“Ouch! Hey—what the hell?”
At exactly 10 am, a thud. It smacked me between the shoulder blades, light but persistent, like someone trying to swat a fly. The second thud came moments later, bang. I spun, almost knocking over a cafe stool, to find a younger woman behind me. This twenty-something stood as if she didn’t belong in a coffee shop, with unraveling copper-dyed hair tied in a loose ponytail. She had appeared from the crowd, seemingly out of nowhere, and was now swatting my back like I’d caught fire.
“Hold still,” the little ninja demanded, breathless. “You’re completely covered, but I’ve almost got them.”
“Excuse me? You’ve got me confused with..” Another thwack before I could finish. This time, I twisted left, but she followed, then I stepped right. She mirrored me completely. It was as if we were doing an aggressive café tango right before the counter, hands chasing something I couldn’t see. Somewhere in the back of the café, a Miles Davis record hummed like it was trying to remember the melody.
“The ghosts,” she yelled. To her, that explained everything. “They’re coming off real easy.” She didn’t even make eye contact, only looking above and to the right, peering at shadows floating behind my back. A few customers were now gathering for the spectacle. Within the crowd, a guy near the counter shifted to pull out his phone, and another with AirPods attached began laughing. Of course, my cries for help fell on deaf ears. No one stepped in to restrain my petite assailant. Eventually, I had to grab her wrists—not hard, but enough to stop the patting and pull her toward an empty table.
She let me guide her without resistance. “Sit,” I said, through gnashing teeth, more firmly than I intended, while waving away our spectators. Most had returned to the queue anyway, now that their entertainment had ended. “Ok, lady! Explain what the hell you were doing before I call the cops.” She flopped into the seat like a child who wouldn’t admit any wrongdoing, readjusting her frayed ponytail. I didn’t follow her, opting to stay standing.
“I was just trying to help.” She gazed out at the rain-soaked Tuesday, hands folded in her lap. Beyond the steamed paned glass, cars and passers-by moved slowly along the avenue.
“Help? You assaulted me.” I kept my voice low, but my annoyance came out loud. “That’s not help. Help looks like, I don’t know, holding a door open, offering an umbrella on a day like today. Not jump-scaring strangers at ten a.m.” She tilted her head, not apologetic. Just... tilting, and frowned, like I was the unreasonable one.
Seeing I was not getting through to her, I sighed and glanced toward the barista, Mark, who was busy preparing my order. “Okay, forget it,” I said, motioning to him that I hadn’t run out without paying. “No harm done. Just... think twice next time. People in this city don’t act kindly to being hit.”
The girl didn’t move, only fidgeting, and replied, “But I’m not finished. She asked me to help you.”
“Who… um, it doesn’t matter,” I muttered, turning to leave her at the table. My appetite for the roasted caffeine here had been replaced with a creeping sense of unease.
“Please,” she said suddenly towards my back. Her voice cracked in the outburst. “Your mother’s worried about you!” Those words froze something inside me, like a faulty elevator grinding to a halt between floors. The way she said it didn’t feel like a warning, but a plea. At that moment, I looked back, wide-eyed. Her palms were outstretched, no smugness, no attitude. Just concern.
“My mother’s been dead for 9 years.”
“I know,” she added, gesturing to the empty chair opposite her. “I can explain everything. Just… could you give me a minute? And I promise no more slaps.”
I sat. Against better judgment, I eased into the chair across from her. “Alright, tell me how you knew my mother. I’ll give you one cup of coffee’s worth of my time. Go.”
“Name’s Christine, but I prefer Chris,” she said, offering no surname. “But people don’t really call me anything these days.” The words were said between scattered thoughts.
“Jay,” I replied, glad to be on civilized terms. “Jay Wirro~.” But again, she cut me off, hitting me with a monologue that started somewhere in her past. It rushed out like she’d been waiting years for a listener.
“You probably won’t believe me, no one does. But… I see ghosts,” she said plainly. “Not like in the horror movies—more like... impressions. Energy, I like to think of them as leftover music in an empty hall. You know, the way sound hangs in the walls after everyone’s left. Sometimes they can appear as people, but most don’t, preferring to float like orbs around the place. Depends on whether they’re in the mood for talking, I guess. You see, you needn’t be polite when you’re dead.”
