Ghost

He might as well have been invisible, the small, pale creature dressed in black, wedged between the larger bodies on the train, watching the great maws of the doors opening and closing, feeding on the passengers, the tide of chattering flesh passing endlessly between toothless lips, the cacophonous mass oblivious to his meager presence. He shuddered with his self-control, and at the contact, as another wave pressed against him, a fat old woman in sunglasses who smelled of cheap perfume, the tattooed construction worker in soiled jeans, the teenage girl with blonde hair and platform shoes. He could still taste the sushi flavor in his mouth, still could visualize his lunch, the controlled round spirals of seaweed and rice, at the center of which lay the delicious danger, the fish uncooked, salmon or maki or crab, the paltry physical sustenance he could allow himself. As the train passed over the river, glinting in the sunlight, he thought of what lived beneath the waters, of the aquatic creatures from whom the fishermen had stolen life itself to make the sushi he ate that afternoon, of the unconsenting scaled beings, struggling to free themselves of the inevitable net, of the pain that perhaps even fish felt, in their own, microcosmic way, of the chefs who didn't even stop to think of what they cooked, what they wrapped in tight circles on a platter. Fish, he could forgive himself for eating, but never a helpless cow or chicken or pig, slaughtered on an assembly line like cars were manufactured, for to deprive another of life for one's own consumption, even for one's survival itself, was wrong, was cruel, was evil. No matter how hungry one was.

And he was hungry.

The train raced through the city, past tall buildings of frightening proportions, artificial ledges, and their canyons beneath. He knew he could jump, he'd known for years, and always the spires tempted him to act, to decide, to choose a side within himself, to cease his hypocritical behavior and feed, or die. There was no middle ground, the skyscrapers seemed to say. His heart never raced at the thought of suicide, his stomach never turned in anxiety, and always the decision was made, to live, for that was his instinct, and so he wore his destiny like the cross around his neck, pale gold under his black t-shirt.

Too many days he wished he'd never grown up, and this day was one of them. He'd never been any good at sports, but he'd played them anyway, another boy in a Little League uniform on the field, another ant marching to the same heartbeat. Another scout at summer camp, another birthday party, another boy on a bike riding around the town with his friends on summer evenings. School was always too easy, and he'd never had to spend any time on academics, always played with friends and fantasized about Betsy, the pretty blonde girl in his class that he'd had the pleasure of sitting next to in third grade.

Betsy, who never even noticed that he existed, except when she wanted to cheat off his paper. Betsy, who looked right through him, as if he had been invisible.

But then came seventh grade, the nightmares, the nights he'd wake up gasping for air in the middle of the night, sweating, shaking, crying for something, but he didn't know what. He ate too much, put on weight, and his body changed by its own predestined plan, and the other boys laughed at him, picked him last for teams in gym class.

But the nightmares were the worst by far, the nights he'd see himself in uniform, always black with sparkling pins, standing before the doors which led to the deadly dis-assembly line, and he, without feeling, waved his classmates in, one after the other, their blank eyes knowing and already dead. But not all. Not Betsy, who every night screamed out to him in his sleep, to spare her for his love, and she clutched his silver cuffed arms, his wrists, clung to him, cried hysterically, and innocently, inadvertently tempted his mind to strike, like painting sugar on his lips. And every night, as she cried, his mind would give way, his control would fail, every night he wanted her, he wanted her more than the others because he did love her, he wanted her sweet energy within him, and every night, in his dreams, he'd sink his mind deep within hers and try to feed, to end his hunger, but instead he'd only wake up shaking and gasping in another cold sweat, as if he'd been holding his breath his entire life, the moonlit darkness his only blanket.

Two bowls of cereal, three, but his full stomach didn't help. A whole school of adolescent energies like a grove of ripe fruit, twitching for the picking, and he was starving. His grades began to drop, along with his voice, and then, oddly, so did his weight. That brought him to the doctor for metabolism tests. They misdiagnosed him as diabetic, and the medicines came pouring in, and he took them to please his worried parents.

The weakness that greeted him every morning was worsening, and through the fog of his emotions he knew that if he didn't act quickly, he would die. There would be more tests, and more medication, and none of it would do any good, and one morning he wouldn't wake up, and no one would ever know why. And he didn't want to die.

