Jenny Hart

I thought ghosts could slip in through cracks, even ones as big as Amelia. At night, she curls her fingers around the railings and pulls herself up to my first floor flat. She folds down small enough to fit back into my life, squeezing through the open balcony doors. I don’t think she fits the front door anymore. Not that it matters. My intercom is broken so I couldn’t have buzzed her in anyway. 

Tonight, she is agitated, fidgeting on the sofa with her head pressed up to the ceiling. I lock the doors and draw the curtains, hiding from the giant ghosts less lucky than Amelia. They wander the town at night, peering in houses, eventually huddling together in the children’s play area where they howl until dawn. We usually put something on the telly and turn up the sound. The alkie next door pounds on the walls then plays drum and bass to drown us out. His ghost hangs around in the courtyard, tapping at his window, making a noise that sounds like Dad.

Amelia writhes, trying to get comfortable. I think she’s grown. The woman on the news says the ghosts keep expanding because they don’t have a physical body to constrain them, but I don’t think Amelia has ever let her body constrain her. When she stepped out on stage, she wasn’t Amelia with the walking stick. She was a scarlet lipped Ophelia. Desdemona in a handkerchief hem skirt. A pink haired punk rock Lady Macbeth. She filled the theatre. I miss the weight of her, the sound of her heartbeat, even the gurgle of her stomach. She sits silently now, watching a television we can’t hear over the noise from next door and the growing groans in the park.

The gas fire has warmed the room enough to make me wonder if I should test the battery in the carbon monoxide alarm, but I just make a mental note to check tomorrow even though I know I won’t. I never do. Instead, I disappear into Amelia, like sinking into a bed of moss. I slip inside her skin, and my world becomes her tattoos. We are carp swimming beneath the shadows of chrysanthemums. Under the water I can forget the last time I saw her alive. I forget I made her promise not to visit her ex. I forget her careless photo on Instagram. My text messages. The silent weeks that lasted until the comet. Until the rain of fire and the screams and the buckets of wedding rings used to identify the dead. Amelia’s wasn’t there. I guess she stopped wearing hers.

I forget everything in that hollow time until her ghost came home to me, and I let her in, swapping warm air for her presence. In the mornings, I only know she’s been here because she has turned off the fire and left the curtains open.

Jenny’s prompts were: Following a Disaster, a Performer, a Tattoo

Jenny Hart is a writer from England who loves a dark or unusual short story. She has previously contributed to ‘Trash Cat Lit’ as well as ‘Urban Pigs’, ‘Frazzled Lit’ and ‘Hotch Potch Literature and Art’. When Jenny isn’t writing, you can find her walking in the local countryside. Probably lost. She lives across the road from a cemetery, with her two cats, Jason and Jeff. You can follow Jenny on Instagram, Bluesky and Twitter/X using @JennyHart2001

Read more from Jenny:

Here on Trash Cat Lit – ‘Shopping For Two‘
Urban Pigs Press – ‘Old Bones‘
Frazzled Lit – ‘One Thousand Origami Cranes on Neptune‘