The Breathing Ghost

Trapped under a rotting roof by a surplus of Stygian dread.

Polite society and happy endings do not live here. Only the heavy stillness, the shadows, and the rot in the ribcage and the floorboards. Nothingness. Proceed with caution.

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This wretched abode is a trapped planet, orbiting the ghost of a sun, where the gloaming has long since surrendered to a Stygian gloom that swallows the very air.

Photo byHudson McNamaraonUnsplash

Inside, every clock is utterly out of joint at twenty-to-nine and the calendar has never moved — its edges yellowed and silverfish-bitten, devouring the very dates that no longer matter.

Nothing novel, nothing strange. My capacity for shock died with the betrayal. Even time couldn’t wash away my grief nor change anything.

Sitting in the yellowed remnants of my lace, peeping out at the world, is the only thing that reminds me it is Sunday afternoon.

In their colorful Sunday best, the towners head for the church nearby. They are all searching for their own version of comfort.

The damned bell is still alive; a ghost in the machine that never misses its Sunday ritual. That heartless piece of iron.

It was a reminder of the world’s indifference. Outside, life went on and forward, while inside these walls, time halted to a still. Like death.

It rang with a sharp, jabbing persistence in the very second my roof finally surrendered to its rotting structure.

It began with a crack, followed by the roar of falling debris, and then that dying noise — the trickling of dust, the groaning of timber as it settled, and the long, low whistle of air escaping the crushed space.

It sounded like a life dragged on too long in ailment — a final, deathbed whisper that had been held in a dying body, only to be smothered by the weight of the end and shut down forever.

People would just throw a glance, and they went on about their lives.

Across the street, a movement caught my eye. The reclusive man was watching this. He was invisible behind those faded scarlet curtains — or so he thought — with his front-row ticket to a freakshow.

Birdwatching and rot-watching — those are the two favorite pastimes for the people of this town. It is pure epicaricacy; a local brand of twisted joy bought at the expense of another’s undoing. No wonder the towners always look so damn happy.

Then came the fire. The banquet hall entrance was torched while the world went into its indifferent slumber, into its sweet dreamland.

Nobody knew about the destruction until the early twilight bled into the sky. Naught but a mystery buried in the ash. It stayed that way until they finally replaced the scorched entrance.

It was then he appeared — dancing and mocking, a manic silhouette admitting to the blaze.

He was the man everyone else had chased away — the vagrant I’d sheltered and fed from my own kitchen. Yet he saw fit to repay that kindness by torching my place.

How much more bitter than a serpent’s venom to have a thankless guest.

To me, every man is the same man; every betrayal is the original betrayal. He was just another ingrate, another Compeyson — another bitter reminder that every good deed is destined for punishment.

Then one night, as I sat in a shadowed corner of the wreckage, a thief crept through the heavy musk of this place.

Scavenging through the cold cinders for non-existent treasures, he is the poor man’s tomb raider who has broken into the wrong grave — never realizing the dead was still undead, watching from this breathing tomb.

He didn’t even see me; I was invisible to his greedy eyes, a ghost among the charred ribs of the hall.

He unearthed a scrap of tarnished silver and a wedge of blackened, glossy, blistered crust. He looked entirely too proud of himself. I presume the latter was the shard of dried pineapple from the abandoned wedding feast. It resembled a monstrous gargoyle’s scale, leathery and sooty in his trembling hand.

As I watched him vanish into the shadows, a strange pity stirred in my gut. I can only hope that the tentacles of my curse won’t latch onto him

It is a comic tragedy; he is trapped by his current dearth, while I am trapped by a surplus of Stygian dread.

Naught canst be ministered to a soul diseased, nor plucked from the memory a deep-rooted sorrow. Being relieved from those would never allow me to take a flight to apricity with my lead feet either.

✍️Previously published: 5th April 2026
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