A Faulty Wire

Fiction

Dakota Jasmine Escurra

Across the tracks with rusted blood, on the platform with flickering lights, is where I first saw them. Well, it's not the first time I’d seen someone like them. It's become so common for me to see dead people that I sometimes forget I’m supposed to be under a curse.   

Who gave me this curse? God? How did I piss him off? Surely there's someone out there who's done something more worthy of his gaze.   

The first time I saw them, they terrified me. Their melting skin, their exposed bones, their rotting teeth. These guys ought to be six feet under, but for some reason they choose to roam the Earth, visible to nobody but me.   

I take out my phone in an attempt to ignore the figure looking right at me. While scrolling through emails, I come across news articles that provide nothing but dread. Suicide Rates Up 13% This Month. I crack a smile, not at the horrifying statistic, but in astonishment that the rates had still managed to rise. Isn’t there a cap for these sorts of things?   

Well, whatever then. I put the phone away and look towards the opening on the left where the train is supposed to come from. I look out into the city behind the long train tracks. Brightly colored ads promoting drinking and gambling line the sky with their neon lights. Across from them stand more plainly colored ads asking people to seek help if they have depressive symptoms.   

Back in high school, when I was beautiful and loved, my friends and I would take pictures under these neon lights. Under them we’d turn blue, red, green, purple; we could be anything we wanted to. Now, under these bleak lights illuminating the subway, I can only be what I am now, and what I am now is something I have yet to figure out.   

The figure across the platform is staring at me. Train stations are a hot spot for them, so seeing just one today was strange. Usually, they walk around, albeit slowly, trying to find some way to get to the top of the station or to the bottom where the basement lies. But this one just wants to stare at me.   

On their forehead lies a long black line. The one thing that had always freaked me out about these guys is that sometimes they’ll look up to the sky and yell “bells” and then that black line would open to reveal a third eye, which seemed to be the most beautiful feature about them. And then, they’d vanish. Gone, like they were never there.   

I wonder if this ghost’s eye would open today, maybe I could have a chance to take a video. Maybe this supernatural event would cause something to shift in my world, something that would finally get my mom and sister to believe me.   

The old speaker announces the incoming train. I lean my head over the yellow bumps on the ground and over the tracks to get a glimpse of the train. With nobody here to hold me back, I lean even further. I hear the train in the distance speeding its way over. Above me, the lights flicker. I guess the wires on my side are broken as well. I lift my leg slightly to lean myself over more. The train is now in full view. In 10 seconds, it will go over the tracks and crush anything in its way. I slowly lean back as the train comes in front of me, going at least 60 miles an hour. The lights above me stop flickering.  

Weird.  

The train is packed with people returning home from work. All dressed in heavy suits; you can see the sweat forming on their foreheads. I manage to squeeze myself in, facing the platform on the opposite side where the ghost still stares at me. I closed my eyes, trying once again to think of the reason why I was given this curse. But, like all the times before, I can’t.   

There's no obvious reason for it, or at least one that makes sense. I didn’t get it when Jenny started living with my sister after I had a hard time raising her. Not when I eloped with my boyfriend after getting my diploma, just to divorce three years later. Not when my mom pushed me down the stairs after telling her I was pregnant, to then start crying on the way to the hospital asking God why he gave her such a stupid daughter. And I certainly didn’t get it when I saw my dad’s feet hanging above the ground when I went to visit him for my twelfth birthday.   

I was in community college. I had been crying in my advisor’s office after failing another test. I couldn't waste another semester here. To make myself feel better I biked to the cafe to get myself hot chocolate. But when I got off, I noticed that transparent figures had been hanging out near it. It was only when one walked up to me that I could make out the figure of a corpse. As time passed by, they started to look more visible, and after a year, I could see them clearly.   

I absolutely refuse to believe that this curse was caused by a test. It's too ... boring. I push it out of my mind and think of what I’m going to microwave for dinner later.   

~~~

I’m in the delivery room, Francisco on my left, squeezing my hand; mom on my right, arguing with the doctors.   

“It's too soon,” they said.  

I feel like I’m going to pass out. The pain becomes unbearable and tears stem from my eyes. The room spins and now I’m holding baby Jenny in my arms.   

My sister Lina barges into the room, shaky and out of breath. Mom grabs her by the collar of her coat and demands to know why she missed the birth of her niece.   

“I rushed here as soon as classes were dismissed,” she hastily explained. “But there was a delay at the train station. Someone jumped, it was a college student this time… .”  

Mom and Lina are arguing. Francisco is on the phone with his grad school friends. Baby Jenny is crying her eyes out. I feel my consciousness slip and shut my eyes.   

It was still dark when I woke up. What a horrible memory. For twelve years I had repressed it; it should have all but disappeared by now. So why, why had it returned?  

Only the sound of my fan answers me in my cool, moonlit room. The arms on the old clock look like they say 2:30 AM, usually that's when I would have gone to sleep to savor my few hours of peaceful sleep. Reaching out for the glass of water on my nightstand, my body slightly jolts when I see the wooden rectangle next to it. It's a picture of Jenny when she was four. I don’t want to look at it, but I can never bring myself to put it away. Wide awake now, I stare at the ceiling waiting for sleep to come back and reclaim me.   

