-What???!!! What did you just say, uncle?
"I am a ghost, I died 50 years ago"
Me.Frozen.Heart beats 200/s. No wonder why he looks soooo pale. What am I doing now? Yell? Run? My mind keeps shouting out to run away but I find my feet stupidly stuck on the hot surface of the street. Staring passively at him that all I can do. What the hell on earth is happening now?
"You can go away if you don't mind to die in one hour"-he smirks.
...
"You know, traffic accidents happen every hour, I am happy to account for some of them"-His eyes turn dark.
I met him, no, exactly, I SAW him at 7am this morning, trying to cut the electric core at our town public electric station. None of my business, I had work today. Then, 11am, finished work, on my way home,HIM again, pushing a pot of plant from the second floor of a house to make it fall down.
-Heyy! It's dangerous, people are walking under here.
He dashed me a glare. I felt cold. Then, he ran down, picked some small rocks and threw to a bunch of children walking home from school. I couldn't hold it anymore.
-Uncle! You know it's not nice to do all those rubbish things, right?
They were children! (Actually, he is not allowed to throw stones to anybody, but children?hell no).
"I don't care, I am a ghost".
It's 12:00 now.
One minute to control my tears to not burst out, one more minute to recognize what is going on, another one to hold my fear and accept my bad luck. It takes me 3 minutes to find my voice.
-So...I am seeing a ghost?How do I and why me?
"I wish I know"-This time he looks down to his feet, no shoes.
-Right, so what I am supposed to do now?
"Follow me!"
In the movies I have seen, if this situation happens, it means that that person is going to die or soon becomes a ghost too. Damn it! What is the difference between now and one hour later?
-Okay, where are you going?
He takes me pass two blocks of houses, then turns to a small alley, stops in front of an old green shaggy house.
"You go to ask if anybody or who is living in there?"
For what? you gonna kill them too?-I keep this thought in my mind but follow his order.
-A young marriage couple (poor them!).
"Ask them, if they know any thing about the former owner of the house"-his dry demand.
F**k, if you are not a ghost, I will kill you-Again this thinking is kept in my grumpy brain.
-They have no ideas, they are renting the house.
"Oh..."-He turns away, quiet more than a ghost.
-So, what now?-I asked, hoping that he disappears.
"That's my house"-his voice soft but heavy.
-Oh...-my turn to oh, a short oh.
"I was in the battle 1972, Quang Tri province" -He continues, sounds like someone is cutting paper- "fires, smokes and bullets every where, I got shot. It burning hurted...and then, somehow I didn't feel hurt anymore, I felt nothing until...until I saw myself looked at my body lying in the bush, badly wounded. I knew, I was dead".
His eyes are still fixing on his cold feet, mine are fixing on him.
"...but the strange thing is I couldn't remember anything, who I was, why I was there. I just happened to run and run and run. After a week, I slowly started to remember piece by piece about me, but they weren't in any understandable orders: a bowl of rice, a woman, a blue window...thousands of pieces cutting through my head. In a panic, I had hidden myself in the forest, been afraid of anyone can see me, bitterly, I found they couldn't".
If it was 2 hours ago, I would have yelled "so how the hell I can?" but I see myself sigh instead.
-Then?-I asked, partly for my curiosity, mostly for him to have a chance to exhale his story.
"Then, after a year, things had become clearer. I knew I had got a wife and a daughter. We live in a small house. I cried. I missed them. I had to find them, they must be waiting for me too. I tried to make my way home, but where? and how? It took me 4 years wandering up to any images appeared in my broken memories until I was here-a house with a blue door in a corner of Saigon. I knew right away this was my home. But...they were not here. My wife and my daughter." He looks at me, that look is sadder than a purple forest.
I feel my heart wrenched.
Should I say something, should I not? Silence. Words are empty now. I reach out to hold his hand. Can't. It's transparent.
...
I wait till he is ready to carry on.
"...and, I tried to ask people around, my neighbors-my old neighbors, but I was invisible to them. I yelled, nobody heard. I cried, nobody saw. So, I kept waiting and waiting with hope, there would be a day I see my family again. Days became months, months became years. I have been wandering around here for more than 40 years, a homeless in front of my house".
-So that is the reason why you have done all the haunting stuff? You just want to draw attention?
"You know what, people are always scared of seeing ghosts, but turns out, it is the scariest thing for a ghost that it is never being seen again".-his voice lost in the honking sounds of Saigon.
We sit in silence for awhile, each chasing our own thoughts. My feeling is like a sheet of paper that hardly squeezed. People are hurriedly coming home after works, preparing dinner for their families. He looks up:
"Thank you! You can go now. I don't know why you can see me but this is a huge gift to me, to be with someone again. I am sorry that I scared you at first, I was so glad that I couldn't let you go. You know, I never meant to hurt anyone. Nice to see you!"
Right when I am about to say something to him...I wake up.
It was a dream-came to me for no-or-some reason, every time I think about it I still have no clue, but it really encouraged me to show my love more to others;all creatures.
Morning birds are singing outside, I open my window, look down to the hustle bustle street and whisper "Uncle, nice to see you too".