Just Another Tuesday On The Border (1379 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: bestofsteve
Rating: 1.91 on 35 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Steve's HOP of St. Awesome (View user info) at 2006-06-23 04:50:11 EDT
Another white room with blue chairs.
Another Tuesday morning in this place.
Paul's ghost sits in one of those blue chairs and glares at me. Fierce brown eyes dig into me and I move around him to sit. He tilts his head and frowns.
"You've got to give up eventually, Jacob."
I shook my head. "You can talk like that, Paul. You're dead."
A flick of a ghostly hand and a scoff from a dead throat. "You'll be dead soon too, you know."
I looked up at the off-white ceiling. It's a white room with an off-white ceiling. Is that on purpose?
"It must be," Paul muttered. "It's too stupid not to be on purpose."
I rubbed my eyes. "Not another day of this, Paul. Let's just get through it and move on."
Paul sits back and we stare at the ceiling for a while. Time and motion slow down while we wait. Wait, wait, wait. I used to wait in rooms like this for him. Now, he's waiting for me.
I'll either join him fighting or join him relenting. Either way, there will be no more white rooms for either of us.
Everyone files in at once. It's a slow, sad, march of people who would truly rather be somewhere else. Somewhere warmer. Paul's seat is never taken. It's like they can sense his heavy presence next to me. No one wants to mess with the ghost of Paul.
"This feels like a funeral," Paul said.
It is a funeral.
"They talk like you're already gone," he replied with a hint of a smile.
Maybe I am. Maybe I'm like you, stubbornly sticking around to annoy the living.
"You're annoying me and I'm dead," a thicker grin. A real smile. Like he's really sitting there next to me.
Some one puts a hand on my leg. I look up and smile, realizing I'd missed the entire meeting.
All because of Paul's ghost.
"Think we'll make it to another Tuesday?" Paul asks as I pick up my coat and step out into the afternoon snow.
He lights up a smoke. Can ghosts smoke? He looks at me with an answer in his eyes but I wave him off. Ghosts can do whatever they want. Especially Paul's ghost. I took a deep breath and I can almost taste the smoke in the air. A crisp, unreal smell, like the memory of burnt cinnamon in an old bakery.
Paul leads me home, trackless through the snow.
"We should get a dog," he said, breaking the silence where his footsteps should have been.
I shook my head. "I have a fear of dying with an animal in the house. The animal will get so hungry it will eat my face. Then, when they find me they'll think that the animal killed me and they'll kill it too. I don't want something to die because he was trying to survive off my corpse. I will be keeping him alive, but I'll also be the eventual cause of his death."
Paul narrows his eyes. "I'm pretty sure that a dog will just break through the window and go kill a deer or something."
"Dogs don't eat deer."
Paul shrugs. "Never know until you try."
Silence again.
Paul lights another smoke and we reach the house in time for cheese sandwiches and the brainlessness of daytime television.
Just another Tuesday on the border between one life and the next.
Just another day with the Paul's ghost.
User Reviews
Submitted by ilikesteak (user info) at 2006-07-27 06:13:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Dog eating face +2.
Submitted by Siren (user info) at 2006-06-26 22:06:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You're cool.
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-06-26 21:51:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
POST MORE SO I CAN GET YOU ON MVA!
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2006-06-24 05:24:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
That's not a good thing.
That shit is whack.
Submitted by Istaros (user info) at 2006-06-24 05:24:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
some, yeah
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-06-24 05:16:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Look, I even got people to go back and read your old things.
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2006-06-24 04:40:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
That pretty much sums it up.
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-06-24 04:28:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
The way I see it you spend all of your time watching star wars movies and listening to N' Sync while waiting for the next hockey game to come on.
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-06-24 04:27:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I forget what it was before I started rating, but 1.65 is not bad 'tall.
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2006-06-24 04:24:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Sheesh. Look at my rating.
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2006-06-24 04:21:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I complain a lot. That's a given.
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2006-06-24 04:20:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I forget how long Uber has been with me until I look back and see all that crap.
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-06-24 04:19:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Not banned! I will be doing a post on monday or so about the typical day in the life of steve now.
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2006-06-24 03:01:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
If you get banned, it's not my damned fault
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-06-24 02:44:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Now I embark on my quest, you better not get me banned again.
Submitted by Istaros (user info) at 2006-06-24 01:34:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2006-06-24 01:27:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by WatchMyStep (user info) at 2006-06-23 21:50:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2006-06-23 21:36:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
House of St. Awesome indeed. I liked this.
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2006-06-23 19:41:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Leave some of them be.
Except for the one's that are just pictures of NSYNC. Those are funny as fuck.
That fuckin' bandwagon one is my fav.
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-06-23 19:01:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
22,000 hits til MVA. And I still need to go and review ALL of your posts.
Submitted by alwayspeach1 (user info) at 2006-06-23 17:25:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2006-06-23 16:27:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Everything I have every written I've copied from somewhere else.
Even this comment.
MY DOCTOR IS A LIAR.
:-(
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-06-23 16:13:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
didnt jaypeg already do this?
Submitted by FunnyAsCancer (user info) at 2006-06-23 16:00:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Do the hustle! *bump* *bump* *bump*
Submitted by swine_powered_hate_machine (user info) at 2006-06-23 09:14:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Mmmmm... waffles.
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2006-06-23 07:15:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I can't sleep.
The sun is rising and I want waffles.
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-06-23 05:47:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I gotta work on a story for my journalism class, so here's an undeserved +2.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2006-06-23 05:26:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2006-06-23 05:10:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I like to pretend
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2006-06-23 05:00:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Then again, maybe not.
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2006-06-23 04:58:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
GET OUT OF MY HEAD
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2006-06-23 04:57:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
this is like the epilogue to my story.
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2006-06-23 04:55:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh i see.
Submitted by FunnyAsCancer (user info) at 2006-06-23 04:53:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
All right. His story checks out.
-- Homer Simpson