Story 97 of 100
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Not About a Ghost
They say (like there are “experts” in this field of pseudoscience) that in order for there to be ghosts, a person has to die in a violent or sudden death, or not be able to move on for some vital reason. Like, if someone has unfinished business, or wants to be avenged, or simply cannot let go of the pain or longing or some intense hate or intense love.
This makes sense — to the living. But it makes zero sense — if one is dead. The dead have no reasons to complete anything. They have no goals.
I know — I’m dead.
I’m kidding. I’d have no way to write this if I were dead, of course. And why would I want to? Why would I care for the world of the living? All y’alls would be on your own.
This is just a little something I was thinking while I was rotting in my prison.
All right, it wasn’t prison so much as it was jail of some sorts.
OK, not jail, per se, as I was “in the doghouse.” OK, I give up on these metaphors.
I was lying in the dark, late at night on a sofa — the comfy, cushy downstairs sofa — kicked out of my own marital bed by my bride of two years, Connie.
I, one Barry Woodlock, was contemplating ghosts and goblins at around 1 o’clock in the morning, because I forgot how to sleep alone. A grown ass man who needs his wife with him in bed to fall asleep.
Why, you may ask, was I in this predicament? Because I found it difficult to believe my bride who told me she saw a ghost at work, and because (she insists) I called her fat. In my defense, I would never, nor did, nor would I in a million years call Connie Woodlock (or any woman, ever, never, my hand to God!) fat — I am not stupid and not suicidal, and I happen to enjoy sex with my wife too much to jeopardize that perk of marriage, especially in such a clumsy and stupid way.
The conversation had started innocently enough — I asked Connie how her day at work was. Connie works as an office manager at a large catering firm. You probably have seen their advertising on billboards and bus benches, if you live anywhere near Akron, Ohio. They do mostly high-end weddings, bar and bat-mitzvahs, and events like corporate retreats. They’re big enough that they have their own…
