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Ghosts... Lawrence Peters
I don't remember there being a great flash of light of instant understanding, of all the pieces of a puzzle coming together. No it was more of a growing feeling, a gradual surfacing into my consciousness, a proud and deadly shock of realization of what I'd become.
I am a ghost.
I can now see the slow gradual disappearance of my self from the world, like a fist opening after the rage has dissipated.
And I saw the path that I'd taken only because of something unrelated:
Nicknames.
Never really had one that I could ever say I liked.
You can't give one to yourself; it must start with someone or something else.
Variations of your name are a given.
Descriptive bodily attributes are not nicknames, except to the Mafia.
Or calling giants "Tiny", fat guys "Slim", and old men calling everyone "Sonny."
So, when I came across the name "Renzo" for an old Italian motorcycle racer, I thought, "That's cool. Short for Lorenzo?"
I thought then that "What if I had a nickname, now, what would it be?" I heard a voice deep inside say "Ghost."
Ghost. It came firmly from the recesses of my mind, although to admit it even now, it was always there, waiting for me to say it-
Ghost.
I'm still feeling the ripples today of this psychic transaction.
Questions, questions.
So, how long have I been a ghost and when did it start?
How does it feel to be a ghost?
What do your friends think?
When were you first able to hold up your hand and see through it?
I wondered if the passing of my mom had something to do with it? No, although our psychic connection was broken it was never severed; she is always there if I need her. Past tragedies came out of the closet and walked again. No. Not even the sum of those moments held sway. I'd beaten them and was the stronger for it, stronger from it. So I looked to other aspects of who I was and counted them off. Work? Career? Home? Love? Hate? Toys? Wants needs hopes?
All this was tearing me apart and in that I found the source of my endeavor was the reason behind it all. I had created a self fulfilling prophecy: the more I dealt with the problem the more remote, the more invisible it made me. Took the shine from my smile, the reckless abandon that drives the engine channeled too tightly in the pursuit of only one narrow goal. I had become what I worst feared: I had taken myself our of a game I wasn't really in at exactly the wrong time.
Now the steps upward seem harder and higher and the will to walk them keeps me wandering at the bottom stair, uncommitted.
So I've wandered around the country, living (living? but I'm a ghost) and trying to find a way back. Loved ones still see me; it is the new ones that I leave no impression with, no lasting lingering memory to place me by.
No thing gives me any lasting pleasure. All the things I've treasured and cherished leave me cold. Undead as of yet, I walk the world looking for those things again, the remnants of what brought me alive in the first place.
And I've even evolved.
By taking this moment and spilling my guts about it here, I have become something more...
The Ghost in the Machine.
For as long as it lasts.
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