Ghosts

It didn't come creeping up my back step, it didn't lie waiting in a dark corner and it didn't manifest itself in the mist. No, this ghost appeared in a flash, long buried, or so I thought, in the inner reaches of the mind, in the place you put such things after a time.

I sat up with it into the wee small hours of the morning; it was the worst sort of company.

I thought about long ago trips, ticket stubs to plays and concerts, the awkward moments of adolescence. I thought about a painfully shy, utterly awkward 17-year-old, trying in vain to put into words what he felt with all of his heart, and how it never seemed to matter.

What surprised me was the gamut of emotions. Anger. Sadness. Bittersweet sorrow. Confusion. And, finally, neutrality.

Time has passed. You're a better man now.

The ghost finally left me just before daybreak. I sneaked in four hours of sleep. I'm tired today.

But as I was getting ready for work this morning I thought about how life is now, thought about the people in it, thought about the values I hold dear and the junk I left behind. Whatever happens from here, I don't think I'll pay that ghost any mind should it ever appear again at 1 o'clock in the morning.