The Ghost by Constance Mello
Photo by Loc Dang for Pexels
The keys hit the grey ground with a muted jingle. Ophelia bent to reach for them, expecting her back to tense up like it usually does when she stretches down, but the movement was fluid, like she was floating through the air. Her hand never met the ground, however. Instead it pushed right through it, and through the keys.
Ophelia jumped back up, confused. Reached for the doorknob in front of her, but it flew through her hand again. She reached for the door, aiming for a solid push, but her whole body followed, and she was standing in the foyer of the building, with the trash can and the mail boxes.
She floated towards her front door, the ground floor apartment to the left. The white door painted over with plasticky paint posed no resistance, and she was inside in a flash, looking down the wood-floored hallway at the bookshelf on the back wall. Through the second door she could hear Sofia singing a song in Hindi, probably procrastinating on an essay.
Ophelia was curious about this new form, though it felt strangely familiar to her. Would Sofia be able to see her? Could she touch some things, and not others? What was true of this ghostly form?
She took one step forward, still not used to her lightness of foot. She stood at the door frame, unable to lean against it like she usually would. Sofia was still singing, but then turned to look, as if directly at her. But much like everything else, the stare went right through her, to the kitchen behind. And then she turned back to face the computer screen, still humming the song that was now coming to a close.
It was like embodiment had simply flaked off her, like dry skin at the end of a long winter. It wasn’t altogether bad. She had never been fully comfortable within herself, her awkward shape and lumpiness. Maybe ghostliness was the form she had always meant to occupy.
Sofia closed the door, with Ophelia still inside. She kept looking around, like there was something eerie. It took Ophelia surprisingly long to realize she was the eerie thing Sofia was feeling. Did it feel cold? Like a breeze?
Maybe it was warm, like when the oven is on, preheating. Or maybe it felt more abstract than that, like a song. A melody, a radio-wave.
Sofia turned off the light, and Ophelia traveled through the thick wall into her own room. The lights were off, but darkness didn’t matter anymore. Her immaterial eyes were adjusted to the darkness, like the colors had changed but the brightness was still the same.
She held her hands in front of her, to test her sight, what her pale hands must look like in this dark. But they were gone, along with her eyes, her green army jacket. Her belly was gone, and her legs. She stood in front of the mirror across from the bed, but there was nothing. The dotted Christmas lights clung to the frame, sad in their uselessness. Lights want to be on.
Walking with the knowledge of her disappearance was freedom, for a while. She wandered the streets, floated up trees, dove into pools of dirt and lived amongst the dormant worms.
Up and down Main Street, Ophelia floated into the kebab store and took a long look at the food, the garlic paste and fried falafel. Wandered into the Turkish supermarket, fleetingly reached for the zucchini. She couldn’t touch them.
She tried going up, flying, flying. But there was no feeling of resistance, no hair whipping around her face, no cold chilling her teeth. When the city was far below, dotted with lights, Ophelia kept going, up and up and away.
She faded into the atmosphere like pollution, like light. Among the satellites frozen in time, in between existence and void. Not a meteor, not a star. Omnis cellula e cellula.
Constance Mello
Constance Mello (she/her) is a Brazilian scholar, writer, and teacher. She graduated with a degree in Cultural Studies and Gender Studies from the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, and is currently pursuing a dual Master’s Degree in English and Creative Writing. She writes about migration, identity, love, and loss, and has been published in The Ilanot Review, Fearless She Wrote, Latinx Lit Mag, and elsewhere.