Death-Lesson 25

Liam haunted, it is what ghosts do. He was seen wandering the streets at night. He tried to stay hidden, but he looked different because he was dead. So more often he found himself in the graveyard. There was a comfort in being surrounded by headstones and decaying corpses in the ground.
    The moon was red that night "don't remember seeing that before." said the little ghost. Threw the chunks of stones polished or fading all with names attached. A labyrinth of history of people trying to figure out what is the point of it all. Liam was sitting on a headstone, feet banging and bouncing to an internal song he was singing. Then he discovered (nearly in spite of himself.) that he heard someone else singing a song. A slide guitar hitting haunted spiderwebs for the soul of the blues. Liam shivered as much as the dead could.
    He followed the song to a mausoleum, the door cracked open with the flicker of a light (resisting and shattering the night) within it.  There was a black man with a knife sliding up and down the neck of his guitar singing: "be my women, won't you be my girl!" Liam watched terrified. "when the hell hounds come they will swallow the world." the knife slid and sang from the resonator chilling seductive notes from a place Liam had never been, with the candle burning low being held up by a slab of tear-shaped wax.
When the song ended, Liam stood confused. It had been a week since he had left Jolene's place and he hadn't found anyone else brave enough to get passed his condition (being dead). The man's shadows walked over and grabbed the ghost.
   "you know you have people looking out for you, don't you? The little ghost tried to evaporate but couldn't so instead he said: "oh, let me go come on man." "boy you know, you are really unlucky, but come judgment day...well ain't nobody goin' to have time for bad luck then." the old man laughed. Liam stared and at the lines of the face of the old man, the gentleness of his smile. "what do you know about judgment day" "I know it is coming. I know you need to help your friends girlfriend." "why? She is weird..." "boy, when you are all grown up you will find that the worst she had done ain't that bad. it's the burden of the living to suffer temptation." "what about the dead?" said Liam. "well you would know more about that than I would," said the man. "you're an angel aren't you?" "maybe, but I should warn you most of the time when an angel is there, that is when you pray to god." "so your not my guardian?" "maybe, but we are looking out for you. So don't take your innocence for granted. Or for that matter, the good you can still do. You may be dead...but if you make it through death the way you made it through life, well you may not have to see me again." than the shadow that heald Liam slithered like a snake back to the old man.
   The man smiled a gentle grin than said: "if I said boo, would you jump?" "what if I did?" "well, then I would call you awfully smart for a lil' boy." "sometimes even ghost's need to be afraid when the light goes out." the man laughed a wicked chuckle. And looked at Liam with a face that flicker like the candle was under his chin. Only' Liam noticed at some point the candle had burned out, it's spent wick lightless and without flame. Liam stared at the man terrified as the light from nowhere flickered under his eyes and when the man said "boo!" the lights went out, and Liam ran under the comfort of a red moon, not once looking back.

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