(The story of a girl who killed herself and then decided to blog about it.
shortened for your convenience)
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I killed myself. I did not do it because I was troubled, or because I wanted to stop living. My family was average. I was not abused. I was not bored. I was not bullied. I just felt like it. I just wanted to know what it felt like to shoot yourself in the head.
I don’t think I’m really sorry for what I did. I did not want to die, nor did I not want to die. I just wanted to know. Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. Of course, you don’t get brought back after putting a bullet through the roof of your mouth. You know, if I was able to be brought back I think I’d try a bullet to the temple next time. Too bad you can only die once. That does suck pretty hard, ya know?
Anyway, so I am dead now. Death is interesting, more interesting than life, really. Did you know that when you are dead you can haunt places? Did you know that if you work really hard you can choose where you haunt? Did you know if you try really, really hard you can even manipulate worldly objects?
That’s how you are reading this! Yup, I’m a ghost, and I’m typing up a story. Go figure, right? It is very interesting. Anyway, I live, well, I can’t live; so let’s say “I death”. I death in a library with another ghost. He lost his name a long time ago. He was a young soldier in the Civil War. He was brought to the makeshift hospital (which is the building next door) but died before they could do too much to him. After he died his body was brought to this location, which back then was a mortuary. His soul has stayed on this ground ever since.
According to him, he was not strong enough to pick a new place to haunt until after the mortuary was torn down to build a library. By the time he was strong enough, the library had already been built, and he had become addicted to reading.
The story doesn’t seem that crazy; I mean, that’s how I’m here. I picked a college library in the middle of the Bible Belt, far away from the life I’d known. It’s really not fun watching your friends and relatives grow old. On the other hand, it also kind of sucks watching living kids get a college education. But then again, in the long run, though, I think I am better off.
I can spend all day reading the books in the library, and in the evening I can watch the movies the library has bought to keep the students happy, or browse the internet. I mean, it has been a really long time since I died. It was 2009, and now it is 2109. I’m still happily able to keep up with current events. I always loved the internet. It’s really cool to be able to communicate with people over e-mail and stuff. None of my online friends back then even knew I died, only my real life friends. None of the online friends I have now realize that I am dead either. It is really a lot of fun!
The best part is that I don’t have to share with Billy Bob (that is what I call the ghost I death with). He thinks that computers are haunted (let that sink in a moment, and please, feel free to laugh. I know that I do). It was nearly impossible to get him to sit down and watch movies with me, but now he is addicted! It’s really pretty funny. Eventually I will get him to learn to use a computer. After all, we have eternity together.
I like where I death now. It is a cute little campus. There is even a couple of Civil War graveyards around that I go to visit every so often. Yes, ghosts can visit places. Even when I was alive people thought that ghosts were bound to certain places, but that’s not true. The thing is that not all ghosts are willing to haunt other places except around their decomposing bodies, or where they died, or where they lived, or where they were mortally wounded. I think most living people are about the same. No one really likes change, after all.
The ghosts in the graveyard are a nice bunch. They’re really old fashioned though. They all call me Katie, so does Billy Bob for that matter. I know that’s not the name I had in life. I could go check my grave if I really wanted to. I actually did last year, but then I forgot again. My name really isn’t that important. Here’s a fact for you: all ghosts know where their bodies are, no matter what. They may be able to run all over, but all ghosts know where their bodies are buried, where they died, and the places they lived. The Livings may change everything around. They may even move our bodies, but we will always know. We will know the original spot, and the new spot.
We know everything! Well, not really, I was just teasing. But we do keep up with our bodies!
Back on topic: the graveyard ghosts are nice, but segregated. I feel a bit bad for them. All of them are soldiers who died at the makeshift hospital, like Billy Bob (By the way, Billy Bob’s body is in another state. His family came and claimed him before the locals could bury him in one of the soldiers’ graves). The way the graves are set up is white men in front, black men in back. It really annoys me because they all died for the same plot of earth. Their skin color shouldn’t have mattered at that point. That’s The Livings for you, though! They are nice guys though, the ghosts in the cemetery, that is. They all get along really well now. An eternity of being stuck together can do that to you. Only a few of them have actually decided to go on to the Afterlife, so most of them are still hanging around.
Have I mentioned the Afterlife yet? Ghosts can go whenever we want. Of course, not everyone who dies becomes a ghost; only those who are really scared to die or who have a very dramatic event of a death are made ghosts. This means that no normal person becomes a ghost, only the weird people. You can also become a ghost if you really just want to know what it is like. Most of those people tend to go on to the Afterlife really quickly though. They tend to get bored.
It takes a lot of patience to be able to move outside of the areas where ghosts normally haunt, and it takes even more patience to manipulate worldly items. A lot of ghosts also get really lonely. It can be hard to not be able to communicate with people. If you died in a lonely place with no other ghosts around, then you will be lonely until you can learn to move someplace else.
