June 21, 2025 0

The lame ghost (“I haunt” Series)

in Viviana Ioan Books

Engulfed in practical realism, though of a meditative disposition—read postponer—I scoff ghost nonsense. I accept peculiar stuff, of course. In lame movies. For … distraction. And in amicable dialog, for fun.

Only elderly ladies and housewives have encounters with unexplainable entities. Rotten or alien. Or … diabolical. Ha ha ha. Of course, with emotional charlatans, too. Boo!

While a SEO marketer and division manager? Oh, he does not.

The angel

Despite an early strange vision, at three or four, I grew to praise the palpable. And ignore the invisible. Or any visible ghost, ha.

Of course, at that fragile age, I took the apparition as a fresh element of decor. And, of course, for that reason, I did not signal it to grownups.

Not till one murky afternoon. When I was five, I gather. Well, my aunt, an inborn mystery hunter, played a horror movie to me.

Crazy lady. She forged a small kid into her peer. Ooh! In consuming … paranormal art.

In this thread, after watching “The Shining”, Aunt Anna struck up a discussion. She rambled about eerie creatures. Or entities unseen to the human eye. Well, evil stuff. Unfamiliar, of course, to my child’s vision.

“Anna,” I said. “You know? I once saw … a vision.” God. She stopped in her phantasmagorical tracks.

“Oh no, baby. Hush. Sometimes, actual things appear as visions. To … kids.”

“Aha! So, it was an actual thing…”

“Well, tell me. Where did you see this, my love? At kindergarten? Or on the street?”

“Here, Auntie. In this room.”

Anna’s fair locks darkened. And her eye globes bulged. “Baby. You’re kidding me, huh?” Then her blue irises glimmered. “Where?” she asked.

I pointed to a corner in the ceiling. “There. On top of the wardrobe.”

I saw mist in her eyes. But then, it dried. And her pupils sparkled. Because, I now guess, she was about to investigate … a ghost sighting. So Anna continued her interrogation. When, how? What shape?

“An angel,” I told her. “An angel of … light.”

Haze formed again in her eyes. “It had … wings?”

I nodded. “Uh-huh,” I said.

On the spot, that early vision revisited me. Muted, the angel kept its wings half flared. And … stared. From top of the same wardrobe.

I explained too little to Anna, though. Because I remembered scarce. Or she would understand scarce. Or the angel meant the episode to stay our secret.

The angel somehow had witnessed my guilty confession. Still a friend, though. While my aunt played scary.

Oh, dear me, her thrills weighed so on my kid’s heart that I feared they would stop its beating. She had invaded our secret serenity. Our mutual bubble. The angel’s and mine.

Aunt Anna

Anna was both sweet and wild in loving me. For instance, she invented cute, endearing names. Wild, though, was her yearning to share metaphysical stuff with a raw soul. Her impatience for me to mature.

She sticks to Bebitz today, when I’m a grown man. An endearment I don’t mind.

“Bebitz, have you heard this?” she says often. Oh, her damn politics. Then, as often, I brag. Anna, I’ve done this or that—business. Then Anna brags too. “Bebitz, I experienced an incredible thrill.” Well, of course, metaphysics.

Despite my facetious reluctance, we debate occult topics, too. I admit. She brewed my taste for the extraordinary. That which happens to others, though.

I refuse to recall other psychic disruptions of my routine placidness. Mindful not to catch Aunt Anna’s condition. To be frank, my memory doffs them.

One stands out, though. A prong. It pricks through my self-imposed nonchalance.

Victoria Avenue

On a bright day, I was strolling on Victoria Avenue, headed for university. One whose title featured “American”, where I studied IT. I paced the sidewalk delighted. With reverence, too, for the ancestors who reconstructed that area in town after World War I.

As I passed by the history museum, its frontispiece reminded me of our cosmopolitan origins. Roman. And of Trojan’s jubilant column. Its replica, the museum’s worthiest exhibit, lay in a grand room in the basement. I longed to revisit it. Or take a quick Roman holiday, why not? To admire the genuine one.

The length of stone steps and the towering columns rolled beside me. Then, oh, the imposing statues. They rendered me meek, so I passed by, thoughtful.

But fellow passers-by, on errands or loafing, accompanied me. And theaters, elegant shops, and cafés brought me back to mundanity.

Soon though, I relapsed into wonder for old stuff. Because the Capsa confectionary caught my gaze. Oh, yeah, a jewel. A repository of interwar luxury, now revamped to its past glory. It still resounded with intellectual spirit and wit.

Oh, a famed meeting spot. For the time’s illustrious writers and politicians. A café rather than a sweet shop, I gathered.

