Sylvester

Dance

Twenty minutes later, as I woke up from a terrifying nightmare in a cold sweat, the air smelled sweet. Clean. "Where was the pizza and vanilla smell?'' As I got up, several fans blew horrendous hot air into my face. The window was open blowing the drapes in a beautiful wave of sparkling navy.

"I thought you might stop fainting if you were cooler. When I died, it was winter so I'm always cold. I couldn't tell." Sylvester called from a far room. "Will you just stop fainting for a minute. I wish to explain myself."

"Why do you have an accent?" Skepticism boomed in my voice. "You a transfer student or-"

He walked through the wall. "I forgot to mention that I was born to a moderately rich family in France. I lived there until my parents died and my little sister and I came to New York to live with our relatives. I was only 12.... I straightened up the washroom, you left it quite a mess." One thing I did know about this Sylvester character was he was straightforward, ghost or not.

"I'm very sorry. You said you got the flu," he materialized," How did no one else get sick in your family? And why do you keep materializing and then going translucent?" Starting to believe the words he was saying scared me.

His expression went grim. "They quarantined me, "he gestured to the room, "in my room. I didn't even get to say goodbye." A single tear falls down his cheek and my defenses fail. I was so compelled to get up and wipe it off his face. His skin was cool to the touch, like a pane of glass. He smiled and felt my hand on his face. "Can I tell you why I showed up now?"

I nodded. He turned on the music, took my hand and my waist and began to do waltz sort of thing. "What the hell am I doing?! Dancing with a stranger?!" I screamed internally but nothing came out but the melody to the song. He joined in singing the harmony pulling me closer. A spin turned into a dip which left me dangling over the bed.

He went translucent. I fell onto the bed hitting my head on the backboard. "Oh my, are you all right? I can only "materialize" as you say for a certain amount of time. I'm not human anymore." That was the moment I accepted it.

Ghosts were real.

My mind drew a blank searching and scanning for a rebuttal but all I could say was "thank you" and "What happened to the scent of the house?"

"I didn't just clean the bathroom, I did the whole house."

And with that, the front door unlocked.