I was lucky, even though I was stuck haunting my bedroom for a while, because there was another ghost there, the one who haunted my light fixture. He read me the riot act for killing myself, actually. Then he explained the rules of Ghostdom, or Ghosthood (whichever you prefer). These rules are basically everything I’ve told you so far, or will tell you in the future. One cool thing about Ghost rules is that, while they are not flexible, you can learn new ones. There isn’t any one ghost who knows all the rules. I think the light fixture ghost knew most of them, though!
He actually was pretty cool. His name was Bill, and he had chosen to haunt my lights (I actually had kind of figured out that he was there years before) because he thought it’d be fun. He never really told me too much about himself. He stuck around to keep me company until he was sure I knew how to get around, and how to move things. Then he moved on, and so did I. I do regret what my death did to my family. I tried to write them a note once, but they blamed it on my older brother and grounded him, saying the joke was not funny.
I actually was able to get a note to them eventually. I hid it in a shoebox of my stuff. I basically told my parents the truth, but in the form of a suicide note. Well, it was not really a suicide note. I just said that I was going to try something (AKA: killing myself, for those of you who are not paying attention), and if I did kill myself, they shouldn’t feel bad. I just wanted to know what would happen if I shot myself. It made my parents feel better I think; but they were very old by then. My brother was never able to get over it. He got drunk over it and ran his car into a tree. I visit him sometimes. He died near the Main Campus of the school I death at. He decided it would be fun to haunt their athletics department. He writes his own notes on all the coaches’ notes. Don’t tell anyone, but he is the reason their team is unstoppable this season.
You know what’s really cool about living on a college campus? Especially this one? All I have to do is attach my soul to a bus, and I don’t even have to worry about moving myself. It’s a pretty sweet deal. That way I can visit my brother, and then just hop the next bus home.
Oh, I was telling you about the Afterlife, wasn’t I? Looks like I really got off-track! Well, what I should tell you is that the Afterlife does have a heaven and hell system. If you are a ghost it is kind of like purgatory, or a second life, however you want to look at it. See, ghosts can choose to go to the Afterlife whenever they want, but if they have not fixed themselves up then they can still go to hell. I killed myself, and I am pretty sure that buys me a one-way ticket to hell; but maybe if I play Casper the Friendly Ghost and help people, then I might actually make it to heaven. I think.
Actually, I’m really only guessing about the Afterlife. We all know that ghosts can choose to go on whenever they wish; but otherwise we don’t know any more than most humans. A lot of ghosts still practice some form of religion. In many ways being dead isn’t that different from being alive, not for me anyway. For the ghosts who haunt graveyards, it is pretty different.
The soldiers in the nearby graveyards have chosen to stay there. Most of them are not willing to leave. Me? I roam all over, and they are more than happy to have me when I come around. I know they miss women a lot. I’ve told them that they could just go visit another graveyard. All of them have. I don’t think they feel right about it though. It just doesn’t seem right to them. Being stuck in one place doesn’t seem right to me. But hey, different strokes for different folks, right?
I don’t get too far off the campuses anymore though. When I am on the Main Campus I might go into the surrounding city, but not as often as I used to. Being around The Livings can be really depressing, and very lonely. Ghost cannot easily reveal themselves. You know ghost sightings? Well, they normally happen when the ghosts are either really emotional, or the humans really have their guard down. Being in a huge city no one lets their guard down; it’s always been that way, even when I was alive. Even when Billy Bob was alive. On the other hand, on a small secluded campus like this people often leave their guard down, so there are many more sightings.
Cities are just lonely places, for humans and ghosts. You’re surrounded by people, and you’re completely alone. No one pays attention to anyone else unless they have to, and then they do so with a lot of reluctance. If you force them to acknowledge you then they get really pissed off. If ghosts were to force people to try and acknowledge them, those people would probably call in an exorcist.
By the way, exorcisms don’t really work that often, not with peaceful ghosts. Exorcists may just calm an emotional ghost down, which makes the “strange occurrences” stop. Exorcists can not actually exorcise ghosts. No one and nothing can make a ghost go on to the Afterlife unless the ghost feels like it. Now demons are another story. If your house has a demon, calling an exorcist is a really great idea!
You probably don’t know if you have a demon in your house though. You’re more likely to be married to a demon and produce offspring than ever to know there’s a demon nearby. Really! A lot of demons will take human spouses and make children. Demons who live side by side with humans are not always evil. If the demon parent of a half-blood child is nice the child will probably turn out okay. If the demon parent is evil the children will either have birth defects or be evil themselves. Also, demons who haunt anything are always evil. You may not even know they’re there! Ghosts know though. We can see demons. Someone should really write a story about a ghost and an exorcist who team up to get rid of demons. The exorcist will do all the work, and the ghost will provide all the information! It’s brilliant!
Wow, I really go off on random tangents, don’t I? Oh well, that’s not important! You wouldn’t still be reading if you didn’t want to. I’m sure you find my tangents just adorable! Eh, probably not; but it doesn’t matter in the long run. I am in control of my story, not you. If you don’t like it then you can just go read some other ghost’s story! But there are not any other ghost stories like mine, am I right? I am? Well, then, shut up and keep reading!
(See next part)
