Dandelion-Utilitarian

Fiction post: The Ghost.

The ghost sat alone in his chair as it slowly spun in the ambient draft of the cold office. He was contemplating the wasted hours spent playing video games, making videos, and trying to build a community. The ghost was alone because the body he had once been attached to was currently out in the world. He didn’t care where—it could have been anywhere, really. The ghost gave no thought to where the body had gone, only that it was absent.

The ghost dragged the mouse around the desk like a caveman dragging a rock along the wall of a cave to make rudimentary artistic etchings. The ghost had far less lofty goals; he simply scrolled through Reddit for a bit and then checked in on some of the more problematic social networks. After a while, feeling ghastly, the ghost decided to check the comments on his ghost-ship of a YouTube channel. The ghost still cared about the channel—the remnants of things that could have been. He reflected on the fact that he had once been a quadruple-Z-list internet person of interest. He wanted to feel good about that, to reclaim some of the faded glory and paint it onto his ghostly form in hopes of using it to become a body of his own—maybe even become somebody.

The body, blissfully unaware of the ghost, came home and sat down in the chair. To the ghost’s surprise, they did not merge into one entity as they usually did.

The body made himself a cup of coffee. The ghost hated that—he preferred tea. The annoyingly content meat sack then opened the computer and started tapping away at some writing he had been working on. After a few hours and another cup of coffee, the body, fatigued but satisfied, put his feet on the desk.

The ghost was thrilled; this was usually where he was needed. The melancholy of the room usually soaked in once the creative urge subsided. Being a persistent ghost, he began pulling memories from the “good old days” and dropping them into the body, hoping to steer things in the usual direction.

The task appeared to be complete when the body made a harrumph sound and waved the cloud of images away with a hand, as if dismissing a bad smell.

“This is it! This is where I get back in the driver’s seat,” the ghost boomed excitedly.

To his shock, the body had not slipped on the cliff-top of memories. It had not allowed the dirty wine of nostalgia to shove him off the ledge into the water and rocks below, as had happened so many times before.

Instead, the body simply pulled out his iPad and drew—badly—for a while. While drawing, he watched some TV and thought about how rewarding his terrible drawing felt. He had a pipe dream of one day being good enough to make a comic based on a story he had once written. He knew it was unlikely he would ever develop the skill or find the time, but, to the ghost’s dismay, there was no darkness at the edges of this vignette of a thought. The body was cheerful about having a goal, no matter how lofty and unattainable it seemed. He didn’t even mind that he had lost more time than he had intended and now needed to go to bed.

“Aha!” the ghost exclaimed, readying himself to siege the body’s dreams. This was where the melancholic dose of nostalgic poison would make the middling times pop like ’90s cartoons, and the sadness of unrewarding endeavours would feel like missed opportunities. The ghost sharpened his stick and sat next to the body in wait.

Dismay became almost a solid form when the body played with his dog for a quarter of an hour, then read a leather-bound book for a bit.

“Okay, I can wait!” seethed the spiteful ghost.

The body lay down, and the ghost looked over, stick at the ready. He lunged into the body and stabbed wildly, dropping nostalgic memories like napalm in the movies. He stabbed so hard that the stick broke. This didn’t stop him. He used the two halves of the stick like drumsticks and played a solo as if he were Neil Peart on stage, live in Tokyo!

The body snored happily. The dog farted and pulled the blanket over himself.

Maybe the ghost would like having a dog’s body… No, never mind, he got bit.

Morning came, and the body told the dog about his dreams of the good times. He then told the dog that the so-called “good times” were probably part of an ongoing depression—his dad’s ill health, his failed marriage, and his lack of direction in life.

“What changed?” the dog asked.

“Don’t even pretend you care—you’re a dog. Let’s go find you some breakfast,” the body said as the two of them raced down the stairs in search of better things, oblivious to the ghost.

That evening, the ghost again sat in wait. This time, the body had no plans and sat in the office chair as he often did. He worked on his writing and drank coffee, again to the ghost’s dismay.

This time, though, the ghost managed to push an idea into the body—just one little morsel of an idea, but it was something. The body stopped in its tracks, contentment evaporating like steam from a kettle. The ghost felt himself settling in again and embraced both the body and the sense of relief.

