Canto 7 – Room 1313, Parkland
Stan brought the flowers he bought in the gift shop with him as he entered the room. The husband, David Nguyen, sat in the cushioned chair by the bed with his head in his hands. He was obviously distraught in spite of the time that passed since the mystery illness struck down his wife. The daughter, Hannah according to the notes, sat in a folding chair watching cartoons on the hospital-room TV.
Stan turned to Maria and whispered, “You make friends with the little girl. Give her your cellphone number and tell her she can call you if she wants to talk about anything.”
Maria nodded silently and walked over to the little girl.
“Um, Mr. Nguyen? I know now is not a good time, but I brought Brittany some flowers. I wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help your family out in this time of trouble?”
The man looked up. He was obviously an Asian-American, probably Vietnamese. He had been crying. His eyes were red.
“Who? Who are you? Brittany knows you?”
“I know her through her work at the charity, the one helping troubled teens. She’s a very determined activist trying to make kids’ lives better.” It wasn’t totally a lie. The information he dug up about her charitable activities was indeed impressive.
“Yeah, well, I wish she had spent more time with her own daughter and less time fundraising for future criminals and terrorists. Now poor Hannah will never know her mother as well as she deserves.”
“Oh? Did the doctor give you bad news?”
“He can’t tell me anything at all. He has no idea what caused this coma. She’s not brain-dead, but nobody can say when or even if she will ever wake up. For all they know, she will be like this until she dies.” The man was obviously filled with bitterness and anger.
“She got this way at that old antique toy store on Mockingbird Lane, didn’t she?”
“Yeah…”
“Do you know anything about what happened while she was in there?”
“Not really. She took Hannah in there just to look at the toys. Why?”
“There’s a lot of very old things in there. Some of those really old toys come from a time before anybody knew that mercury or asbestos was bad for you… even deadly.”
“You think she might’ve gotten some of that stuff from the toys in there?”
“It’s possible. Did you talk to the store owner… or whoever was there running the place? Maybe he could’ve shed some light on what she did that may have caused her condition.”
“I didn’t really talk to him. He did talk to the ambulance guy and the police while I was there. But I went here to Parkland in the ambulance with Brittany.”
Maria gave Hannah a hug and then came over to stand next to her stepdad. Stan winked at her with the eye farthest from the man in the chair.
“My daughter and I are hoping for the best. You and your family will be in our prayers. I will leave you my phone number. Anything you want to talk about or anything we can do to help, just give us a call.” Stan handed the man a piece of paper with his cellphone number scrawled on it.
“Thank you. What was your name again?”
“My name is Stanley… but you can call me Stan. Stan Menschen. My daughter here is Maria. Your daughter is more than welcome to talk to her about anything. I asked her to give Hannah her cell number.”
“Thank you. I don’t know what else to say…” He dropped his head back into his hands.
Stan walked out with Maria feeling like they did not learn much, but the groundwork was laid.
Catch a Falling Star 
Ghostly Reflections
So, I am probably the last stupid goomer who should be writing this post. But I do have a lot to say on the subject that will more than fill a 500-word essay.
At my age and level of poor health, I think about ghosts a lot because I may soon be one. In fact, my 2014 novel, Snow Babies has ghosts in it. And some of the characters in it freeze to death and become snow ghosts. But it doesn’t work like that in real-world science. My ghosts are all basically metaphorical and really are more about people and people’s perception of life, love, and each other.
Ghosts really only live in the mind. They are merely memories, un-expectedly recalled people, pains, and moments of pandemonium.
I have recently been watching the new Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House. It creeps me out because it latches on to the idea that ghosts haunt us through the revisitation in our minds of old trauma, old mistakes, old regrets… We are never truly safe from ghosts, no matter how far under the covers we go in our beds, deep in the dark and haunted night. Ghosts are always right there with us because they only live inside us.
I am haunted by ghosts of my own. Besides the ghost dog that mysteriously wanders about our house at night and is seen only out of the corners of our eyes, there is the ghost of the sexual assault I endured at the age of ten by a fifteen-year-old neighbor. That ghost haunts me still, though my attacker has died. I still can’t name him. Not because I fear he can rise up out of the grave to hurt me again, but because of what revealing what he did, and how it would injure his innocent family members who are still alive and still known to my family, will cause more hurt than healing. That is a ghost who will never go away. And he infects my fiction to the point that he is the secret villain of the novel I am now working on. In fact, the next four novels in a row are influenced by him.
But my ghost stories are not horror stories.
I write humorous stories that use ghosts as metaphors, to represent ideas, not to scare the reader. In a true horror story, there has to be that lurking feeling of foreboding, that sense that, no matter what you do, or what the main character you identify with does, things probably won’t turn out all right. Stephen King is a master of that. H.P. Lovecraft is even better.
But as for me, I firmly believe in the power of laughter, and that love can settle all old ghosts back in their graves. I have forgiven the man who sexually tortured me and nearly destroyed me as a child. And I have vowed never to reveal his name to protect those he loved as well as those I love. If he hurt anyone else, they have remained silent for a lifetime too. And I have never been afraid of the ghost dog in our house. He has made me jump in the night more than once, but I don’t fear him. If he were real, he would be the ghost of a beloved pet and a former protector of the house. And besides, he is probably all in my stupid old head thanks to nearly blind eyes when I do not have my glasses on.
I don’t believe in ghosts.
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