I’ve known about their existence for as long as I can remember. Just like the sky that ran over us and the land that tethered us and the trees that gave us air, they’ve always been there. Their existence was just another constant like many other things in our lives.
They don’t know but we’re always there, watching. They can’t see us but we can see them. Some believe in our existence, some don’t. They call us ‘Ghosts’. I’ve heard many tales of us, written by them. Tales and songs about our grotesque bodies and our lust for blood and our hatred for them. Songs and tales that send their children shrieking and hiding, as if their wails and flimsy covers could truly protect them from our kind, from our so-called sharp teeth and all-knowing minds.
I’ve always been fascinated by their kind. Though most of my peers outgrew their curiosites and have come to terms with humans, I couldn’t, for the life of me, look past their world, the human world. So different, yet so close.
It’s always been thrilling for me to watch them go about their lives, these aggregates of tender flesh and warm blood and moon white bones, struggle, succeed and fail, kill and get killed, love and get loved. These arrogant beings that changed the world as they pleased, who truly believed in their solitary existence.
It’s funny sometimes, watching them live on in their own heads, oblivious to everything but themselves and when it’s not funny it’s exasperating, it’s humiliating to be not seen, not felt, not heard. I know it’s not their fault, my kind has told me so numerous times but it still stings when I see them walk by me without so much as a second glance.
Sometimes, I wonder if they ever get tired of being. Of being there. Of being present. Of being clusters of flesh and bone. I wonder if they ever want to disappear and not be seen for as long as they live. Because then I’d have someone to trade places with.
Because I want to be seen by them. I want to be one of them. Sure, I’m seen and heard by my kind and I love my kind. I love my family and our home by the sea but I want to be seen by them. I want to be heard by them. I want to be loved by them but alas, my wishes will never be nothing more than wishes.
I still remember the first time I saw a human. I was young and was playing outside our home when one came running towards me. I was afraid that one of them had seen me. Afraid that they’d hunt us down because that’s what my father had said. He said never to linger near them. That humans were self serving beings who only cared about themselves but then it just went off running into the water. I watched it play in the water, its little head bobbing up and down as the waves hit and then…..nothing.
I waited for so long, trying to find its little head covered in pale skin but it never came out. I didn’t know where it had gone. It just disappeared. Then another human came running towards the water, shouting and searching the water frantically. The new human looked terrified and the shouting grew louder and louder, then all of a sudden so many of them came and started searching the waves. I couldn’t help but watch. I ignored my mother’s calls and just sat there watching the humans. Then, at dusk they brought out the little human that I’d seen. Its pale skin now possessed a bluish tint, its body looked swollen, thin, intricate blue lines ran under its skin. It looked….strange, not at all like how it looked like a while ago.
When they brought the little human out the other human was hysterical, weeping and screaming and thrashing against the hold of others. At this point, all of my family was out and watching, my mother hugged me and my siblings close as the human cried.
The little human was then covered in a white cloth and carried away. It was that day that I first learned about human death. It was as terrifying as it was mesmerising. And since then I’ve seen countless humans fall victims to their inevitable deaths in other and much gruesome ways. But even after all this time, I still think about that little human and weep into my invisible hands.