1:22am
1:22 a.m.
“But you’re supposed to tell me ghosts aren’t real.” The boy’s[1] eyes looked closer to one-in-the-afternoon eyes than one-in-the-morning-eyes.
“Well I’ve never seen one, if that helps.”
“It doesn’t, daddy[1]. At all. I don’t want them to be real. I don’t want him[1] to be real. I don’t want right now to be real.”
“Well, while I’m using the word ‘never,’ I have also never heard of anyone being hurt by a ghost. If they’re real, I suspect they are just people who don’t have anywhere else to go. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe we just need to give them somewhere to go.”
“Somewhere far.”
“Well, maybe they can’t make it very far. They can’t eat. Remember how I always say you need to eat some things you don’t like so you have energy to play and run around?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’ll bet ghosts wish they could eat those things so they had enough energy to get to a ghost town where they could live with other ghosts.”
“A ghost town?”
“Sure. There are still some around. They’re places people left, and maybe they are called ‘ghost towns’ because that’s a good place for a ghost to live and pretend to work and all that.”
“You think they want to work? I think they want to play.”
“I’ll bet you’re right. But I’ll bet more than anything, they just want a place to be. A place that is theirs… I have an idea. Let’s build a ghost house.”
“Daddy. I don’t want ghosts.”
“Well. You don’t want sad and lost ghosts. But maybe if we build him a house, he will move into it and be happy.”
“Where will we put a whole house? Can we put it far away?”
“I’m afraid not, monkey. He can’t go far, remember?”
“But where will we put a whole house?”
“Well, it will be small. Like a birdhouse. And we don’t even need to put food in it. Piece of cake. For us, I mean. Ghosts can’t eat.”
The boy giggled against his will. “He won’t fit.”
“Ghosts can make themselves tiny. Everybody knows that.”
They boy considered this as his father sat anxiously, hoping the idea would find traction despite his hollow reasoning on the topic of ghost sizes. Finally he nodded. “Can I paint it?”
“Better than anyone, I think.”
People
Notes
- This segment was revealed on Jan 4, 2013 via tumblr.