Dead people? Oh god, a weirdo, I thought. Why was my coffee taking forever to arrive? “I don’t believe in that kind of thing,” I said, mostly to exert my voice, and nodding alone.
“Whether you believe it or not, doesn’t matter…” She turned to the left wall, mid-sentence, as if the empty space had called her name out. “Hey! It’s Marty. He used to own this shop.”
“Who?” I glanced. Nothing there. “I’m sure the guy who built this place was Lawrence Orwell,” I said. “His face is on the welcome mat.”
She shrugged. “No, that’s not what happened. That ‘ol crook screwed Marty over before the shop became famous. And after his coffee recipe was stolen, Marty spent his last days, penniless, drinking himself to death. He’s quite bitter about the whole thing.”
“Right.. You’re a paranormal detective agency.”
Chris shrugged. “That’s just what he told me.”
“So, if I got this straight, you can talk to them? Spirits, I mean. Like a psychic, or something. ”
“Oh, good. You’re catching on.” She said. “But only if they’re willing, didn’t I just explain it to you? Most just... hover.”
“And what’s all this got to do with my mother?”
“Us living folks are what I like to call magnets for our afterlife visitors,” she said, moving closer to me, making cheesy monster gestures with her fingers. “It’s beautiful, in a lonely sort of way. Anyways, you’re carrying a lot of them.”
“Ghosts?”
“I’m not talking about fancy hand-made Russian dolls. Of course, ghosts. I counted at least thirty stuck to you, all trailing behind like a used scarf.” Chris looked through me again; she did that a lot during our conversation. It made the hairs on my neck stand up. By now, the sky between us had turned a shade of grey that threatened a downpour. “Let’s see, there’s your mother, and I guess your ancestors. That’s natural, no more than a handful, but today… I counted 29 unwelcome ‘guests.’ And looking at you now, it’s like… something cracked open. I wonder how you picked up so many. Over 100, and you’re well on your way to joining them.”
“Is that supposed to scare me?”
“No,” she said. “Take it however you want. I’m just explaining how it is, why you’ve been so tired recently. When ghosts stick around, their presence affects us. Begins to weigh us down. You see, they’re drawn to people who carry baggage. People who won’t let go. They pull. The more you carry, the heavier it gets.”
I laughed, but the sound was dry. “That’s poetic.”
She didn’t smile back.
“It’s like trying to listen to music with thirty radios on in the background.” She continued. “Do you not feel worn out even though you’ve had plenty of sleep? Any Headaches? Pain in random places? They feed on unresolved emotions. And you—” Then a moment of hesitation. “Well, you’ve been grieving for a long time, haven’t you?”
Something in my throat locked up. I stirred a coffee I hadn’t ordered. There was no spoon in my hand. I didn’t ask how she knew. “It’s been 9 years. Cancer. I can’t believe I’m telling this to a complete stranger.”
“Yeah, she told me you wouldn’t believe it.” She nodded, speaking slow. “And you don’t have to, not really. Just know that your mother is still with you. On your right shoulder, in fact. Family is different. They don’t feed, they protect.”
My stomach twisted.
“She wanted me to tell you to... Stop blaming yourself already. There’s nothing you could’ve done. She’s not in pain anymore, but she worries about you. And maybe...” Chris smiled faintly. “Maybe it’s time to pick the guitar back up?”
“I hadn’t told anyone I played guitar! Not in years.” I’m not even sure I said it out loud. We sat in silence for a while. For the first time, I looked at the space beside me. Nothing there, of course. Just speckled sunlight and a smudge on the window. Still, I raised my shoulder, just slightly, offering it to someone I couldn’t see. And I felt it, a warmth on the edge of memory.
