Chapter 5 Flesh for Fantasy
FLESH FOR FANTASY
Micah - Present Day
YOU LOOK FABULOUS
Micah blinked at the message on the mirror. The previous phrase had vanished nearly a week ago, and this one looked so fresh that the marker wasn’t yet dry. He swiped his hand through the words and his fingers came away stained mint green, though that didn’t erase the phrase.
He wouldn’t ever call himself “fabulous,” but there was a certain refreshment to his face that hadn’t been there in some time.
It helped that there hadn’t been any Soft Cell at night recently, but apparently hoping that meant the ghost was gone was too much to ask.
Though Déjà’s cleansing had kept the ghost away for days, Micah’s studio no longer smelled like sage and lavender.
As silly as it was, he kept the chunk of rainbow obsidian under his pillow.
That he felt fresh and upbeat this week was a placebo effect surely, but maybe that was okay.
No matter what Déjà had been right about, the idea that these mirror messages were coming from himself, and that he’d manifested a random shower curtain ring in the bathtub, was ludicrous. He had a rowdy ghost, and it was too bad Grandma wasn’t here to tell him what to do about it.
He could get herbs of his own and hang potpourri everywhere or burn a shit-ton of it so often that Ximena would be convinced he was a complete stoner. But that didn’t seem like a long-term solution.
He traced the letters on the mirror, trying to imagine the hand that wrote them. Slender fingers or thick and sturdy? Wide palms or delicate and narrow? Prominent knobs of knuckles, ropy veins, freckles, or scars? Did Cosmo bite his nails or wear polish or chunky rings?
Trying to imagine the ghost’s appearance almost felt like drawing the strangers he randomly called.
Fishing a dry erase marker from a drawer, he wrote beneath the ghost’s message:
And what do you look like?
After staring for a moment and praying the ghost wouldn’t appear in the hallway as a half-decayed corpse, Micah left the bathroom, then stopped at the closet, pushing away his button-up shirts to reveal the replica of Comedian screwed to the wall.
The potpourri sachet hadn’t melted the duct-taped banana or eaten into it like acid.
No evidence that Déjà’s magic charm was destroying the evil that the sculpture embodied.
But looking at it didn’t come with quite the pain that it had before.
He closed the closet, then peeked into the bathroom and did a double take at the mirror:
VERY FUNNY ??
Micah’s confusion of what the answer meant momentarily overshadowed the fact that the ghost had replied. He was communicating with a dead, twenty-something tenant named Cosmo. Who needed the latest iPhone when you had a supernatural medicine cabinet?
He walked out of the bathroom, ran a hand through his hair, then walked back inside.
Did very funny mean Cosmo thought he looked funny?
Or the concept of him looking like anything at all was funny because he no longer had a body?
Maybe once you died, you lost all concept of who you’d been, the life you’d led, and what you looked like. That was depressing.
The people Micah called, like Darryl, were sometimes reluctant to describe themselves in an honest manner, or they used padded language that skirted around their insecurities.
But Micah always meant it when he said all bodies were attractive.
The human form simply was. That concept had always been easy to apply to others, but far harder to attribute to himself when he spent his teens struggling with the incongruence of his inner and outer self.
His body hadn’t been bad or unattractive, it just wasn’t the right one for him.
With hormones and surgery, he’d reached a place of acceptance, though.
His face with its scars that refused to fade to white… not so much, but he’d had them less than a year. Maybe in time they too would be something he’d come to accept.
He pulled the cap off his marker and wrote beneath Cosmo’s message:
You’re beautiful
Maybe Cosmo would think that was funny too, but if he’d forgotten what he looked like in life, someone needed to tell him.
He stared into the mirror, waiting for letters to form. This needed to be recorded. It would be better evidence than any so far. Maybe convincing enough to show Everett. He hurried out of the bathroom and snatched his phone. By the time he made it back, there was already a reply:
XOXOXO
Cosmo was certainly friendly. Flirty? Then again, Micah had called him beautiful. Maybe he’d had no one to talk to in the three years since his death.
What a miserable thought. Micah’s phone was his main source of socialization, and just the idea of someone taking it away made him want to curl up on the floor in the fetal position.
Which begged the question, why were the messages only showing up now? Because the mirror shattered? The nightly music had only been going on for a month, and there were no strange noises before that either.
