Some people have skeletons in the closet, I have ghosts and little boys. No, I'm not locking away little boys in my closet, in fact I'm trying to persuade him to come out. You see, there is a young boy about seven years old named Joey who lives in my closet. He's deathly afraid of the outside world and refuses to come out. He has a very strange and dangerous friend who lives there with him, a young girl who happens to be dead.
I remember one day I came across him outside of my closet; I tried telling him of the good things in life that need to be experienced, that life is a great adventure that should be lived openly and freely. But suddenly the young ghost glided out from the closet and over to us as fast as a ghost could go, and started hitting me with some sort of sticks or perhaps her own hands. I was amazed to realize that this non-living, translucent being could actually cause pain. Abruptly I began to develop a new fear of these beings, for I had thought they were unable to physically hurt humans. Obviously the ghost wanted Joey to remain in her closet, and I was threatening to take him away. I fled away from them both.
The next day I had an idea. I remembered that another frequent visitor to the closet was my late cat, Boots. She had passed away awhile ago but for the moment was looking healthy, with a full shiny coat and was very solid to the touch, very un-ghostlike for being the ghost she was. She had visited the closet often and had kept Joey company. You know how cats love those secluded, out-of-the-way places. I decided to take her to him and maybe she could convince him to come out. I took her to the closet, which was not merely a closet; in fact it did not have a door I had to open, but was just a small area of the basement which contained the furnace, pieces of lumber and other rubbish, and other odds and ends. It was one of these pieces of lumber that the ghost must have been hitting me with. Next to the furnace stood Joey. For the first time I really got a good look at his face. He had the acne, spiked hair, and developed facial features of a teenager, yet his height and shyness told of his young age. It was not a face I recognized.
I set Boots down by his feet, hoping she would put him at ease, but she just ran off. I was about to make another argument as to him coming out, but I saw the terrible creepy image of the girl ghost rise up from behind some large boxes. I never could fully see her face or even her figure; I saw a mess of long hair hanging haphazardly around her head, and she was wearing what could have been some sort of dress. She was slightly smaller in 'height' than Joey, but of course she could float as high as she wanted. I knew she was going to come after me again. The part of me that always wants to get to the bottom of things had a fleeting thought that her bones must be right in the very spot she was rising from. If only she would let me close enough to find them and give her a proper burial she might find some peace and move on to the next world. The next best thing I've heard of in stories is to talk to the ghost and reason to them, make them somehow realize that they are dead and must move on. So I quickly tried this approach, but to no avail. She came at me again; whether or not she hit me as I was retreating I couldn't tell, I was so terrified. Perhaps I could entreat her to reliquish her hold on Joey and the world of the living another day...
