A few years ago I dreamt of a little girl I was babysitting at the time. In the dream, she was struck by lightning while in my charge. She survived just fine, and seemed more sombred than shaken by the experience. It had imparted her with the ability to see the dead, and even this she viewed merely as a novelty. It seemed there was a significant ghost population on our plane, but it was not excessive emotion or unfinished business per se that kept them here, simply that they either did not know of or did not want the closure of the higher plane. They left my little girl alone, and according to her, were entirely unaware of my presence altogether.
As the sun went down my ward began turning on every switch in the house, flicking the fluorescents off and on, and later in the evening began lighting every candle she could find:
“They keep complaining how dark it is in here,” she explained to me after no small amount of prodding, “I wish we could build a fire — they’re cold, too.” It eventually became clear to me that the dead cannot sense electricity. Our radiators were useless, and they were blind to our incandescent bulbs. Ah well, such is the afterlife, I thought.
Some days later (still dreaming) I was woodworking with a friend when something came flying toward my face I was clearly intended to catch…
The next thing I remember I am back in the sprawling rancher overlooking Vancouver which my little girl lives in. It was just the two of us again, so her parents must have gone to the theatre again. As I prepared to put her to bed I wondered who she could have been talking to in the other rooms; I did not remember her as having such a strong rapport with the ghosts last time I had seen her.
I wondered at how dark it was getting for the downtown core to have not yet shrouded herself from her nocturnal terrors. The inlet seemed bare with only the rising moon’s reflection on its surface. Soon it was too dim for me to see at all, and I busied myself about the house changing light bulbs. Perhaps the power had gone out.
I shuffled around in the darkness, pleased to find the pilot light of my clients’ black enamelled stove provided enough illumination for me to retrieve matches for the emergency candles. Finally able to see my hands in front of my face, I sought out my young charge to find her already asleep, tucked in and with toothpaste crusted on the side of her mouth. She groaned and rolled over to face me.
“Oh there you are,” she mumbled, “Go away, you’re freaking my parents out.”
I rushed back to the yard I had been working in, only to find and imprint in the grass where my body had lain, tools and wood shavings still scattered about. Apparently I had not caught the hammer with my hands, but my face.
I was not as shaken after that dream as I was after ones where I’d survived, but to this day, when my glasses are greased from my many mens’ noses, I marvel at how the glow of the streetlights rises straight up to the heavens, like hundreds of candles, there for the sake of the dead.