There were dozens of questions that begat a dozen more. And none of them had a definitive answer. He could ask the ghost, but there was only so much space on the mirror, and he needed to choose his phrases wisely.
Please stop playing Soft Cell. It keeps me up.
Aiming his phone at the mirror, he waited.
After a few minutes, the screen went to sleep, and Micah realized he was staring at his blown pupil and how his biggest scar distorted the edge of his eyelid, tugging it down and breaking the symmetry of his face.
He turned away, woke up the phone, and pointed it back at the mirror without looking at his reflection.
He had a tripod somewhere, but searching for it would require leaving the bathroom. Shaking out his aching arm, he said, “Come on, Cosmo.” It wasn’t like a ghost was busy, right? Unless he didn’t plan on replying.
A knock came at the door, and Micah jumped. The phone fell from his grip and clattered into the sink. Who the hell could that be? He hurried to the door and peered through the peephole. Ximena’s distorted, fish-bowl face stared back. Hopefully this would be quick.
She smiled as he opened the door. A grocery sack dangled from her hand. Food again?
“Buenas tardes, Micah. How are you doing today?”
Shielding his eye from the sun, he glanced over his shoulder at the dim hall. “I’m fine. How are you?”
“Good, thank you. But I got a scolding from the mailwoman because your box was full again. She couldn’t fit anything else inside, and didn’t want to have to send it back. I told her I would take it all up to you, which I don’t think is probably legal, because it isn’t my mail or my–”
“Wait.” He pointed to the grocery sack. “All of that mail is mine? Did the universe vote to make me the next Santa Claus?” It couldn’t have been that long since he’d been down to check it.
She handed him the sack. He pawed through the sheaf of letters – hospital bills, car insurance, a flier for an event in the park on August sixth. That was over a month ago.
“Sorry. I’ll leave myself a reminder to check it more often.”
Ximena’s brows pushed up. There was that pitying expression again. She opened her mouth, but he said, “I’ve just been busy. And distracted. Tired, too. I won’t let it get to that point again. Thanks for bringing it by.”
“Now I have to have maintenance check someone’s base heater.
It scorched the leg of their nightstand, which is what happens when you put furniture too close, but for some reason they’re claiming it’s the heater’s fault.
” She sighed. “There’s always something.
I’m making enchiladas, so come by later and get some, hm? ”
“Alright.” He waved goodbye, then shut the door and hurried back to the bathroom.
The mirror didn’t say anything new, and he sighed in relief.
The sack of mail still hung from his arm, and he flipped through it.
He paid all his bills online, so most of this was unnecessary.
There was a birthday card from Mom and Dad; his birthday was in July.
He hadn’t checked his mail for two months?
It was easy to excuse it away as the card getting lost, but he left the house so rarely that the days bled together, indistinguishable from one another.
If he was being honest with himself, it was entirely likely that he hadn’t checked his mail since July.
The deafening distortion of “Desperate” suddenly blasted from the front room. Crisp green block letters formed on the mirror.
This was it! Fumbling his phone with shaking hands, he hit record and aimed. Looking at the mirror through the phone’s screen removed it one step from reality, but it was still tempting to flee the bathroom and slam the door behind him.
The fork of a K appeared, slightly slanted Es, the swoop of a P. Mark Almond’s breathy lyrics floated above heavy bass.
I LIKE KEEPING YOU UP
Micah’s jaw fell open. Oh, this ghost was cheeky. Maybe the dead didn’t need to sleep, but–
As if they were leaning out of a frantically roiling mist, someone’s upper half appeared at the sink directly in front of Micah.
He glanced at the phone screen just long enough to confirm the ghost was in the shot, then turned his attention back to what was happening before him.
Buoyant umber curls framed Cosmo’s head, and the wide neck of his striped sweater had slid off one shoulder.
His fair skin didn’t have the bloodless pallor of ghosts in movies, but was a healthy bisque.
He pressed a hand against the mirror, then leaned in and kissed the surface, punctuating his last message with a pink lipstick print.
Heart pounding harder than the max-volume eighties beats, Micah reached out and grazed the ghost’s bare, warm skin. Cosmo turned around. His hazel, eyeliner-rimmed eyes widened. He shrieked and dropped a tube of lipstick. It bounced off the tile and rolled into the hall.