i come out of my room. juliet is there, in the corridor between my room and the other one. he's still wearing his old green shirt with the white collar, and he's still got his messy dishwater-blond hair covering his eyebrows. i used to tell him he was cute. he never believed me, but i did, and i still do.
— hey.
i try not to look at his eyes. i don't like looking at most eyes, but especially his eyes. they bleed. all the time. it's ghost blood, so it doesn't get on the floor or anything, and i don't think it hurts him, but his eyes just bother me more than other people's eyes do.
i look at his mouth instead. it helps me listen.
« good morning, » he tells me again.
— yeah. it's saturday, isn't it?
« of course. »
i waddle out to the kitchen and grab the tall mason jar of oatmeal. i struggle to open it. i'm probably sick again and it's in my hands now — but then i do always have trouble opening jars. i get a bright yellow ceramic bowl to pour the oatmeal into.
« what's for breakfast? » asks the second poltergeist. there's a red noise in his voice, like a static-y radio in another room.
he lived in the flat after juliet died, and persisted with juliet after his own death. he was older than both of us when he died. he's younger in ghost terms, though. his name is william.
« what's for breakfast? » william asks again. he passes in front of me, tinting my field of view with the orange of his baggy ghostly t-shirt.
— oatmeal with fruit, i reply. breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
« you know you don't need to eat anymore, right? » he asks. « maybe it's time to change the morning routine a bit. »
— i'm still hungry. i'm not that dead yet.
i stare at the opened jar and the bowl. something's wrong. something is horribly, horribly wrong. something is missing. something is missing from my breakfast. breakfast is the most important meal of the day. i will miss breakfast and i will die. how will i freelance and pay the rent then? there are different income tax rules for ghosts. i will have to learn that, and all the other ghost-specific laws. where will i go to learn them? who will teach me? what if i don't learn them all in time?
« did you put the kettle on? » william asks.
— no, not yet.
i should probably go do that. i frown and nod, and william nods too.
i put the kettle on. something's wrong again. i take the kettle off, put water in it, and put the kettle back on. i wait for the water to boil.
« you don't have to stare at it like that, » william says. « doesn't make it go any faster. »
he passes his translucent hand through the kettle, back and forth.
— does it hurt, when you do that?
« neh, not really. i can kinda feel the water moving, though. »
the water boils, eventually. i take a crocheted potholder and take the kettle off the electric stove. i carefully pour the steaming water into the bowl that contains my oatmeal.
i take a golden wooden spoon with a little fleur-de-lis burnt into the handle. i did that. i decorated this spoon and four others during a workshop. this one is the tablespoon, and the others are the half, the third, the fourth, and the sixteenth of a tablespoon, respectively.
« that's hardly enough, » william teases.
— i like it thick, i reply, mashing my oatmeal around with my spoon. it's the consistency of modelling clay. i pick out an individual oat and taste it. it's not quite cooked, and very chewy. i take a spoonful of oatmeal and put it in my mouth.
something's missing again.
the fruit is missing. we keep the fruit in a huge sturdy reed basket on the thick glass countertop. this week i managed to buy some bananas; they were cheap and oddly curved, and they were a bit soft and bruised. bananas go well with oatmeal, i guess. i saw banana flavoured instant oatmeal in the convenience stores, so i figured it wasn't a completely absurd combination.
i reach in the basket and get the bananas. i take one banana off the whole hand, and i peel it. i use my spoon to slice it and aim the pieces into the bowl of oatmeal. some of the slices don't make it into the bowl, so i just eat them.
i go back to the pantry and take the tall mason jar of light brown sugar. i have to get on the countertop to grab it. i wish william could touch things, so he could grab it for me, since he's pretty tall, at least compared to me. i measure four feet and ten inches, so most people who aren't children are taller than me. william tried to get something for me once and he managed to nudge a jar all the way to the edge of the shelf and crash it onto the floor. then he got really upset. i wish william could touch things, so he could touch me, and i could have patted him reassuringly. i don't think it's as reassuring when your arms just go right through. maybe i could have hugged him. he looks like he would have been nice to hug; he looks soft.
i put two tablespoons of sugar in my oatmeal.
« do you want your teeth to rot faster than the rest of you? » juliet asks.
— fuck you, i mumble, and add another tablespoon.
« no thanks, » juliet replies. « i have better things to do. » he fades into the wall.
i walk away from the pantry cabinet and into the living room. it's not really a room. there's a row of pots of tall cacti alternating with pots of easter lilies separating the sitting space from the food preparation space of the flat. the living room has a low rattan couch with a white cotton cushion and three large embroidered floral throw pillows. it also has a low coffee table on which i have put my tea things because i don't really like coffee. it's a tea table now.
there's a corkboard framed in navy blue wood with bevelled corners. it's on the same wall as the door to the flat. this wall is perpendicular to the couch and parallel to the row of indoor plants. i look at the corkboard, and the pale brown paper notes attached to it. today, no-one is counting on me to be anywhere. it's the weekend, so i don't have any classes. some new podcast episodes have come out during the week, and i finally have time to listen to them.
juliet floats over to my right. « no appointments today, i see. perfect time to go and scrub the tiles, don't you think? it's been a month and i am not satisfied with the work you did with the bathroom the last time. »
— ces taches, je ne peux pas les effacer.
« get some muriatic acid at the general store, » he says, turning to me.
i wish he would shut up about the bathroom, really. i'll get to it when i feel like it. plus i can't kneel that easily anymore, so i don't look forward to scrubbing the tiles again. ever.
— i don't want to go to the general store. ich muss aber so weit laufen und dem verkäufer gefalle ich nicht.
juliet shivers; his form ripples like a puddle in a storm. « none of that demon tongue around me. »
— it's called german, and they call gloves hand-shoes. it's cute!
juliet rolls his eyes and sighs.
i smirk at him.
— fine, fine, muriatic acid, i say. i guess we have to keep up appearances now?
i pick up one of the blue pens hanging from white ribbons pinned to the corkboard, and write ‘HCl’ on my shopping list.
“oh,” someone says.
i turn around.
i had forgotten that i had a flatmate now. after my knees started malfunctioning, the poltergeists and i thought it would be safer if i had a flatmate, so i put up an ad for one. she's a transfer student from one of the private colleges, if i remember correctly.
the flatmate is draped in her blue cotton comforter with cartoon stars, which hides her lavender pyjamas. she is holding a bright red mug of strong-smelling coffee in her right hand. her dark hair, indigo at the ends, is a beautiful mess of waves around her round, freckled face.
the stars on her comforter have faces on them. why do the stars have faces on them, and why these oddly realistic cherub faces with these round, blushing cheeks?
« oh, good morning, dear, » juliet says.
i eat another spoonful of my oatmeal and frown at the smell of her coffee.
“i'm — sorry,” she says. “i'm gonna go back to my room now.”
— do you want oatmeal? i ask.
she walks out of the living room. i turn back to the corkboard, and wonder where i messed up. maybe she's allergic to oatmeal and i upset her.
i sit on the couch and put my bowl on the tea table. i reach down to adjust my shorts and remember that i've just woken up and don't have any shorts on yet. in the mornings i usually don't care to put on anything besides what i've already slept in, and i don't sleep in much. right now that's just an opaque pastel pink bralette and lace-trimmed boyshorts printed with pink lions.
maybe that was what upset her.
i should ask her what her name is again before lunch.
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