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A crowd of ghosts visited Harold's home one night in late January. Harold had a hard time counting them. They just kept coming in, entering through the door in a steady stream. Harold shut and locked the door. He put heavy furniture in front of it. He even put a sign outside that said, "No Admittance". Nothing worked. They still found their way in through the door. Most of the ghosts were polite enough to wipe their feet, but instead of the mat, they did it on the ceiling, or on the lampshades, or even once on Harold's pants.
At first none of the ghosts would speak to Harold. They began to congregate on the ceiling, talking amongst themselves in loud raucous voices. Some of them sounded like toads. There was a man who floated unconvincingly. Harold was sure he could see the wires keeping him up. The only thing ghost-like about him was the fact that he was most definitely see-through. Harold would have denied the man's supernaturalness but the whole transparency thing was hard to dismiss. When he first came in, the fake floating man came up to Harold and spread his arms as if to hug him. And Harold wisely moved aside. He was afraid of any ghost touching him. What if the ghost went right through him? He didn't want to know what that felt like. The ghost looked hurt at Harold' s rejection, but his pouting didn't last long. He recognized someone behind Harold in the throng. "Amos!", the ghost yelled, "Amos! You old fool!", and his filmy face took on the look of one who is delighted at the sight of a dear friend. Harold tried to see who Amos was. He turned his head to get a better look, but the fake floating man shot a blast of light out of his eyes at whoever was there. There was the smell of something burning, and by the time Harold could see, there was no one where Amos was supposed to be. Just some descending flakes of ash. The fake floating man didn't stay to explain. He darted out a window, and Harold didn't see him again that night. Maybe he was an imposter after all, Harold thought. There was a wicked lady that came in and turned the whole inside of Harold's house a sepia color, even the air. She had a long beautiful half-moon face that was twisted like a wrung-out rag. She was wearing a black and blue dress with shredded sleeves. Harold tried to make no quarrel with her, but she was keen on making one with him. She splayed the fingers of one hand and wriggled them at him, and while she did so, swiped at him with the other. Harold, who did not expect such a violent action, was flung immediately to the ground from her attack. He stood up to defend himself but the wicked lady had already leapt up to the rafters. She entwined herself around a beam in the ceiling. One of her arms curled out below her. It became impossibly long, like it was rubber, and whipped itself at Harold. He ducked, but her fingers had turned into scissors and snipped off the top of his hair as her arm went by. She called him a liar, but not as if she meant it. Planted in the center of her face was a miniature grin. And with it, she shot out little laughs at Harold. Harold was livid. He backed away from her towards the wall. She followed him with her eyes like he was a mouse. Finally she dropped down, found herself a glass of wine, and oozed herself into a corner, mingling with a group of ghosts who occasionally shot disdainful glances at Harold, but otherwise ignored him. There was a ghost wrapped in sashes. And one that traveled on a throne of smoke. The strangest one for Harold was the androgynous child covered in snails. They filled up the rooms of Harold's house. Harold had nowhere to go. He shouted at them to leave. Most ignored him. Some made as if to go but changed their minds. Others stuck their tongues out at him. The tongues were never the same color. One ghost was rude enough to shout an angry "NO!" into Harold's face. Harold gave up and let the night run its course. At least the ghosts were not going through his things, he thought to himself. Some approached him begging for coal. Or for iron. "It's to fight them," they explained. "We must keep fighting." Others tried their best to start a conversation with Harold, asking him about his furniture, or a particular painting on his wall. They never seemed that interested in Harold's responses, and were easily distracted. It was a long night. In the early morning, the biggest ghost of all came through the door. Everyone noticed. It was a giant wearing a cloak. Or so Harold thought at first. But Harold could quickly see there was no person inside, and no hood to speak of. It was a carpet, a big sheet of shimmering cloth the width of Harold's floor. And it dragged itself in. The other ghosts were getting very excited. Harold could tell they were all talking about the carpet. Harold watched as one-by-one the carpet ghost swallowed them up, until there weren't any ghosts at all. In the end, the carpet was a bag of ghosts. It had suspended itself from Harold's chandelier. Harold couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. He went to sleep on the floor of his home. He woke up some time later to find he was using the carpet like a blanket. It had spread itself out from Harold to fill up the entire floor, and had even slid itself under all of his furniture. He realized that if he were to get under the covers of his new blanket, it would look like he wasn't even in the room. The carpet would make him invisible. The thought made it happen even though Harold hadn't officially decided that this was what he wanted to do. Now Harold's in the floor, under the carpet. You can't see him. But he is not a ghost. He is most emphatically not a ghost. |