Categories: uncategorized
Date: 17 September 2007 14:17:02
I visited a ghost town.
I hadn't really thought of it in those terms when I was arranging my visit. I had started to work out that there was nobody living there as I mentally worked through my list of people I associated with that town and realized that each one of them was now somewhere else. But that left me expecting an empty town, so it was quite a surprise as I walked around the town to be accosted by so many ghosts. Ghosts with very definite, fixed locations. At times it felt like each building I passed had its own ghost who would leap out at me. I passed one house and was accosted by the ghost of the girl I knew for many years and who lived in the hostel based in that house just before she completely lost the plot, grew a beard and lived in a tent on the beach. Then I passed the boarded-up shop where the comic book readers would get their weekly fixes and the ghost of Jim came out at me, reminding me in turn of the funny time when he himself was scared witless by the apparition of a very different sort of ghost. Going down a flight of steps I had to step aside to avoiding tripping over the ghost of a broken student who was sat contemplating what his future might be having just had exam results which seemed to ensure that his university career was over. A little later I walked by another flat and was accosted by the ghost of the girl who spent a couple of weeks seducing me, culminating in her cuddling me in that flat, before she lost interest (probably despairing at the fact that I hadn't remotely noticed what she was up to, but more likely because her approach to relationships was akin to a goldfish's approach to its castle). Some of the happiest days of my life were spent in that town (though definitely not in that flat) and now it's just ghosts. I guess that's a sign of how I've moved on. Those good times did their job - they changed my personality in a very positive way - and now their work is done I don't need to cling onto them any longer.