In one aspect, yes, I believe in ghosts, but we create them. We haunt ourselves, and sometimes we do such a good job, we lose track of reality.
//Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls
After the end of the world, all anyone wants to talk about is the past.
She can’t blame them really. The future is such a tenuous, muddy concept and the present is dreary and tedious all at the same time; the past is safe. Comforting.
And terrible, of course.
Because every story is essentially the same – a sad sort of apocalypse themed mad libs, except that she can generally fill in all the blanks:
You had loved ones. It didn’t matter if you thought you had few or many – once the plague hit the only thing that really stuck out to you was the fact that you realized that you cared about far more people than you initially thought. Each time someone got sick you hoped that it wouldn’t take them – that somehow, they would recover. It never worked out that way. You thought you’d get used to it, after a while, but each death was harder to take – perhaps because it meant you were closer to being alone. After you’d stood vigil for your last loved one, you laid down or curled up in fetal position or smashed your fist into every hard surface you could find, screaming, praying, hoping that it would finally take you, too. Obviously that didn’t happen, because here you are, telling your story. Because, of course, eventually you mustered up all of your inner strength and forced yourself out of bed, or away from the bottle, or through the haze of sadness and realized that you couldn’t possibly be the only one left alive and began looking for other survivors.
At this point of the story, they’ll look up at her, hopeful and expectant. She will murmur some comforting words and tell them how brave they’ve been. She will say that they are safe, now, and won’t have to worry about being alone. Then she’llsend them on their way, to whatever cleared out home space they’ve been assigned to, with a kind word and a gentle reminder that they should come to her if they have any questions or issues.
Some stay, integrate, take to the new living arrangements – more cramped, more manual labor, but filled with the laughter of children and the promise of tomorrow. But others – others only flit about, filled with nervous, anxious energy. She sees them do double-takes to people they pass on the streets, watches as they catch themselves before accidentally calling strangers by the names of long-dead loved ones. Their movements are listless and lank. They’re tethered to the past, even though the past is dust-filled agony. She knows that these ones will not stay – they will go on from this place, continuing to tell their stories to other strangers they meet and leave, to God above, to themselves – fighting to keep the past with them. She always feels sadness when she sees them leave, in the dead of night or furtively during mealtimes. In her mind, she tells herself that perhaps they will find what they’re looking for elsewhere beyond this place; in her heart she knows they will not. They are chasing ghosts of what could’ve been, what might’ve happened, how they feel their stories should’ve ended. They are haunted by their own memories – and comforted by them, too. And because of this, they will never leave them and will never be able to march towards the future.
Navel Gazing 