Haunted

By Sruthi Nambiar

He is a haunted man. The ghost of his estranged wife haunts him. He feels her. She is standing  behind him, watching him. Sometimes, she appears in the mirror, always missing when he goes for  a second glance. Sometimes he even sees her in the corner of his eyes. Every instance he spots her,  she is smiling at him. 

It freaks him out. No one else seems to see her. No one else seems to react when her ghostly form  is in the room. He wonders if it is all in his head. He wonders if he is losing his mind.  

Except. Except if this was all inside his head, he would see his wife at the age he knew her. The  lady he sees is one he has never met. She is from a time before him, a person only seen through  photographs that he paid little attention to. Now, that is the only face of hers he has.  

She took her things when they separated, and her family took possession of them when she  passed. They did not let him keep anything. They did not inform him of her passing. He could not  attend her funeral.  

When they separated, he got the house they built their life in. Staying there haunts him. The  spaces present that she used to fill, chokes him. The sounds she made echoed in the rooms. He  cannot escape it.  

Yet he does not leave. He misses her. He has been missing her since they separated. He misses  her insights and advice, her witty jokes and sharp words. He misses her companionship and the  discussions they had. If he can have her by being haunted, he accepts the haunting.  

The only item of hers that he possesses is her letters. He rereads them, hoping to hear her again.  He strains his ears for words said by a ghost.  

He is a haunted man. All he has are the words she wrote. The words she left behind. The stars she  loved took her from him. She is among them in the sky while he remains on the ground.

By Sruthi Nambiar