The Ordinary Haunting II

10. The 30th Birthday - Part 1

It was dark, but everything felt so bright. It felt like the ten thousand fireworks stored in my head, waiting for inspiration to set them off, had been lit all at once. Amongst the sparks and colours and bursts, I could see the man who'd been there for the longest time, match in hand, quietly lighting them one by one – until this moment when apparently he'd decided to charge through with a flamethrower. New was wearing my singlet, white, 'Son of a beach' on the left side of the chest, a small tear in the seam by the ribs on the other. My fingers scratched at that tear as I gripped his waist, as he thumbed my jaw with his good hand, and as he touched his mouth gently to mine. My fingertips found skin and clenched into it, firm with muscle and yet so soft that I wanted to press my nose there, my cheek there, my tongue there. I moaned and we both didn't expect it. I shot up in bed, sweating and aflame.

Well, not quite all aflame.

A thirty-year-old man– No. A thirty-year-old ghost man had just had a wet dream. While he was awake. Self-inflicted during meditation.

I kneaded my face until the sparkles faded off the back of my eyelids, then leaned over to see the mattress on the floor next to my bed. I was glad that it was empty, because I'd just been subjecting its resident to less than proper thoughts...and then not as glad when I remembered that he hadn't come back to it at all last night.

I got up and breathed multiple heavy sighs as I checked my sheets and then went to the bathroom to shower. Never would I have imagined that I'd spend the morning of my 30th birthday in exactly the same way people more likely spent their 16th. Looking at myself in the fogged mirror, pulse still fast and skin tingly and warm, I tried to imagine what it would be like to be frozen. I wondered what my body looked like, as it waited for me. One good thing about having a heart attack at 29 was that it probably did look alright, as Sasin said. If I walked up to it and took its hand, would it accept me back? Would all these experiences I'd had as a thirty-year-old ghost, that I hadn't had as a sixteen-year-old boy, make my heart work better this time?

Knock, knock. Knock, knock-knock. Knock, knock.

"Yes, Mum?"

"Breakfast," Mum called through the door. "I hope your nose is ready for a trip of gourmet proportions!"

I pulled on a navy jumper and a fresh pair of blue checkered pyjama pants before opening the door. Mum was standing in the hallway with a party hat on her head and her requisite 'birthday morning' T-shirt she'd thrifted over twenty years ago. It was hot pink, mostly – it had patches of fade from the many party foods and drinks that had had to be soaked out of it – and across the front it read, 'It's my birthday', only between 'my' and 'birthday', Mum had written 'kid's'.

"'Gourmet portions', you said?" I grinned as she revealed another hat from behind her. I bent my knees so that she could put it on my head, and let her snap me with the elastic, per tradition.

"You won't believe the mess in the kitchen right now. Everyone wanted to cook you something, and at some point I think they decided that whoever made you the smelliest thing was the winner, so I can't promise your nose will completely enjoy the trip. And they definitely did not restrain themselves to gourmet portions."

"Well, about 90% of them is hungover, so it's what I expected." We walked along the hallway, past family pictures in wildly mismatching frames, and headed downstairs. "I did think they would all sleep in, though."

Mum shook her head and her hat nearly fell off as she looked at her feet, trying to keep her oversized slippers on. "Oab had to leave early for a script reading, which got Muk up, and when your sister is hungover and awake at 8am on a Monday, everyone else is too. Off and Arm said they have to be back in the city by the afternoon, is that right?"