This bijou venue preserved their blessed souls. And their once incarnated laughter and diatribes traveled hither to reach my dumb ears.

Whoa, aw! An ideal setting for ghost stories.

The city’s Champs-Élysées

Further on, the Atheneum stood, lofty. Its architecture sparkled in the sunshine, rekindling my musical spirit. Distracted from my route to the IT amphitheater, I struck a quick plan in mind. To attend a classical concert. That weekend, why not?

Soon, I reached the vast Champs-Élysées of our sweet Little Paris. Then, the Royal Piazza.

The bright specs in the air, the traffic’s brisk droning, and the lively citizens infused me with love for the present layer of living. Lord, what a wonderful city. Lord, what a wonderful world!

The once royal palace, a mammoth construction spreading a monumental central piece and pride wings, rejoiced. It housed the museum of art. And welcomed anyone, from plebeian to nabob.

I’ll wander in its rich entrails and wonder, I said to myself. Not now, when I have spare time, of course.

This embrace of history, art, and stark actuality conquered me. If I met an illustrious ghost, I would honor it, I thought. Bowing, not cringed. I was brimming with goodwill to reconcile paranormal absurdities with modern existence.

Revolution Square

Well, the Royal Piazza held some ghost stuff too. Of course, I mean metaphorical. Because a memorial stood in front of the palace. A marble obelisk. Glorious, despite the community’s ridicule.

In fact, citizens viewed it as absurd. A wreath, yes, but impaled. By the stake tip of the tall pyramid. So, a piece of minimalist art that had gained a funny nickname. Ha. “The impaled potato”.

No wonder, though. Because the iron wreath had a strange shape that some compared to that legume. Yet it symbolized souls knit together. Embarked on their voyage to heaven.

At seeing it, I grew somber. I had watched those revolutionaries fighting and shouting. In documentaries, though. Read, too, about the upheaval against communism. Woe me, a bloodshed.

Oh God. Complex times. Controversial events, so still undeciphered. But memorialized here. Right in the spot where most insurgents died. Whence the commemorative renaming. Revolution Square.

A ghost

My feet dragged on the sidewalk, shoulders slouching. Because, as I departed the sacred site, I carried a burden. Of gratitude and remorse.

“Oh, poor souls, forgive me,” I whispered. As yes, I had never stopped to read the names of the martyrs. Our present democracy’s fathers.

I checked the time on my phone—God, Bebitz. Hurry or you’ll miss architecture. I straightened my neck. But … what the heck? What strange illusion tricked my vision and spoofed my reverential reflection?

I peered, I goggled, I peered again, relenting my pace. A ragged fellow was trudging along, minding not the tourist environment. The airy space. Nor the grand royal palace. Was he a lost beggar? Or … a homeless wretch?

As weird as his gait was, to boast such rags in broad daylight beat the crap. If perchance, I distinguished rags and no man, but a pallid shadow. A ghost? Whoa! The perfect protagonist for Aunt Anna’s mysteries.

An alien zombie

My intrigued feet followed the creep, soon advancing on the next boulevard. Wide, lined by squat hedges.

He plodded, as though in a weird trance. A feat I had not witnessed before. In a lunatic or … a wreck. Junkies, I had seen. Gah! But never haloed. Not by that hazy sheen. This eerie junkie streamed in a different dimension. Oh my. A zombie.

God, an entity rambling at the interface of orbits. Headlong, but disoriented somehow. But what? A strangest detail struck me—the entity trailed on invisible tracks. Glided. It had no obvious legs. I peered ahead. No feet, as a matter of fact.

Then a more freakish attribute caught my stunned observation. His right arm was dangling, as though … broken. Or still eerier, detached from his shoulder. It hung from a rag, its contours fuzzy. Absolute nonsense. If not … oh. My vision was ailing.

My imagination jumped into extraterrestrial spheres. Whoa. A space-hold had dumped a redundant fellow. Or crashed above Earth. In this odd case, ha, I was stalking a lucky survivor.

Yet lucky was too much to say. Since he, or she, if they had gender, had suffered tremendous damage. Was pain known to them?

I doubted. The alien showed symptoms of a misfit. Only that. Understandable since it had dropped on a mystery planet.

At this planetary–exchange thought, I questioned my sanity. What if I had dropped out of bed, hit my head, and was … hallucinating? Or worse. Dead.

Anna’s ghost stories

Then another hunch hit me. Aunt Anna must have operated on my brains. Deeper than I imagined.

Of course, I never read her mysteries or ghost stories. Thank God. Ha, although I performed her website admin.

