Ghost of You

t w e n t y - n i n e

It's funny how certain pieces of advice, or rules from parents stick with us. As you're raised, you receive a massive influx of lessons big and small. You are constantly hearing things you should always do, things you should never do... Some of them go in one ear out the other, some you just purposefully ignore. Others follow you to straight to the grave. 

My mother had no shortage of helpful phrases or words from wisdom. I wished I could say I kept all of them close to my heart, little pieces of her that I could carry with me, always. In truth, only the rules she would give me more than once seemed to stick with me, permanently. I'm glad when they do because I knew it would make her happy. 

She used to always say that words are our most powerful tool and our most dangerous weapon. That bruises and scars heal, but words stay with you forever. My father would shake his head, giving me a knowing glance, before muttering that thinking of word's as a our greatest weapon was for the weak-minded. Insults can be forgotten, but there's no healing from a dagger straight to the heart.

What my father consistently failed to notice was that hearing his words alone could feel like a stabbing knife, plunging repeatedly into my heart with each sharp-edged syllable. There was no healing from that kind of invisible wound. There were no external signs pointing to the injury, and everyone should know that internal wounds are always much harder fix.

So many of my father's words have been impossible to forget. He still had no idea of the weight they could carry, no understanding of the damage they could inflict. Sometimes I wondered if my mom had some idea of the actual relationship between me and him. If maybe the true reason for the excessive quantity of phrases meant to impart wisdom where to counter the advice I would be getting from my father.       

One way or another, it brought a sad smile to my cheeks as I drove the motorcycle as fast as I could down the streets of Berlin. My hair was flying behind me, shivering in the wind. All the while I could hear my mother's voice clear as day, warning me that if she ever caught me riding a bike without a helmet, she'd whack me over the head with a baking sheet. She'd say, "You don't want to protect your brain? That's fine, let's have some fun." It was one of the more violent things I'd ever heard her say, maybe that's why it had stuck with me even though I knew she would never lay a hand on me unless it was meant to comfort or console. 

If she saw me now, riding without a helmet, I'm also certain those were what her words would be. Given where I was driving and what I was about to do, I would have viewed it as a welcoming sight. When I finally reached my destination and parked the bike, it wasn't my mother brandishing a metal pan. It wasn't her eyes filled with concern, or her arms that pull me in, whispering how she wouldn't know what to do if something ever happened to me. It wasn't me promising her I'd never ride without a helmet again. Instead, as I swung my leg over the bike it's a completely different voice calling out my name. 

On an abandoned road underneath a highway bridge, there was a yellow Volkswagen Beetle pulled off to the side. I parked at the other end of the bridge, and started to make my way over. The driver-side door opened first, and I watched as the large frame of the man in front of me, struggled slightly to get out of the small car. Other than a few scrapes and some dirt on his face he looked relatively unharmed.

"You're here." Steve noted, slamming the car door and jogging up to meet me. "I didn't think you'd actually come."

"I did." A second voice replied. 

From the passenger side, Sam had just also exited the car, another figure crawling out from the back seat behind him. He looked at me with a grin. 

"She'd follow you anywhere."

I stared at him, throwing an expression of mock confusion on my face as he walked up next to me.

"I'm sorry, what was that? I don't speak criminal."