Above the Vaulted Sky - Page 28

                The book is as worn as mine, but an older edition. Mine's a cheap paperback that somehow ended up at a comic book shop. I often wonder how many lives a second hand book touches. I hope mum and dad will sell  on my modest collection, I’d like to see them in good homes.

                I’m not worried as footsteps approach. How many people have stared right through me today? Whoever owns the house will just assume that one of his piles of books has given up, and then maybe invest in some more shelves.

                The man who comes around the corner looks like he should be a dad, though the quiet house around me hints that he’s alone. His hair is receding and he walks with the gait of someone who’s spent his life growing out of trousers and turning down hems. Glasses hang from a string around his neck and his eyes are tawny like an old, watchful owl.

                I look at him, still on the floor and he looks right back at me.

                Through me, I think. I’m invisible to him.

                ‘Are you going to just sit there?’ he says. A strand of grey hair falls out of his carefully backcombed do and he pushes it back with his glasses. ‘They were carefully organised, I’ll have you know.’

                I scramble backwards, picking up books apologetically. ‘I’m-I’m sorry,’ I stutter. ‘You can see me?’

                ‘Of course I can see you, I’m dead aren’t I?’ he snaps. ‘I’d ask you knock before you enter a man’s house.’

                ‘Is this real?’ I say. ‘I didn’t think ghosts lived in houses.’

                ‘Of course it’s real,’ he says. ‘Haven’t you heard of haunting before?’

                I look back at him. The owl in his nest of books. Stories of hauntings come with terror, and chills up your spine. This ghost has a fire roaring in the grate. Although, a fire roaring in a deserted house would give anyone an uncanny sense of the ghostly.

                ‘Why do you have so many books? Was this your house?’

                ‘Because I'm an enthusiast.' He talks like a teacher, one who thinks his subject should be obvious. 'And no, I found it,’ he says. Then after a pause: ‘You’re new to all this aren’t you.’

                I nod. ‘It’s been a strange day for me.’

                ‘Welcome to the afterlife,’ he states simply, waving his hand in a slightly tired fashion. ‘Cup of tea?'

                ‘We can still drink tea?’

                ‘You can drink whatever you like, it does you no good or bad, you simply enjoy the memory of the darjeeling that once was.’