So all that remained was calculating the most logical victim. He thought of the school bullies, of the teachers, of his former sports coaches. Not Betsy, never Betsy, never could he risk that, nor could he risk his parents. He wondered if he even had the power to save himself, or if that wasn't just a subconscious image splattered in his sleeping brain. But in the end, he chose a boy named Alan whom he sat next to in math class, a friend of his from scouting and one of the few boys who never picked on him.

He always asked himself as he grew up why Alan had had the honor of becoming prey to his paranormal adolescent desires. The truth was, he didn't know. Perhaps it was because Alan had always trusted him, had always shared his video games with him, and his candy, and lent him a pencil if his broke. One more thing to share, for his dying friend? They sat in math class, and the teacher droned on about algebra. The forbidden fruit glittered to his left, giving life and its curse. He had prayed then, silently and internally, for himself, for Alan, for forgiveness, for salvation, for his own cowardly soul that could not bear to starve. And his mind ventured out for a taste.

He gasped as the first pulse went through him, blinked, shook, startled. Alan looked over briefly, and then went back to doodling in his notebook. Had he noticed, or was he just startled by his friend's sudden gasp? The world seemed to come slightly into focus, seemed to reappear, as if he had been fading, slowly, over the last few months, fading out of the universe into the oblivion of non-existence. He swallowed another pulse of sweet energy, and seemed to return to the physical world, to gain form, a ghost reclaiming its body, a spirit materializing at his desk in front of a class that never knew he had been missing at all.

And Alan had felt nothing. He was oblivious, drawing little people in his algebra notebook, harmed not at all. The overwhelming hunger outweighed all fears, all guilt, all inhibition. In one swift decision, he struck as he had in his dreams, feasted his soul on the energy of another. Colors exploded in the rush of life, dripping into his pores, filling the chasm of his being, the internal dam exploding into forgotten memory, the delicious moment of living consuming him in ecstasy, the childish joy that knows no consequence, no moment other than the present. He was in control, he had the power to have more, and more, to satiate his desperate, dying soul, to bring himself back into existence, to heal himself, to call himself back from the shadows to the land where people lived and enjoyed living, where people's nerves tingled and where their hearts were filled with bliss. He closed his eyes, felt the frequencies coursing through him, playing silent melodies in his fibers, singing him back to the plane where others lived, the dimension he used to inhabit, and he realized only then just how far he'd fallen, just how much he'd been missing, as he wasted away in starved decay. He had fed himself, he was real again, and he was no longer hungry.

His bliss didn't last.

He had opened his eyes, had seen Alan collapse on the desk, and had screamed.

The class was rushed to the hall, the nurse came in, and Alan was lain on the floor, unconscious, but thankfully, still alive. It had taken a full thirty minutes to restore him to consciousness. As he watched, through the open door, as the nurse worked desperately with smelling salts and other such chemicals, he had begun to cry out of guilt, preferring to have died himself rather than to have inflicted such harm on another. For to deprive another of life for one's own consumption, even for one's survival itself, was wrong, was cruel, was evil. No matter how hungry one was. He swore that day that he'd never hurt another being again, so long as he lived.

It was a promise he kept, at least for a while. Alan recovered within a week, and had no idea why he had fallen ill, let alone blame anyone for it. Meanwhile, the nightmares ended, and with them, the feeling of desperate hunger. His metabolism returned to normal, and the doctors assumed that their medications had worked. His parents were pleased to see their son healthy and energetic again, and took him out to the amusement park. They even respected his decision to become a vegetarian.

But he was afraid. A week after the incident with Alan he was already getting hungry again. He didn't dare touch anotherąs mind, and slowly, his old symptoms returned, mixed with the new terror of hurting his friends. He calculated, plotted, schemed, devised the least harmful path to survival. A bit from this person, a bit from that, then they wouldnąt be hurt, wouldnąt notice, and he could keep his promise to himself and still live.

That strategy seemed to work, at least for a while, although the immune systems of those he fed from were gradually weakened by continued draining. They were more easily exhausted by sports, and less able to cope with the stresses of adolescent life. And so, in return, he befriended them. Listened to their anxious tales of social woe, did their homework for them when they asked, defended them in fights, more verbal than physical. And within a month, he was, strangely enough, popular.

But he was always hungry. His mental restraint claimed most of his willpower, and spilled over to the physical, as every day he'd skip breakfast and eat only a fraction of his dinner. A small price to pay for survival.

