At night I believe in ghosts.
In daylight they would be nothing but dresses; pretty sculptures made of an artists’ fancy, or old heirlooms from another time. In light you could see where they had worn through on the bottoms, stained not by dirt but by the daily act of living, of sweat and time. In sunlight you would mark the seamstresses unsteady stitches, where a clever pin held the sleeve in its pocket. In sun you could smile and dream about the girls who might have worn them, the suitors who might have called on them, the games they might have played with a spool of red yarn.
But at night something lives in the folds of white fabric.
In the semi-darkness the glowing skirts aren’t halogen lights but a fire within, a presence that brings these shimmering cloths to life. In the murk the red yarn is a magical thing, protection from the evil eye, bright red luck spooled through nervous fingers, tied between their wrists as a talisman. In shadows their faces aren’t absent but hidden, their voices not silenced by silent. In twilight they are creatures from another world, and they tug on the edges of my scarf and beg me to hear them, see them, dream them into being.
At night I can hear them breathing.
I wonder if I give them life or if they crawl, groping fingers first, into the recesses of my imagination. Did I give birth to them or did they devour me and rise up, powered by the light I gave them? Are they more real now than they were an hour before, more solid every minute closer to midnight we creep together?
When the sun comes up they will be harmless mementos, but in the night, alone, they are something more than eerie.
They are ghosts.
Image courtesy of Hayley Mechelle Bouchard. Her work can be found at Little Cat Photography, with more information about Hayley on Our Contributors page.