Yet, the titles and pictures instilled curiosity. Because I did not satisfy it, this darn curiosity pricked. It must have issued frustration. Yikes! It triggered my wild imagination.

Was I now filling in … one of her unread mysteries? Which title?

Lord. Anna once mentioned that she had introduced me in one. As a frenzied protagonist. Had her writing the illogical power to induce me to enact nonsense?

Lost in phantasmagorical probabilities, I had loosened interest in the mark I pursued. Now, whoa. In a light flicker, the phantasm performed the disappearing act. An illusion? Of course, yeah. One that the ether plays at glorious noons.

I met frustration, therefore. Hardcore. Eek—but where did the wretch go?

Damn. A routine homeless had slipped in his nest among bushes. Poof! That was all.

The lame ghost

Instinct prompted me to call Anna. I thirsted for her expert opinion. On ghosts and weird stuff. For her droll endearment, too.

But my wise sense spoke. “Why, in God’s name, don’t you snap photos, Adi? Or record a video? Anna won’t take your elucubrations for real. Not anyone, for that matter.”

As I fished my phone from my jeans pocket, a fresh flicker brought the alien back on its track. Oh. No seconds available to snap photos. My pupils, so, stuck to the illusion ahead.

In fact … what? Foggy rags transporting limbs non-existent. One severed. Then a stiff nape. Ugh. Crowned by a fuzzy top. Because, dear God, I spied outlines of sticky hairs. Disheveled. A wound?

Then, for a false instant, I distinguished a dark gash in the migrant’s head. Clogged blood?

The next flash showed fresh blood streaming. So bright against a coarse felt fabric which caught color, too. Navy blue, sweaty, a maltreated shirt.

A carousel of stills stunned me in place—I sensed—but I continued my race. If alien, the thing was humanoid, and now limping.

Hell, it switched head and threw desperate eye-sockets in my pupils’ direction. A chill spiked through my nape. Then, as I gazed, it ran an icy ladder down my spine.

Shall I surrender? Let fear triumph, and a ghost tale prevail?

Ghost chase

With its stare, the incognito ghost answered my scare. Somehow, it invited me on its trail.

It turned right on a side street, as though sliding on set rails. Here, lengthy wrought-iron fences. Interspersed by coquette mansions. Roses dangled, aloof, from jumbles of vines.

No fragrance, though, tickled my nostrils. Or … oh! Curiosity had numbed my … inessential senses. Or shut them.

Soon, my whereabouts changed. A narrow lane, cobbled sidewalk, and derelict properties. I was hasting past their blind eyes. Some windows patched by violaceous paper worn-out with sunshine. Or newspapers scribbled in faded ink.

Despite the noon sunlight, a frigid draft filled my lungs. Misty too, as though at dawn’s crack.

Well, fate stranded me in a twilight zone. Where, guess Lord, I chased … a ghost.

When the lame ghost stopped, my heartbeats screamed. My brain commanded my entire physique to freeze. On the spot.

A gloomy spot—scout’s honor. No vegetation and no living neighbors. Or brave trespassers, except me. Yuk, and a miasma of rot.

My wits prayed. “God bless my carcass that withholds an innocent soul!” Because, yikes! The phantom etched definite outlines. There, before my eyes. Their obscure cameras shot horror. Of the … organic kind.

Colorized ghost

Next, I goggled at a more surreal spectacle. Sly tools, unseen, edited the wan silhouette. They … colorized it. Or … metaphysical pixels revamped it.

Darn pixels. They showed a youth’s sturdy body clad in an actual shirt and dun pants; a denim jacket tied around his hips. Tattered clothes, ripped, wet. While I smelled the odor of sweat.

The moist patches revealed to my eyesight fresh red. A sweet freshness reached my scouting nostrils, pungent, and I recalled an odorous still. With me in the kitchen cutting my finger. First, tenderness for the miraculous blood in my veins. Then worry. Acrid.

But the disturbing present reconquered my eagerness. I stared at the ghost’s nape gash. This one, covered in stale, clogged blood, though. A hallmark or what? What plight the humanoid creature had suffered? Was the wretch showing me his … mortal wound?

Next, his infirm arm came into focus. The shirt’s cuff, constricted around the wrist, maintained the limb attached to the body. Inside the cloth, I visualized pain. Elongated ligatures and nerves.

When the wretch turned around, I spurned his pain. Phut! Because his irises, gray, weighed led on his lower eyelids. Pinpoint pupils gleamed daggers, and I froze in their fiery ray.

Sunshine faded. The only shine sprang from those embittered beacons.