I didn’t touch the coffee. I wasn’t sure it was mine anymore. It sat between us, steam fading, the surface gone flat. Chris leaned forward, elbows on the table now, not bothering to hide how closely she was watching me. “So,” I said finally, just to break the air, “what now? You’ve done your bit. Slapped the ghosts off, said your piece. Shouldn’t you vanish in a puff of smoke, or glide back into the mist?”
She smiled, but not in amusement. “You think this is a story? That I’m making this up.” I looked away. A man was sitting alone two tables down, staring into his phone, earbuds in. Mark, the barista, was wiping a counter again, for the third time in five minutes, either bored or politely pretending not to listen. The café had returned to its background hum—but not for me. “I didn’t come here for you,” Chris said. “I came for someone else. But your ghosts were louder.”
That pulled my attention back. “Someone else?”
She nodded. “The girl in the corner. The one wearing a red jacket, reading from a journal. She’s been crying, but you probably didn’t even notice her come in.”
I hadn’t.
“She’s in more pain than you. You can tell by the way they stick to her,” Chris said softly, glancing that way without turning her head. “All craving a piece of life they left behind.” A sudden heaviness pressed against my spine again—phantom or not, it felt real.
“You see it like... light? Shadows?” I asked. “Or is it just a feeling?”
“All of the above,” she said. “Some days it’s noise, the kind that keeps you distracted. Some days it’s like pressure in the air. I can only describe them as a weight that keeps getting heavier.”
I let that sit between us. I imagined the dead circling people like moths, feeding off our wounds, drawn to our smallest regrets. “How long have you been doing this?” I asked.
“Since I was nine.” She answered too quickly, then winced. “No, that’s not true. Or maybe forever. It’s hard to tell when the world sounded strange.” I studied her—harder now. Her face was younger than her eyes, but something about her posture said she was always ready to run.
“And how do you live with it?”
“You have some nerve asking me that. Just look at me. I don’t,” she said. “I just stay busy. Talk to the ones who’ll listen. Help the people I can, and move on. I guess all I can do is remind the living they’re not crazy.”
“Is that what I am?” I asked. “Crazy?”
“No,” she said. “You’re haunted. Big difference.”
Mark brought over a tray without being asked—my usual order, along with a muffin I hadn’t ordered, and a new mug of something dark and herbal. He nodded toward Chris, and she smiled back, bringing the tea to her mouth. Maybe he knew. I stared down into the untouched coffee, then out the window again. The rain had begun in earnest. Droplets raced each other down the glass like they were trying to escape.
“What happens if I can’t let go?” I asked.
She looked at me, long and level.
“Then, you forget how to feel,” she said. “It won’t hurt, exactly. But their noise crowds out everything else. Joy, Creativity, even the guilt you’re holding drains away, all of it numbed down into routine. You start mistaking weight for normal.” I swallowed. My throat was raw. Like I’d been shouting, even though I hadn’t said a word.
“And if I do let them go?” I asked. “What happens then?”
She smiled again, this time something close to kind.
“You start to feel lonely. Grief hurts more than numbness, but it’s honest. And they’re your first steps.”
I didn’t speak. Couldn’t. I just let the silence stretch between us.
Finally, Chris stood.
“Don’t bother following me,” she said, pulling her jacket up and over her shoulders.
“Wait,” I said.
She paused.
“My mom,” I asked, “Is she really here?”
Chris rolled her eyes. “Jesus, did you not listen to a word I said? She’s always with you.” Then she grabbed my untouched muffin and sank her teeth into it.
“Hey!”
“Hmm, call it my charge for helping you. The tea, too.”
I looked up, nodded, and for the first time in a long time, laughed. Then Chris walked past the counter and out the door, into the rain. I watched her until she vanished into the crowd, then looked down at the chair she’d left behind. Something shimmered in the air above it—a slight warmth, like the trace of a familiar face. I blinked, and it too was gone.
The whole encounter reminded me of a forgotten part of my wallet, where I had buried an old guitar pick. It hadn’t been touched in 9 years. Seeing it again made my hands shake, but its sight made me smile. Then I thought about the sound it used to make.
Maybe it was time to start playing again.
cool, reminds me of a lot of east asian traditions, "hungry ghosts" and that sort of thing
Interesting!