Death-Lesson: or, the prelude to a ghost.

    Part one: the prelude to a ghost.

                                  I

It was early summer in the late afternoon.  Liam was visiting the father who had done the best he could to avoid the child. His grandmother left him having died of cancer earlier in the year and in the child's eyes she had abandoned him there with her son.  No one understood Liam's father not even Jack (Liam's father's name, or at least what he insisted his son call him.) and that terrified the child.
    Without much to go on Jack said "So here are the rules, one, you cannot close any of the doors in this house. Two, you may not open any of the doors in this house that is already closed.  If you do either of these things, I will light your ass up, understood?" Liam nodded slowly and thought without out trying to give any of his feelings away "Shit this is going to be a long summer." But he had not done his job well enough for his father stared at him long and hard before saying "Drop your shit and go and stand in the living room." Then snapped his finger and pointed at the front door twice in rapid succession with each emphasized by the other. Liam started to cry but Jack said: "Don't you start howling yet!" then picked up the backpack that Liam dropped to the ground.
   "So let's see, you have clothes and you had comics. I don't want that shit in my house." Liam glared through tears at the man he had to stay with until they could get ahold of his uncle and see if he would watch the child. "Come here, come here!" said Jack picking up the paint stirrer up off the couch. Liam walked to the couch and said: "I am already hurt enough!" Jack smacked the paint stirrer down on the side of Liam's thigh hard and screamed: "not till I say you are!" Grabbing Liam by the arm and pulling him over his lap, he begins to wail on power rangers face that was on the back of Liam's underwear.
   The next week was more of the same. The seven-year-old Liam wasn't allowed outside even though they were miles from the nearest house. But he was learning how to make things easier on himself. One day Jack told a story "When you were two, maybe three. You wouldn't stop crying. So your mom and I made you stand in the corner. I took a belt and crossed it over itself and pulled it together making it pop. I would scream at you 'I am beating your ass!' and you would whimper and bawl. I did that for ten or fifteen minutes before you shit yourself. Your just a stupid kid you always have been." Jack started to laugh, and Liam made himself laugh with him. Jack looked at him and said, "At least your smart enough to see how stupid you are."

                              II

There was only one door that was shut in the whole house, and it had a padlock on it at all times. Liam asked Jack what was down there and his dad told him "A shovel and a hole in the ground."
   Jack kept a gun on his belt every waking hour and sat it next to his pillow when he went to sleep. Liam wanted to kill his father.
   Jack would go down, through the forbidden door at least once a day with a plate of food.  But the door was always locked in the morning.
   Then one day jack said, "Come with me." and he undid the lock, making Liam walk-in front of him down the long narrow stairs.  There was another door that jack unlocked. Then there was a room with a bed, and a chain bolted to the floor, and at the end of the chain was elven-Year-old Alex.
   Alex was used to having things inside of him and on him. He was quiet and had emotions like a lizard behind his eyes. The white dress he wore was stained with shit and blood. The skin on his bones looked like a sheet draped over a skeleton.
   Liam said nothing just looked at the thing on its leash and thought "I am going to die." before pissing his pants. Jack said "fucking disgusting Liam." before starting to laugh. Still laughing he said "you're going to kill Alex for me." then reached into his pocket and pulled out a swiss army knife. Pulling the blade free from its base with a thunk. Handing the open blade to his son. "Cut his throat," said Jack "or, I will cut yours."
   Liam held the knife and started to cry. Jack said, "Now Liam, that is not going to work." he got down on his knee looking Liam in the eyes telling him "you can do this." He felt his fathers heavy breathing on his face and decided it was worth it. So he stabbed at his father's eye, the blade went in but as his father recoiled from it. The knife came out and snapped shut on Liam's fingers cutting deep just above Liam's fingernail of His index finger.
   The screaming filled the room. The chaos played out as Liam tried to open the blade again but the blood made it slip closed as it fell to the floor.
   Terrified Alex Jumped on the back of Jack grabbing at his face with one of his fingers sliding into and spreading the damage inside of the eye socket. Jack screamed like a wounded animal and instinctively reached for his Glock that still hung on his hip. While Liam gave up looking for the knife and instead grabbed his father's hand that had freed the Glock: then there was a bang!
   Laying dead on the floor, Liam no longer had a nose just a hole in his head. Alex screamed and pushed his middle finger deep inside of Jack's only functioning eye. Before he was thrown to the floor with a clanking from the chain attached to his collar. The now blind jack barked out "Fuck" than put the gun to his own head and spread his brains over the room with a bang!
   Alex cut his leather caller off with the knife he found covered in blood and was seen two days later walking into town.
  

