A Decent Ghost

‘Believe me; I can’t harm even a fly. You don’t have to get scared of me,’ he said as politely as he could while trying to hide his rotting bones in a sack cloth.

Blood froze in our veins. No doubt he looked fearsome. His very presence in the room was reason enough to generate a terrifying feeling in all of us. We were all silent like a grave. We did not dare to even breathe loudly. We looked around, innocently.

His laugh broke the silence, ‘Why are you looking around? You think you can escape your fate? No way, at least not without my help. You have yet not met my friends. They are all dreaming of a great feast. Mind you, it is not an empty threat. They are all blood-suckers and love human flesh. Not me, I am not like them. I have always wanted to be an engine of change and revolutionize my society with new ideas. I have been persuading them to forget that, in their previous life, they were human beings. But they have always disregarded me. They look at me with contempt and disdain. Appalled by their callous behaviour, I decided to go on an indefinite hunger strike. It did effect them and, for some time, they were  torn between their hatred for me and their nascent desire to change.’

His talk was so engaging that, for some time, we forgot our fear and looked at him; we all wanted to him to finish his story.

But he would not continue.

'Did you eventually succeed?” asked one of us.

‘You could have easily guessed if you had been listening to me attentively. Sometimes I think that my friends are not in the wrong; no one respects a decent ghost. You men fear only flesh eating, blood sucking ghouls,’ he sounded distraught.

We felt guilty but that did not assuage his hurt feelings.

‘I will leave you to your fate and my ghoulish friends,’ thus saying the ghost left the room.

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A post for Sunday Whirl

A story that must include feast, laugh, generate, escape, veins, way, sack, broke, empty, ghost, engine, torn.

My post for Sunday Photo Fiction

A Stray Shot