The Ordinary Haunting

16. The Dark Blue - Part 2

I tilted my head while looking at a set of mismatched photographs hung on the wall. Even though the angle seemed quite dramatic, the way they appeared in my vision wasn't all that changed. Perhaps it was the muted lighting and the blue glow, or perhaps my eyes were working really hard to keep the image upright. I scuttled my hand along the table beside me until it caught the loop of my camera strap. I dragged the Leica (my one extravagant act of pride) to my lap, felt out the edges until I was holding it properly, then raised it to my chin. Once the cold of the silver tapped my skin, I lined it up flush with my face and snapped a picture. When I pulled it away and looked at the result, there it was: the drastic diagonals of the frames, the upset logic of the pictures -- the changes I expected to see when I forced my view so far astray. I smiled and took a second picture of the photographs, tilted the opposite way. Flicking between them on the screen, I had the impatient urge to print them out and look at them side-by-side.

"So all you're seeing is this, like, possessed camera tangoing in mid-air?"

"Something like that."

"That's so fucking wild."

I caught Guy's eye as he played with a glass of beer, sloshing it to the edges and back. He perked up and slid the glass in my direction. I raised my eyebrows at him.

"What happens if you drink it?"

I picked up my phone and read aloud as I typed, so both of them would 'hear' me.

[I'll probably have to pee real quick, I guess. I won't be able to proce--]

Guy shook his hands. "No, no, I mean, will Newwiee be able to see the beer going down your throat? Like those pirates? You know, from the Caribbean?"

New breathed in his cola (we hadn't looked into the legality of ghost designated drivers yet...not that I was the most confident driver anyway). I tossed some napkins at him before impulsively capturing a shot of his splotchy face.

[Please don't make me try.] I shuddered. Guy laughed and flopped lazily back in his chair. He scrunched up the hair at his part and stroked the long waves into place.

"Ghost Tay is boring. Did I ever tell you, New, about where we got that dartboard that's on the back wall of the cafeteria?" He clapped New on the back to get him to look up from where he was still dabbing at the cola-spit on his pants.

"C'mon, Guy," I groaned, kicking my feet at him under the table and not bothering to text. "No-one thinks that story's as interesting as you do."

Guy made no move to dodge me. He pouted his lips at me impishly. "I can't feel that, Tay. And I can't give up on this story. It was such a triumph for both of us."

I spotted Earth appear on the stage in the background behind Guy's head. I waved like a twelve-year old. Guy turned around and I took my chance to attempt calling down whatever latent ghost powers I might have available to me that would be capable of Men in Black-ing all of his memories. Of all my casual acquaintances, what was the point of him seeing me? Why did he need to hear my voice, know where I was, and how my face looked? The house lights flashed in a sudden sweep upwards as the assistant on the control panel adjusted them for Earth's performance. Everything burned to white around me.

26-year-old Tay let the heavy white door back him out of the storage room in his 90-degree bow, and 24-year-old Guy watched him closely, hitching the publicist's leg higher around his waist. He winked at Tay just as the door slammed shut and she screamed.

"The pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean weren't ghosts. They were cursed, kind of undead, but not invisible."

I blinked against the blur and found New. He had picked up Guy's beer glass and was frowning at the flat yellow liquid inside. The assistant checked a note and settled on a comfortable, soft dimness to the lighting, brighter than the previous act but still soothing and warm. The blue neons and retro wood and wine red of the present bled back into my focus like watercolour. I stretched out my tensed fingers.