Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Neil the Moderately Easygoing Ghost

There is an apartment complex (well simple really) across the road from the cafe I frequent.  No matter what the day or the weather there is always a ute, truck or van moving stuff in or out.  It can't just be natural wastage, there aren't that many flats in the building.  Obviously something is going on and I'm pretty sure I know what it is.  The apartment block is haunted.  After all there's nothing like the presence of tormented souls from beyond the grave to prompt a high tenant turnover.  Considering the housing shortage in Sydney its difficult to imagine anything else it could be.  Crappy building work or unbearable neighbours wouldn't prompt people to move.  In Sydney unless the roof actually falls in or the neighbours are selling heroin out of your living room then you stay where you are.

So, ghosts huh?  I have never believed in them but the evidence of the moving vans seems pretty incontrovertible.  One normally associates the presence of ghosts with some deep rooted emotional or physical trauma; a particularly grisly murder for example or a shattered love affair or missing the final episode of Glee.  In Sydney its more likely to be because the ghosts can't find anywhere better to move on to either.  Anyway I don't buy the entire haunting the scene of some horrible occurrence in your life.  If I was a ghost I would haunt somewhere I enjoyed (sorry Ash you're going to be stuck with me for a lot longer than you thought).

It's always possible that the ghosts are those gloomy self destructive types who hang around a place they hate simply so they have a reason to be angry.  This is probably the case with poltergeists who tend to make a lot of noise and smash things up.  Come to think of it's possible a couple of my neighbours are poltergeists.

Some people suggest that ghosts hang around because they have some unfinished business to attend to.  I don't think that's particularly likely myself.  For starters we all die with unfinished business (unless we are very, very organised).  Secondly if I were dying with unfinished business my prevailing thought as the darkness took me would probably be something along the lines of  "thank God somebody else has to deal with that now".  I rather suspect that I wouldn't make a particularly good ghost.  There I would be haunting somewhere I enjoyed being in a quiet an unobtrusive manner steadfastly refusing to worry about the things I failed to complete during my lifetime.  The more I think about it, its entirely possible I have been a ghost for the last few years.  I must buy myself a white sheet and some chains.

Not that that has anything to do with my being a ghost.

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