“I think I’ll call you Juliet.” It was his best pick-up line, which he accentuated by sliding his business card towards the blonde bombshell Hollywood bars were known to attract. Romeo M, the name at the bottom read, his cell phone number strategically scrawled on the back before the start of the night.
The girl’s only response was a cursory glance in his direction, a cockeyed expression painted on her face, and a return to her order. He didn’t dare push the matter; she was out of his league anyway, most likely going back to a table occupied by professional athletes. The thought was comforting.
She walked away and Romeo recycled his business card. He hadn’t paid much for the few he had printed out, but it seemed like such a waste to let the card soak in spilled tequila and imported beer. He turned back to his glass and realized it was empty so he pulled out his wallet to grab some more cash, but only found a week old receipt.
Unable to leave a tip, he slipped out of his chair and crept out of the bar. Outside he spotted the bombshell, drink in hand, approaching a pasty faced youth with wildly tousled hair and eyes like the dead. Romeo was the best lover the world had ever seen and he was doomed to spend the night alone, his left hand the only witness to the quality of his love.
“You don’t expect me to do this, do you?” Tears threatened at the corner of Pierre’s eyes as the memory of his loss returned to him. His superior’s audacity only spurred his anger, the last fortification against his grief. He looked down in disbelief at the assignment he had been given.
“We’ve known for quite some time that you have been visiting her Pierre. You’ve become enslaved by the very revenant we fight to expel. She is but a pale shadow of your wife, you must see this. You must let her go.”
“I can’t lose her, not again.” His anger faltered, his superior’s words were too infallible to refute. He had to let her go, and the only way to do it would be to Reave her ghost.
“By allowing her to haunt, you dishonor her memory and condemn her to Purgatory. Help her find her way to peace Pierre. I know you can.”
His resolve broke, the tears began to fall like the soldiers of his anger, tossed from the ramparts to meet their death, the final bastion overrun by the warriors of his grief. His superior wrapped her motherly arms around him and spoke into his ear. “You couldn’t be there for her when she died Pierre. As a Reaver, you can help guide her soul to its resting place and bring closure to the wound in your heart. This is your second chance.”
What she said was true. It did not however, stop the tears.
I used to be very lonely,
and always afraid of the dark.
I used to have bad night terrors,
of frightful monsters lurking near.
Their breath held the stench of my fear.
As a child, I always fed them,
while cowering under the sheets.
That is when I learned to escape.
At night, while lying in my bed,
I would lift off, crash through ceiling,
after ceiling, after ceiling,
through to the top of the building,
until I was held high above
by stray gusts; watched by blinking stars.
I would find solace in the breeze,
so high no creature could reach me
but the birds and mighty dragons.
The din from the streets below would
sing their ghetto lullaby, and
the moon would gently tuck me in.
And then, as I drift off to sleep,
the bed would slowly descend; down
through the top of the building, down
through ceiling after ceiling, and
finally back into my room.
The fear of night ignored… for now.
