I showed up exactly two weeks after they moved in. I’d been here for much longer, obviously, but I decided that would be the best moment to show myself. Being a ghost is odd. I’m a poltergeist, which means I’m lucky enough to be able to phase through things or be solid on a whim. So, one January night, when she had opened up the clock and was working on the old thing. She had gotten up to grab a drink, and when she came back I was laying on the floor in front of the clock.

She screamed- pretty standard response, if you ask me. Although it’s not the preferred reaction, I think it’s very rational. But, that was January, now it’s December. At first she ignored me, and then she learned to live with me. She insists that I am bothersome, and that she doesn’t care beyond that. I know she’s lying, but I can keep that to myself. She’s a high-tempered perfectionist, and I trail mistakes everywhere I go. I caused no shortage of problems when I was alive, that’s for sure.

There aren’t many times I wish I was alive again. I’m not saying I like being a ghost, but I’ve accepted it. But it’s the little things- like being able to pick her up and spin her around to celebrate something, or eat the food I can only watch her cook. We talk, a little bit. She’s in New York, and her parents are in Seattle. They’re Doctors, and they don’t really do Christmas. The rest of her family lives in Bengal, so she’s alone. Except for me, but I’m not much use. Still, she decorated her bookshop and her home. We’re in her bedroom, and she has a glass of wine in hand.

We’ve finished sex, and getting myself sentient enough to do that is extremely taxing. But she wants to talk, so, even as I lay face-down in her pillow, I let her ask me questions. The only one that really breaks through, is when she asks me what I did for Christmas when I was alive. I try to think about it- when I wasn’t working or in class. I was either blazed or drunk off my ass. Plus, death makes some earlier memories of my life fuzzy and hard to recall- like they’re just dancing outside of my grasp.