A VERY WET GHOST
Written today and first published here
It was the Lovecraftian time of day, which, for different people, is a different time of day. You would have thought I could have explained myself better. 'Lovecraftian' in this context is nothing to do with HP Lovecraft, the famous American writer of Horror Fiction and diehard sharer of correspondence containing all sorts of prejudice and old-fashionedness, but, rather, a time of day when people manipulate things towards sexual/emotional ends. And my optimum Lovecraftian time of day is late afternoon verging on dusk – dependant on the time of year.
....
The sound in the chimney always came about now, scrabbling, panting in a lightsome voice, crooning more deeply sometimes of physical positionings in words only I could understand (so no point to mention them here); drops of clear runny ectoplasm followed the initial peppering of soot in the grate but preceded the actual arrival of the chimney-sweep from Dickensian London primed to ease my salacious itches....
....
Today was an optimum conflux of such itches in great number/intensity and even greater susceptibility to being assuaged – together with an unusually early dusk caused by smog. I listened to the scratching in the heartlands of the chimneypiece, and then watched the soot start its dusting of nightmare's cake with the choicest hundreds-and-thousands. Soon an abnormally large amount of colourless wetness employed to assist the ghost's own passage towards me splattered upon the soot making it seem more like sludge than residues of black-cane sugar.
....
Then one leg, smeared with its own signs of descent, waggled like – not a puppet – but an empty stocking. Only one leg. I was often forgiven the luxury of never remembering the routine so that it all came up fresh. The crafting of suspense as well as of love. I was always wrong, because there was a second leg that eventually flopped into view. Today, I am still convinced, however, wetter than ever, despite the routine. A very wet ghost indeed.
....
I was already water-proofed – having tucked myself under a disposable pakamac. Through the gloom, I watched further elements of the translucent figure unravel from the flue. It was not as if the flue was a spiral, but the figure itself shaped it that way by the manner of its sinuousity, hence the need to unravel. Filters often managed to filter them in and filter them out. Or down and up. I say 'them' because, I'm sure, it was never the same from day to day.
Today, it was less shapeless than routine portended. I recognised its vague approximation to its earliest form as a chimney-sweep. Its wetness, however, to my horror, was not an unconcentrated exudation of the pores but generated by the dual spigots of the baleful eyes. Staring hard did not seem to be easy for it when also weeping, but I managed to stare back unwaveringly. I have learnt there can be no sentiment during the manipulation towards love. It is a craft indeed, 'crafty' being a word that somehow is very apt; paradoxically canny, if also uncanny, while terms of engagement, then endearment, are agreed between us, then acted upon.
....
It's a shame, in hindsight. I regret my actions. By the time, the creature has wound itself back into the upper flue, I wonder whether it was worth it. Having wrapped it in the pakamac, I give it many kisses even now when kisses no longer serve any purpose. I stuff it some way up the flue to give it a start, like Santa Claus giving a present to the next revenant. Someone left the cake out in the rain.
....
Each unlovecraftian time of day, I lie asleep into late morning, like a slug-a-bed of the cosy old-fashioned past; I dream of a White Christmas and of the lower grades wielding their own shock-headed sweep-handles - and bunny cloths, and making sure all steps are donkey-stoned, sicknesses filtered back and forth so they can never settle, each of life's corners wrung and swept. Indeed, while one may forget the way to wake up, one always does wake up. The last routine. I cannot have explained it better.