Fifth

I've been writing a story about a man who's obsessed with a ghost woman. Before going to bed tonight, I wanted to write out whatever ideas came spontaneously into my head. Hadn't thought about this ghost woman stepping out of a picture, but that's what I ended up writing about. The middle section was my attempt to find a decent analogy. The search goes on.

Seeing her picture was a revelation. She stepped out of the frame. She stepped out with the longest legs. Impossibly long, they were. They were so long that it got sickening at some point, got to be so that they were no legs no more. They were extensions of her foot, endless ankles that reamed out in skinny sickness. They were strings of flesh that she stretched forwards. She wasn‘t reaching for him. Even now, when he felt trapped in her gaze, even now she wasn’t looking at him. Her limbs wouldn’t go out in his direction, not even unintentionally.

She came out of that picture frame like a princess stepping out of her bed. She was unhurried. She was a celestial body moving through space. She was a dream of another nation, where all was Utopian. She was a lie told to a child. A lie so great that it created dreams for the rest of that life.

She came into his life in the way that sunshine comes into a garden. She came into his life like sweetness into cooking. She came into his life like seasoning onto fine food. She came into his life like colour into cinema. She came into his life like warmth into a freezing man’s body. She came into his life like nighttime into dying day. She came into his life like perfume into rancid nostrils. She came into his life like stimulants into a ravaged mind. She came into his life like medicine into a diseased constitution. She came into his life like fresh air into a prison cell. She came into his life like music into a torture chamber. She came into his life like petrol into an engine. She came into his life like rescue workers into a collapsed building. She came into his life like smoke into an addict‘s lungs. She came into his life like expression into a man’s eyes.

She stepped out of that picture and held him in breathless fear. She took him into a moment of total silence, of complete stillness. He had no thoughts but the observation of her, which occupied every split second of his consciousness. She gripped him like a fist crushing a flower.