A revolutionary ghost

Then, a distant clamor attached the audio to the scene. Shouts and human throats wailing approached, raising pitch. God, deafening. The audio backdrop for the protagonist to act wild. Since, wow! Now, he performed vigorous actions on the street’s stage.

As though in reverse motion, the detached arm strengthened, straightened, and then rose. Vindictive and menacing. The red stains retracted and faded away. While the blue shirt, half unbuttoned, revealed a sinewy torso.

His chest heaving, his arms frantic, he next motioned invisible comrades along. Against a common oppressor. My French ear heard a slogan. Well-known. “Liberté!”.

In that instant, the ghost manifested a voice. It contradicted, though, my illusionary cliché. He said, “No communism. Freedom!”. The chorus of shouts increased, reverberating in streams up and down that road.

A ghostly mob and their leader, oh my God. They meant to drive their thirst for liberty in my head.

Aha, so. The revived ghost was a Romanian rebel. A revolutionary who fought against communism. His denim jacket told me, a recent one. Oh, a 1989 rebel.

A martyr

As his eyes shifted interest from me to that time’s enemy, I raised my phone and snapped a picture. This hasty snap will document the incredible to the incredulous lot, I thought.

Oh, and Anna will place me on a pedestal in her writer’s mindset. In a future story of hers, too.

No time to meditate, though. Because the mob charged ahead.

For steam, I applied Anna’s urge when we used to cruise the city together. “Cram more degrees in your compass,” she said. “Anna, my compass doesn’t compare to yours. I’m a small kid, remember?” She would burst into laughter and ask for forgiveness.

Now, my man’s legs covered the granite with a thirst for redemption. The more so since my imagination re-created terrible scenes described in online records of old newspapers. Mate, those guys thought for real.

Anna’s jabbering about the communist creeps stealing the revolution had sunk deep into my conscience. It now surfaced to sadden my intuition.

Oh God, martyrs. And my lame ghost, one of them. I yearned to pay my respect.

Army of villains

A gunshot startled me from this temporary distraction. Then, rat-tat-tat-tat. Machine guns fired. I covered my ears. My muscles shrank and thighs cowered. I sensed bodies thumping around me—unseen ghosts, perhaps.

While I flitted along, my peripheral vision filled the roadway with youngsters. They faced danger with brave bare chests. In the next scene, they ran in a reverse stream. Because ah, no! They were fleeing armed militaries.

Only the lame ghost and I stood, caught in the middle. For a split instant, we eyed each other.

Rookies fired machine guns. At their commander’s behest, I gathered. And hid among them lurked secret agents. With concealed pistols, they spotted the bravest insurgents. Then shot them. Hell no! An army of villains. They hunted innocent citizens.

My stance facing this villainous army, I strived to visualize their faces. One by one, in the horde. Grim pupils, clenched jaws, and vile lips. I longed to pinpoint the muzzle that had shot at my hero and dazed his ghost.

The mortal shot

I scanned the pairs of gray irises scattered among the killing squad. The infamous blue-eyed agents. Damn Securitate pit bulls. One pupil in one iris of steel aimed at my lame ghost. My soul cringed.

The incarnated ghost swiveled around and ran. On actual boot-shoed feet. As he departed, his right arm dangled again from the shoulder. Like a puppet’s fake, clumsy limb.

Woe me! Another gunshot. It split my eardrum. Blood splattered from the fugitive’s nape. The next instant, the scene’s clamor muted. And the silhouette? It flipped to vaporous matter. Evaporated.

The usurpers sure promoted that killer. And buried him with honors if he meanwhile died. Then, his offspring must be magnates. Or worse. Parliament members. Or both.

Now, though, the commotion departed. With it, my reproving hiatus dissipated as well. The street was recovering from the past scene.

Curious peepers showed in a window, then an elderly man at a gate. Farther away, kids played ball in the roadway. A car swished past me. Oh. The present revived that neighborhood.

Suspense

Well, I flipped back to reality. With my whereabouts still unknown. Too dazzled to care, though. So my first move was to call Anna.

“Heck, I missed architecture,” I said. “Adieu courses today, in fact.”

She wowed at my profane intent. “An unbeatable reason, no doubt. So, Adi, shoot.”

“Well, put the blame on this spring day. It invited me on a loose stroll and guided my steps along Victoria Avenue. Then, guess what? On a weird detour.”

One word had caught Anna’s attention. “Explain weird, Bebitz.”

“I will, but not now. First, the detour is too long. Then the story, too tall. On top, Revolution Square calls me back. For some closure.”

“Hey. Adi. Stop kidding! You’re torturing my … well, me. Closure to … what?”

