theatrical_muse. 166. Do you believe in ghosts?
Do you believe in ghosts?
Do I believe in ghosts? Very funny. After what happened last week, I’ve got a whole family of them following me.
After she died, Amy’s ghost followed me everywhere I went. Usually, when she started showing up, it was a sign that it was probably time to move on. That the past had caught up with me again.
I’ve never been good at going too long pretending like everything is okay. It’s because I know I’m not okay. I’ve been tormented by the nightmares and the cold sweats since she died. Sometimes it’s the weirdest things that sets it all off: someone that looks like her, a particularly cold evening like the one that night…one time I was looking at the turkey on Thanksgiving and I lost it. I know I need professional help, but I just keep thinking if I can figure it out, if I can fix it, I’ll be okay.
I can’t fix it. I know that now. She’s gone, and there is nothing that will bring her back. No matter how many people have said that to me - friends, colleagues, my ex-wife - I never really believed it. At least, not until now.
But I still don’t know if that will change anything. Because now I’ve got Frank’s death to deal with. You try putting a whole clip of bullets into the man who got you through college and made your career. A man who treated you like his own son, after he’d raped his own daughter and she’d killed herself rather than ask you for help. I know now that he was scum, but that doesn’t change what he did for me before. The significance he had in my life.
Of all the people I could be haunted by, Frank McCarty is about the last person that I want to be following me around. But I don’t doubt he will. At least for a little while. Him and Amy. The two people I cared about the most, and they’re both dead, and I killed one of them.
Now who do I have left?
I go back to work on Monday. Back with the Las Vegas night shift. I have to start looking for a real place. Start getting my feet back on the ground. They want me to talk to somebody, but I can’t quite bring myself to do it. I just imagine what I might say, and to me it all sounds crazy. Being haunted by memories of my dead fiancee, who was raped by her father, the very man I happened to murder once he tried to kill one of my colleagues. I don’t want to be labeled insane and strapped to a desk.
There’s part of me that’s hoping it all ends here. That what is in the past, can be in the past, and I can make a clean break for it. Start over. New city, new job, and a new life where I don’t have to run anymore.
But then there’s part of me that wants Amy’s ghost to stay right where it is. Because if she’s still here, I can’t lose her.
I just don’t know anymore.
Michael Keppler
CSI
527 Words
Do I believe in ghosts? Very funny. After what happened last week, I’ve got a whole family of them following me.
After she died, Amy’s ghost followed me everywhere I went. Usually, when she started showing up, it was a sign that it was probably time to move on. That the past had caught up with me again.
I’ve never been good at going too long pretending like everything is okay. It’s because I know I’m not okay. I’ve been tormented by the nightmares and the cold sweats since she died. Sometimes it’s the weirdest things that sets it all off: someone that looks like her, a particularly cold evening like the one that night…one time I was looking at the turkey on Thanksgiving and I lost it. I know I need professional help, but I just keep thinking if I can figure it out, if I can fix it, I’ll be okay.
I can’t fix it. I know that now. She’s gone, and there is nothing that will bring her back. No matter how many people have said that to me - friends, colleagues, my ex-wife - I never really believed it. At least, not until now.
But I still don’t know if that will change anything. Because now I’ve got Frank’s death to deal with. You try putting a whole clip of bullets into the man who got you through college and made your career. A man who treated you like his own son, after he’d raped his own daughter and she’d killed herself rather than ask you for help. I know now that he was scum, but that doesn’t change what he did for me before. The significance he had in my life.
Of all the people I could be haunted by, Frank McCarty is about the last person that I want to be following me around. But I don’t doubt he will. At least for a little while. Him and Amy. The two people I cared about the most, and they’re both dead, and I killed one of them.
Now who do I have left?
I go back to work on Monday. Back with the Las Vegas night shift. I have to start looking for a real place. Start getting my feet back on the ground. They want me to talk to somebody, but I can’t quite bring myself to do it. I just imagine what I might say, and to me it all sounds crazy. Being haunted by memories of my dead fiancee, who was raped by her father, the very man I happened to murder once he tried to kill one of my colleagues. I don’t want to be labeled insane and strapped to a desk.
There’s part of me that’s hoping it all ends here. That what is in the past, can be in the past, and I can make a clean break for it. Start over. New city, new job, and a new life where I don’t have to run anymore.
But then there’s part of me that wants Amy’s ghost to stay right where it is. Because if she’s still here, I can’t lose her.
I just don’t know anymore.
Michael Keppler
CSI
527 Words