        Part two: Death-Lesson
 
                              III

Alex Addison was sixteen. He shaved his head, wore makeup, and had a feminine jaw line. He was proud that his girlfriend could share clothes with him.  That they could share everything but his past.  What is in a personal history, just something that happened? Or was it supposed to be some sacred thing always tempting the present from a frame of wellness and safety?  Unsure he walked his apartment looking for his eyeliner, trying to get ready for his date with Jolene Irish: beautiful compared to his prior lovers or the women he saw in porn but still there was a distance between them.
   He began to think about the past. How he had been chosen because he was a drag queen.  He remembers when being caught wearing makeup in the first grade. And his liberal, well-meaning mother asked him if "Do you think you are a girl?" and he explained her "No...but dresses seem fun." And they understood something, Alex Addison was braver than he was allowed to be by the School system.
   It pissed him off when they told him he couldn't wear the clothes he wanted to, or paint his face the way he saw it. The episode came to a head years later when Alex started a Youtube channel teaching how he put on his face. After six months he had become popular enough that the well-meaning liberal community gave him the support he deserved and needed. They put him on the daytime time talk shows amazed at his courage and the charm he carried as his only weapon against the conservative Bible-thumping community that bullied him.
   Alex was ten in the winter of 2011 when he was kidnapped by jack. The year he lived in jack's dungeon was the only part of his life he wouldn't talk about. He could remember it, but as something that happened to someone else "that is not me!" he thought.
   Years of therapy helped with the episode, but still, he could not remember it without wanting to kill himself. The little boy who saved his life was dead, but the ghost followed him wherever he was.  Liam Jet was floating in the corner of the room "Your guyliner is in your purse you ding dong." he said. "Thank you, you dirty little ass monkey!" said Alex. Liam laughed, it had been a few years, and he was over the trauma of his death. He was wearing the clothes he died in. Still missing his nose with the rest of his flesh rotting and a hole in the back of his head he would hide stuff inside of on occasion.
   They had talked about it before, and Liam said "When I saw the light...I told it to go fuck itself then there was a long pause before I heard it say 'I will be here when you are ready.'" Alex laughed when he heard this.
   Jolene Irish knocked on the door. "Hey, you know the rules," Alex told Liam "she can't see you...shew." "Understood boss." said the sad little ghost. "Hey don't be that way, I won't be out late," said Alex. "Can we hang out when you get home?" said the little ghost. "Don't act as if I neglect you," said Alex "and I will bring you home a surprise. Just watch a movie or something?" Alex heard another knock on the door then went to answer it.

                                  IV

"Who were you talking to?" said Jolene. "Myself!" laughed Alex. "You do that a lot lately?" said Jolene. "I guess, so. I get lonely without my mom home, you know?" "Hey why don't we just stay here, and you know...." She wrapped her soft hands around Alex's forearm. "We can later, but I really want to get and parade you around first." said Alex.  "Me or you?" she said. He kissed her with tung then said: "Do you care either way?" Jolene laughed then smirked a sleek persuasion; "I have tricks?"
   They lay on his mother's bed (because it was bigger.) Alex was running his fingers through Jolene's green and orange kool-aid dyed hair. "Do you love me?" she said. "What do you think?" said Alex. "I think you're avoiding the question," she said.  "I am just not good at verbalizing my affection is all." said Alex.  "that isn't fair, I love you." she said. "I love you too." said Alex.  
   The rest of the night was pleasant, but Alex knew how restless Liam could get when there was a broken promise involved, and as soon as Jolene was asleep Liam was haunting the space over the bed. "where is my surprise?" said Liam. "I will get it for you tomorrow." sighed Alex. "You lied to me!" said Liam. "Hey, whisper!" Alex hissed. "And what if I don't?" said the little ghost "are you going to kill me?" then he raised an eyebrow at Alex. "No, Liam...." Said Alex. "I am going to play the ps3...." said Liam. "just don't make much noise, OK?" said Alex. "Sure...." said Liam.
   The game was simple; you sneak around killing and are rewarded with cutscenes that provide the context of you doing good in taking lives. You murder and are rewarded for your skill in doing so. The mullet hero said profound things on memes. Told the little ghost that the power of contamination overwhelms any need to be contaminated. 
   Liam had died before, bullets hurt and they have consequences. But none of the dead soldiers in this game haunted him they just laid down covered in red no longer being a threat.
   "Am I a threat?" thought the little ghost. Then he put the controller down and went to the kitchen and made a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich. Meditating with his scarred brain and on the arrogance and disdain of it all, It is just a game to be played for my enjoyment. Just a game where there are no real consequences. Other than the investment of time I am willing to provide, and as a dead person, there is no limit to the time I can offer.
   Death-lessons come in so many forms, and you only die one death. Lesson implies there is something to learn when there is only one teacher, and he is more of a role to be played than a personification of that role. What is my death lesson thought the little ghost?  Then he smiled and said aloud "The point where the bullet contacts an artery or the brain." then he stuck the half-eaten sandwich in the back of his head where the crater was; deciding to save it for later. Then went back to playing his violent video games.