I remember reading somewhere that two things terrify us: the dead reanimating and the living dying. I can’t say I’ve seen either. I’ve never so much as attended a funeral.
But that was before I moved out of my parents’ and into a nice starter flat in a high-rise like any other you might find in the city. On my first night, I found an elderly man in a suit and a bushy beard reclined on the sofa of the living room that I barely even saw in the daylight.
“Umm, I’m gonna have to call someone,” I said, meaning the police. I had no idea how he’d broken in. The front door was intact, and I was on the 38th floor.
He barely opened his eyes.
“I’m going soon, son,” he said.
“That won’t do for me,” I responded indignantly. Did this old guy expect that I’d happily let him keep sleeping on my sofa?
“Alright, make your calls.” He said and fell back into an undisturbed slumber.
The officers who’d arrived looked at me strangely and insisted on walking me to the station like I was the one trespassing in my own flat. Apparently, they hadn’t seen any dead person on the sofa at all, and that cast me in a certain type of light. Fortunately, it wasn’t illegal to ‘see things’.
The following night, too shaken to turn off my lights, I was met with another older man – a poor, shrivelled-up thing. He didn’t answer me no matter what I asked. He helped himself to the newspaper lying on the coffee table though, as I watched, gobsmacked. I didn’t call the police this time for fear of looking like an actual lunatic.
It was an anxious 45 minutes later when he’d just faded into the thin air, leaving not so much as a sock behind. A week into this strange nighttime happening, I saw an unusual, but very timely TV ad.
‘Do you sense a malevolent energy in your home?’ The woman on the TV – a New Jersey ‘medium’ with a blazer and beehive hair – called out to me. Well, a string of people dying on the very sofa I was sitting on might be grounds for ‘malevolent energy,’ so I watched on.
‘Might you be sharing your home with - the dead?’ She raised a heavily manicured eyebrow. I nodded. They were definitely dead by morning, at least.
‘Call [number] to find out what the dead want from you. Call now for a free consultation with Miss Delbar – Medium of the Dark Side.’ Usually, I rolled my eyes at people who’d deign to sell their services on TV, but I supposed a free chat with Miss Delbar couldn’t set me back any further.
‘Hello,’ a brassy voice answered me. I explained my situation to Miss Delbar. She agreed, in her expert opinion, that I was indeed living with the dead.
‘Your home is like, a doctor’s waiting room. But for dead souls. I mean souls ready to die. They’re still alive when they are waiting, you know. And then their turn comes. Next thing you know, they’re dead.’ I gave my living room an appraising look over. Did it really look so much like a dentist’s waiting room? As a renter, I couldn’t do anything about the drab walls, so I made a mental note to buy some flowers. But I knew better than to bring that up to Miss Delbar. She wasn’t an expert in room décor, just in speaking to the dead.
‘Ok, so why don’t I ever find their bodies then?’
‘I’m going to have to charge you for that.’ Miss Delbar was a shrewd businesswoman. I figured that a couple of old people, who didn’t give me any trouble besides helping themselves to my papers and an occasional coffee, were not worth Miss Delbar’s (very pricey) time.
They were so untroublesome that I nearly forgot about the nightly guests on my sofa. I stopped paying them any attention at all, simply retiring to my room when the sun had set. Being elderly and near dead, if not the real thing, they were always very quiet.
I’d lived in the apartment for nearly a year before having to move out of my flat – which granted a view of the city – for a bedsit half an hour away, for other reasons. I was economising. The truth was that I’d lost my job, and unemployment never afforded anyone much, certainly not the luxury of having a living room.
As I looked around my living room – now adorned with fresh flowers but soon to be just the dead’s again – why, I even felt a sense of sadness about leaving the whole thing behind. That night, I stirred around in my bed before deciding to come out into the living room one last time.
On the sofa sat my mother, her silvery hair pinned up with a head full of curlers. She was still wearing the dark robe I remembered her wearing to sleep as a kid. I had no idea she still kept it, but I would recognise her anywhere – she was my mother.
‘I know I’m not dressed the part,’ she explained, ‘they didn’t exactly give me a lot of flexibility on time.’
‘Mom, what are you doing here,’ I called out to her shakily, but it was only too obvious what she was here for. I scrambled past the living room to open the door to dark and breezy hallways.
‘Leave with me,’ I pleaded. ‘I’ll walk you out. You don’t want to be here.’
‘Oh, you know how they are about rescheduling appointments,’ my mom grumbled. I was at my wit’s end.
‘This isn’t an appointment you want to show up to,’ I tried reasoning with her.
‘It’s true nobody wants to see him,’ she gave her usual silvery laugh. ‘It’s alright, they said this should be routine. Relax.’ I didn’t know how. She doesn’t understand, I thought desperately. I had to warn her.
‘You’ll…’ She put her index finger up to her lips, shushing me from saying those words.
‘Let me wait in peace. You can play on your phone.’ I sat down next to her as she picked up the day’s papers. We sat like this for hours in silence. It was like I was little again, and we were at the dentist’s, where she’d do the crosswords next to me.
‘You keep flowers now.’ She sounded pleased about the fresh bouquet on the dining table. I’d kept up this one costly habit without really knowing why myself. I didn’t spend much time in the living room looking at it ever.
‘He’s very late,’ she said to me at some point later. I nodded. Despite the situation, I found myself fighting the weight of my heavy eyelids.
When I woke up in the living room, the light had already given colour back to everything once again. My older sister, who still lived at home, left several unanswered calls and voice messages for me, but I took my time listening to them.
I knew I would miss having a place like this for years to come.