He was quite surprised, though, when the body moved without his consent. The memories began to backwash and infect him, like a dry sponge dropped into a bath.

“Oh, matey!” the ghost screamed as he was consumed for a time in the bubbles.

The memories that seeped into him were alien and disjointed. First came the memory of the hours spent making YouTube videos. The body, unlike the ghost, did not prefix the word “wasted” to the memory. The body was grateful for the time spent learning things and articulating thoughts. He knew that experience had built both his dedication to projects and his critical thinking skills.

The next memory was of building a community around the videos. Where the ghost had repeatedly said “trying to build,” the body was satisfied that he had connected people who otherwise would not have met. He had given a safe haven to long-forgotten servers and kept friendships alive. There had never been an explosion of bad feelings or missed chances. The body simply saw the community as something that had enhanced his life when he had needed not to feel so alone.

Then the body reflected back at the ghost the previous night’s drum-beating and nostalgia-stabbing, but without the framing of loss. The body had altered the memories, stripping away the sepia fade and the scented candles of overthinking. The body showed him the memories again—years spent tinkering with computers for the simple joy of it, years of playing video games as a way to pass time, and the strange desire to “be someone” through these endeavours.

The tinkering had not been wasted time but a source of joy. The decades of games were now looked back on with love, even if they could have been spent differently. And the body no longer saw the desire to “be someone” as failed—it was simply amusing. The body did not want to be anyone other than himself, for an audience of one.

The ghost sat stunned and frozen. All his hard work, all his rage, hate, desire, and lust had diffused—without the body even knowing how hard he had worked.

Then the ghost realised something that terrified him.

The final brick in the wall of his cold, cavern-like prison among the body’s distant, useless memories…

The body was happy now.

The body didn’t need the things the ghost had once offered.

And worst of all… the body didn’t believe in ghosts.

Chess. I forgot about it.

When I was a kid, chess appeared to be a game of magic. The mere concept of it captivated me. However, I must admit that this fascination was partly because of my limited exposure to the game, as I had primarily learned about chess through cartoon magicians, old fantasy movies, and this one artefact in my home.

The artefact in question was a small table, far too short to be useful. It was crafted from dark brown wood and had ornate, wavey legs. The top was so shiny that it resembled glass to me—it was a glossy, polished wooden chessboard. I distinctly remember that it lifted up to reveal a green felt lining that held the delicate chess pieces safe.

I have since been assured by my mother that the chess table was an ugly old thing with a loose leg and plastic chess pieces. It wasn’t highly polished at all; it was just slightly shiny because it was plastic on the top.

My dad taught me the basics of the game, although I don’t recall him ever having any interest in it. From what I understand, the table was more of a common early eighties home decoration than a sign of enthusiasm for the game. I had a feeling it was more often used to hold wine glasses it was than used to play on.

I have no idea what happened to that old table. It might be somewhere in the spider-infested loft of my home, but I’m not brave enough to embark on that quest.

I owe that table a lot because it was the catalyst for a promise I made to myself, a promise to learn chess someday. This idea has been lingering in my mind for quite some time now. According to chess.com, I created my account over seven years ago. I believe that it was the last time I reminisced about that table, and my dad trying to teach me how to play.

Over the past year or so, I’ve been playing video games less and less. This has left my mind craving something to occupy a small part of it that demands diversion. I have been writing more, learning to draw and even playing retro video games from my childhood casually, but none of this quite satisfied my craving. Then, a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a chess video on YouTube by sheer chance. One video led to two and two videos led to five hours of chess lessons in the Doctor Wolf Chess tutor app. In these few weeks, I’ve learned more about chess than I ever have, in my entire life, until now.

I have spent time doing puzzles, lessons and games on chess.com and lichess.org and even purchased a cheap physical board to attempt to tempt my daughter into playing with me. I have been watching the currently happening freestyle chess grand slam, video tutorials and reading books on the topic. I’m having an amazing time with something I’ve been certain I would enjoy since childhood, but somehow, before now, I never quite made time for it.

I wonder how many of you reading have things like this in your lives—things you always thought you’d make time for but haven’t done yet. My advice to you is to give it a try. Make time for a new hobby or interest. Years ago, I could have been enjoying chess if I had just made some time for something I was interested in, instead of watching Netflix and playing video games that I can’t even remember the names of now.