Prose I wrote in May 2005 and reworked over the past two day

Ghost Man Hiding.

The path winds past tombstones and onto the house. Old house, heavy with dust. Parts of the interior had never seen the light. Long forgotten. He lived in this house in spirit only. He was hiding.

When he was younger he would sit inside an old wooden box in the corner of the first floor room. He would sit for hours, still and quiet, his hand on its lid that leant against the wall. This was before the house was forgotten and before the darkness engulfed it’s rooms. From inside this box he felt his dark self could live, his light self could die peacefully.

Many years later he lay down amongst the musty old newspapers that lined the bottom of the box. Face turned upwards he would stare without seeing.


When he hears the footsteps coming he is soaked in a delicious feeling of danger and enticed by the courage of the approaching steps. He feels a sharp uptake of power owing to his clandestine position. Deep inside his box he wishes he could experience these lost feelings forever. But he can’t, the footsteps will eventually turn away and walk back. He will be still barren and still dead.

The path winds past tombstones and onto the house. Old house heavy with dust. I wander down this path never knowing where I’m really going. Or what I am heading towards. You lie safe inside your box with nothing to confess. Silent. You’ve nothing to hope for. Yet inside this dark death you have begun to feel. And if you lift the lid it would no longer be death, it would be life. The whites of your eyes would flicker and their black centers would see again.



I step through the front door into the dark. It’s not at all like I had once imagined it would be. There is no life in here, there is only death. But death is different here. It can move and it can see and it feels.
Unrestricted.

A dream is a ghost in your life.

So many of these. Ghosts, you could call them, but they have never been dead.

I ran through the unexplored house. I ran through the apprehension, and through the fear. 
Lurking, he was always lurking. I stopped in a small room at the top of the staircase. It had a large, wide window with dusty cotton curtains. I flung them open and stood blinking. The window blackened almost to the top; moldy gnarled branches and rotting leaves blocked nearly all of the sunlight. Only at the top did it shine through, bleaching the ceiling but leaving the bottom of the room cold and dank. Nature was smothering his house in green. From this side of the glass it seeming so black and dirty but from outside it would have pure beauty.

Room now all unused. I walked past he dirty furniture, past the apprehension, and past the fear. He was still lurking

I see your coffin. I know where you’re hiding. I can lift up the lid and make you come out. Do you want me to?

Word and art...Virtue Fern. Reworked 1-2 april 2009