the room, and their figures became clearer.

The first ghost had the figure of a plump woman, who despite her round figure seemed so frail and delicate, a fallen autumn time leaf. The dead Man would’ve never remembered her. She was a sweet thing, a summertime bit of fun for the Man long, long ago in His youth. The memory of that day forgotten to the Man would last a lifetime for the first ghost.

She held Rage, rage directed towards the Man, His dead corpse mocking her inability to send those feeling to Him. It was the rage all too familiar to the oppressed of the world, a harmless flame, one that burned cold to all except the aggrieved. The desire to lash out and scream, to summon wrath, to impose one’s will upon the world, to perhaps scream loud enough to drown out the dread, the failure, the embarrassment of having been the imposed upon. Mere floundering. The plump woman knew well of floundering. The fire kindled by rage in the first ghost would simply subside and dim, but that small lick of flame would still suffice to illuminate the quieter, hidden feelings; the ones directed internally. Feelings of disgust, uncleanliness, brokenness. Feelings of violation and contamination. A permanent internal imprint.

The second ghost had the figure of a small, slender woman. Those who knew the Man well in life would never have been able to inform you that it took the image of His daughter. The second ghost was the least transparent of the apparitions and the one closest to the Man’s body.

She held Love. A love the Man never acknowledged. In the real world, somewhere far away, she was a reserved sort, with a propensity to distrust the intentions of others. In her youth, she sought the warmth she lacked from the Man elsewhere. All used her, men and women, friend and foe alike. She was used for her love freely given, her intellect, her body, her desire to aid others in earnest; she was a friend, a plaything, a source of income, validation, cheap respect. Output, output, output, she was a giver at heart. But the powers above and beyond, which some named God while others called it Universe, possessed a sense of humour and irony, and never had any in her life prioritised her or given her equal love or effort in kind. She was used to it, conditioned for it like a Pavlov dog. Her Father had shown her that giving love and putting effort towards another without receiving it in kind was good. To be expected. Mere normalcy. And so, here her ghost hovered above the Man’s body, trying to give Him love He had received in abundance before, yet always dismissed.

The third and fourth ghosts had the figures of a man and woman. They took the image of Mr. and Mrs. Dumas, a couple the Man knew well. They were His business partners of sorts. They were ambitious in their endeavours, aiming to restore various endangered species to abundance once again in the world. Mr. Dumas was the religious sort, and would often meditate upon the Bible, his wife begrudgingly beside him. As Adam was given dominion over all animals, so too did Mr. Dumas believe it his mission in life to care for God’s creations. The Man always found it humorous; He was, after all, not one to believe in the supernatural.

The couple held Trust and Betrayal. Mr. Dumas believed in the Man, and considered Him a friend. If Mr. Dumas likened himself to Adam, the Man certainly likened himself to God. Dominion over others to do with as He pleased, the Man saw people strictly as tools or threats. Mr. Dumas had the misfortune of being classified as both. How long ago it was… if the Man were still alive He might have recalled more of the events and circumstances that led to the initial resentment He felt from Mr. Dumas’ success. Or perhaps it was but a matter of ego. Mere entitlement. It was a simple enough matter to be rid of them; vulnerability is inherent to trust after all. Mr. Dumas died, his wife rendered comatose for a time. The Man visited her sometimes, initially to maintain appearances, but He came to enjoy seeing her diminished state. The ghosts of the couple have followed the Man since, but one cannot haunt a Man that was dead long before He was rendered a corpse.

The final ghost had a vague figure, somewhat humanoid in structure but such was just the human propensity to personify concepts. It was an abstraction upon an abstraction, a ghost of nothingness, and what it held could only be described as Blackness.

A tangible void of sorts, a black hole, it was the manifestation of the concept of “empty.” A hollow, endless and eternal lack that could never be filled. It was nothingness intimate with feelings the man had known his entire life. Ennui, apathy, pointlessness, a crying without tears, the muted song of nothingness. Blasphemy against oneself, against all who affirm life as worthwhile. A silent scream only the walking dead could hear. The banal torture of a meaningless existence. Mere nothingness. The final ghost had no preference, no need to discriminate in choosing who it haunted. It is the ghost most familiar to the man, his first clear sight that others ignored or attempted to dispel, drown, and distract from. His first companion. His only intimate companion. If the man could name his most potent memories, it was when he was but a boy. He watched; watched as the things people assign such worth upon spilled indiscriminately into the ghost’s seductive, all-consuming maw. Rage was swallowed. Love was swallowed. Trust and Betrayal were swallowed. It haunted and swallowed all. There is nothing it would not haunt until it swallowed it entirely. A God of entropy, of dread, of doom, of inevitable endings, of the decayed and rotting will of a man. A ghost of nothing, entwined with a man of nothing.

Of all the ghosts in the Man’s final moments; the final ghost is the only one He might’ve truly seen.

Sometime later, a woman visited the Man at His grave. It is unknown which of the four women it is, come perhaps to reclaim her specific ghost. The woman pondered desecrating the grave, but upon reaching it she could only stand and gaze upon the tombstone. The Man that has haunted her all her life was now a vestige in a grave. She had a balloon with her, strung along on a long white string, but the clear and transparent plastic oval filled with nothing but expended air now mocked her.

The balloon was heavy.

The balloon would appear completely unremarkable to any onlooker but to her held inherited ghosts with nothing to haunt but her. She could not pass her suffering, her inherited sin, pain, anguish or emptiness onto the Man, and none were nearby for her to pass it onto instead. How unfair her life to has been, what the Man had put her through. Passing on his ghosts unto her. There was a ghost in there darker than the others, one that inspired feelings of rot and defeat. It seemed rather familiar.

She did not linger long and soon left, her convictions set. Her inheritance was hers alone. She would not pass on her ghosts unto another. She would not let them change her for the worst either. Who is to say whether or not she held true to her conviction; or succumbed and passed on her ghosts to haunt another? Perhaps a chronological inheritance for her future loved ones, the ghosts that will raise her children and the next generation. Or maybe, just maybe, she’ll succeed, thrive, and others will learn from her and those like her a thing or two about defying ghosts that stick until death. I think that it is nevertheless noble, the audacity to try.

The balloon was light.