“Anna, this is well-deserved suspense for a torturer-ess like you. Ha ha ha. I’m OK now, but torture was what I passed through.”

“When a kid? As I assailed you with scary stuff?” she asked.

“No way, no. Earlier today. When we meet, I’ll give you the plot for a hair-raising story. I guarantee thrills. Top-notch.”

“But, Bebitz. You scoff at paranormal nonsense. I know that for sure, so you’re pulling my leg, huh?”

“Hmm. Remember my angel story? Your reaction was similar, but then…”

“But then what, Bebitz? You never clarified it, so I’d better interrogate you again. Sometime—for some peace of mind.”

“I’ll never tell you the truth. Know why? Because it’s obscure to me, too. What better incentive for you to compose mysteries than unsolved enigmas?”

“Come now. You want me to exploit your enigmatic experiences? Ha. In stories you deride and never read?”

I got playful and said, “I swear I read. Your titles. They are so enticing. And, Anna, admit. I do magic with keywords and stuff.”

“Honest, now. I worry about what happened to you. What detoured your right tracks? Revolution Square, you said? Ha. Miss courses to fish clues there? For … what?”

“Not quite. To pay my respect. I said … closure.”

“And you leave me in the lurch. God knows till when.”

“Suspense, Anna. A story’s top ingredient, right? You love that.”

The lame ghost’s name

As soon as I ended the conversation, I switched to my best pal in need. Google. It retraced my steps to the main road and then to the memorial site in the Royal Piazza.

There, I kneeled and read the plaques with the martyrs’ names. Oh God, whose soul haunted the urban battlefront? Who was the lame ghost?

I read the names again, this time touching them. While my fingertips traveled over the letters DOR, the tip of a sunray accompanied them, pointing ahead to IAN. Then the surname. A current spiked through me. From head top to stomach pith.

Was it a light impression? Or a transcendental response? From a martyr. Dorian May.

“I guess I’ll never determine,” I said in a low voice. “Unless I found your name on the Internet. Well, I’ll search, mate.”

God, his name! The month we were in. It celebrated … him.

But I could not wait for Anna to interpret my escapade. Recompose it, perhaps.

Oh, my photo. My cell phone sure hid a document. Ha. To beat her at the paranormal game.

Dorian’s goodbye

With eager fingers, I opened my gallery. The latest picture showed a clean street. In both senses. Clean of people and also neat. Facades with no wrinkles or spots. Instead, faced in fresh paint. Nor weary windows.

Aw, but not a soul animated the sidewalk. Incarnated or clad in eerie auras. No passer-by and no specter. My lame ghost missed.

Dorian and his fellow ghosts slept, though, in my phone cells. I was sure, yes. Or … on the Internet.

Hmm, yeah. I went online. While I was typing his name, a stray sunray alighted on my screen. It hopped on each letter. Played naughty. Then popped into my pupils. I stopped. At … DOR.

I smiled. “Wanna play, Dorian?”

The ray flickered. Once. Did that mean yes?

“You want me to continue?” I said. “My search into … your fate?”

Now, two flickers. I got it. A no. Why, though? Aha…

Half-truths, too, roamed on Google. Or distorted. Why read slim stuff? Or fake, argh.

My curiosity won, though. So, I typed on. IAN. Then MAY.

Oh, I found something. His name and age, lost on a long list. Under a mere sentence. “Shot to death on December 22, 1989.” He was 21.

“My age this year,” I mumbled. “God, I turn 22 on … December 11.”

As I gaped, the ray—now I understood, Dorian May—flashed in my eyesight. Oh! So bright it blinded me.

“I told you,” I guessed he meant. No proper covering of his fight and death. Ah, damn irreverence.

Next, the ray flared and embraced my body. In shy warmth. Then it thinned, and in a pencil of light, took flight. Whisked into the tall sky.

I understood. The one to remember and revere him was I.

The lame ghost story

That evening, I recounted to Anna the strange incident. When I reached its sad end, I wept. Imagine, a SEO manager.

Also, imagine my aunt. Ha, the ghost expert. She wept too.

If she cried and was not watching an opera show, then my staging was grand. Or better, God’s staging. Because what I told her had occurred.

Now, I’ll be frank till … the end. Years later, Aunt Anna put the lame ghost story on paper. Not I.

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Featured photo by Etienne Marais – Pexels

• #1989
• #angel
• #anti-communist
• #Bucharest
• #December 1989
• #ghost stories
• #ghost story
• #Little Paris
• #magical realism
• #mystery
• #mystery stories
• #paranormal
• #revolution
• #Romanian revolution