He'd only told one person his truth, one girl his freshman year at college, the one girl who seemed to know his secret from the moment she laid eyes on him for the first time, the one girl who had ever truly seen him. Her name had been Barbara, but to him she had been the lover of his dark side, she who sought to end his torment. Sheąd been paying for school working in the evenings as a waitress in the local yuppie sushi bar he frequented, and so, every night she'd stand over his table, in tight blue and black, long red hair and eerie bright green glasses, a dimple on the right side, the smell of chewing gum to mask tobacco, the girl who met his gaze unafraid, who served him danger in tight circles on ceramic squares, and the wooden chopsticks with which he could claim his paid-for prize. Like a predator, he watched her walk, bringing the food and knowing she couldn't feed him, and every night as she lowered herself to deliver the plate, he anticipated the moment he'd free her of the costume she wore. One night, with the sushi came a note, a phone number, an address, a time and a place. Heąd been there. Their love had been a rush of blind and desperate hunger, and after all was through, as she carefully fingered the gold cross which still hung around his neck, she told him she knew his secret. And for a moment he thought he was happy.

Barbara, she who whispered to him in the dark, who had no religion, who tried to love strength into his weak body, she who pressed against him and told him to let her end his misery, to let her, at last, feed him, told him to take her spirit and do what he would with it.

He had. One fateful night he had, as they stood together in his room, and she had collapsed limp in his arms, a fragile little sacrificial shell. He had no difficulty lifting her to the bed, where he lay her, barely breathing, on his mattress, on top of the black comforter. She had not had as much energy in her as she thought she did, and, as he was older and larger than he had been in his adolescent days, her single spirit had not been enough to satisfy him. But he never told her that. He simply watched her sleep, unable to face how close he had come to killing her by accident.

His dreams that night were eased, but no less abstract. He saw himself lying on the floor of his room, and Barbara sat on top of his chest, over him, a knee pointing up on each side. She was weightless, she was topless, and he wasnąt breathing. But with a kiss she breathed life into him, forced air into his lungs, air filled with the smells of smoke and spearmint and sushi. And he breathed from her, although she was deflating, and soon she collapsed into only a mere hollow skin that he held up to the light and saw was transparent.

When she awoke the next morning and saw him sleeping beside her, the only time she'd ever stayed the night, she had leapt to the wrong conclusions, all the wrong conclusions. Then came his pleading denials, and her false accusations of rape. He begged her no, but her mind was too disrupted and drained for her to see the truth. She yelled, she cursed, called him an inhuman devil of the earth, for taking advantage of her when she was only trying to help him. He cried and shook, but she slapped him and stumbled out the door.

And he had been lucky she never pressed charges, for then he would have had to explain why she passed out on his bed. She did not tell the police, but neither did she speak to him again. And he feared, rather, he knew, that nothing good could come of his true nature.

He had stood on the roof of his dormitory two nights later, looking over the edge, calculating. In only days he would be hungry again, he would have to tap another's stability. Had he broken his promise to himself, even though she had asked him to? He had, and how should he be punished, for falling to temptation, to his dark secret truth? The night sky glittered above and the chill air blew, as it was yet too early for spring. The moonlight shone cold and pale on his invisible figure, a black shadow among other shadows, a pale ghost from its own dimension, in the starlight and silence, watching the sleeping campus, a fragile shade wishing to be banished with the first rays of light. A plague, a tormented demon of earth? Or just a cursed man, with so many friends he'd gladly give his life for, to whose aid he habitually rushed, always there to counsel and support, a young man with so many people who needed and trusted him but never knew the burden he bore, just a cursed man forced into shadows and darkness and secrecy out of paranormal necessity? A being who shared the world of the others but rarely lived in it, a miserable parasite of other people's minds, hearts, souls?

He'd been too scared to jump, as his instincts still told him to survive. His punishment would be survival. And so it was. And so it remained.

The train pulled into the station, and the great maws opened, still toothless, and he carefully pushed his way out of the forbidden feast as the train vomited up its passengers onto the platform. The fresh air was more comfortable than the canned atmosphere of the metallic snake, and the sushi taste still filled him as he climbed the stairs to the street, and headed to work, another tiny invisible figure in the swarm, another little black ant marching with the others, just another flickering speck on the wind of life.