There is a ghost standing at the foot of my bed. How strange, he wasn’t there when I crawled under the covers. I shut my eyelids and roll my eyes up and down and all around. then I let the lids flicker up like window blinds. He is still there. He stares right through me. I hope he doesn’t see anything. The wish curls up inside my chest and yawns as he lowers himself to the right corner of my bed and crosses his legs. His fingers aimlessly twitch from the edge of his white shirt to the top of his sock to the cuffs of his black jeans. He runs a hand through his already messy hair and half-smiles at me in a hopeful sort of way. I smile back and sit up.

“Hello,” I say hesitantly. Is there a right way to address a ghost? He looks a little startled but says, “Hello”

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Edmund Donatello LaFleur, yours?”

“Emelie Thacher,” I pull a breath inside my chest, “Do all ghosts have such long names? Whenever I read about them they have such long names.”

“They’re probably all liars. All the ones I’ve met are. I am, at any rate.”

“Why?”

“Why are they liars or why am I a liar?”

“You. Frankly, I don’t happen to care about other ghosts.”

“I’m not quite sure. I've always wanted to be named Edmund Donatello. I hated my real name.”

“What was it?”

“I'm not going to tell you,” he crosses his arms stubbornly against his chest. He leans back against the wall my bed is pressed up to and sticks out his lower lip in a gesture that seems infinitely childish to me, “Who paints their room this color anyway?”

“Me. It's called 'Summer of the Fawn.'”

“My point exactly.”

“I like it.”

He presses a low huff from his lips but doesn't say anything.

“How did you die anyway?”

“I'd rather not say.”

“Too painful?”

“Too stupid.”

“Oh?”

“Yep,” he pops the 'P' loudly. “Exceptionally so.” The fat slug of his lower lip slides into his mouth and he rolls his eyes up to the ceiling, drawing a long, low sigh from the deep pit of his stomach and puffing it out into the air, “I hung myself with my bathrobe tie.”

“Why?”

“I can't quite remember,” a whiteish eyebrow folds in on itself, “It was stupid though.” He drops his eyes back to me and cracks a wry smile.

“I thought only murdered people got to be ghosts.”

“Me too. Its all me mum's fault though, she has a way of muddling things up.”
I smile as if I understand. I don't of course. I can't imagine why anyones mother being

strange would have to do with being damned to ghostdom. He unfolds his legs and

stretches them out and then stands up. “I have to go.”



“Will you come back?”

“Certainly. You're the only person I've talked to who hasn't soiled their sheets.” A white throat flashes at me as he throws his head back and laughs, a gesture that makes him seem almost warm.

“Until tomorrow night.”

“Good night.”
He walks across my room slowly as if he is wading through deep water with movements that are smooth, with feet that don't touch the floor, but float barely an inch above it. He presses his shoulder against the far wall and it yields to him, bouncing and wiggling like a bubble. As mysteriously as he came, he was gone.