~~~

Today was my day off from work, and usually that meant I wouldn’t do a single thing today, but I was determined to know why I had that awful dream yesterday. It's been a while since I allowed myself a day off. My inability to do my jobs well enough is what has gotten me laid off over the past few years, so I made sure to take as few days off on this accounting job to stay on my boss’s good side.   

There’s a movie I had been meaning to watch in theatres that I kept putting off, but today’s the last day they’re screening it, so despite the guilt in the back of my mind, I managed to get myself out of the apartment and to the train station.   

I get off the not so crowded train and wait for the next one on the empty platform. This particular one usually isn’t busy, so on a Tuesday afternoon it's no surprise that I’m the only one here, at least the only living one.   

Apparently with nothing better to do, ghosts hang around the platform. Some lay on the tracks as if they’ve just been run over; others are running around with their newfound freedom.   

There's one just out of my view mumbling something to themself. Turning my head, I’m met with the ghost who was creepily staring at me the other day. Now that they were only a few away from me, I could look at the finer details about them. Over their peeling skin, a green varsity jacket decorated with two gaping tears sits. Their jeans are in a similar state, but there the blood is more visible. Their black hair is completely tangled. They look about 20.   

“What are you saying?” I ask loudly. The train won’t be here for another 15 minutes, and I know that there’s no other people nearby.   

“-ls” their voice is still small, but I can tell they’re trying to speak up.   

“What?” I ask in a more annoyed tone.  

“Bells” they said, this time more clear. “I want... to see them.”  

I wish I could, too. I look up in hopes to find these “bells.” Unsurprisingly, I only see the ash covered ceiling darkened by the smog covered sky peeking out the windows. I should probably ask for their name, who they are, how they died, but these guys never have an answer, always saying they can’t remember. So instead, I ask “can you control dreams?”  

There, that should be specific enough for them to answer. Instead of a simple “yes” or “no”, they just gawk at me like I just told them I was the second coming of Christ.   

“What?” They sounded more like a kid than a walking corpse when they said that. Maybe my question was so bizarre it snapped them out of whatever trance they were in. With no answer, I pat the seat next to mine.   

“You’ve been standing this entire time, aren't your legs tired?” They shake their head no, but nonetheless they sit next to me.   

The two of us just sit in silence while the light above us flickers. I’m scrolling through old photos on my phone when a bony hand points at it. I hadn’t realized it, but I was staring at a photo of Jenny.  

“That's my daughter” I say with false pride. “Her name’s Jenny. Funny story, I was going to name her Jaslyn, after myself, but my mom has this belief that if you give someone your name, they’ll inherit your karma, and well...” My voice had trailed off. The familiar feeling of my throat closing appears.  

“Sorry, I just don’t know when to stop talking” I try to laugh it off.  

Something in the ghost’s face shifts. “Where... is she?”  

“She lives with my sister; I couldn’t take care of her anymore,” I say flatly. 

“Don’t worry … about her. She’ll be okay”    

She’ll be okay, that's a relief.  

Wanting to change the topic, I ask why they’re stuck here, feeling kind of sheepish when I realized a more basic question would have been better to start off with.   

“I’m trapped by ... guilt. That's what everyone says. We don’t ... really know what that ‘guilt’ is.”   

After that, they tried to explain the pieces of their lives that they could remember. They had a family whose faces they couldn’t remember. They were a college student. They had a pocketknife that they often used.   

My train came and we said our farewells. My reflection on the window seemed more transparent than usual. Tears were stemming from my eyes, but no sound came from my mouth.   

The movie was okay, not worth the fanfare. Construction forced me to take a detour to the train station. While walking down the rarely used entrance, something catches my eye. It's a sheet of paper taped to the poll. Below it is a dried-up bouquet of hydrangeas surrounded by pictures and cards.  

On the paper was a picture of someone who jumped onto the train tracks. The name read “Camille Maldonaldo.” Judging by the birth and death dates, they were about 20. It's funny, they look exactly like the ghost I’ve been talking to. And this person just so happened to be born on the day my daughter was born, and I was no longer myself. I push that picture out of my head and continue down.    

~~~

“Why’d you jump?” I’m sitting on my usual bench while the ghost lays on the floor. “I mean look at your clothes, that's definitely how you died, right?” My breathing was starting to get rapid. “So, why’d you do it? Clearly it was a mistake, otherwise you wouldn’t be stuck like this,” my arms gestured widely towards them, I hadn’t meant to come off as rude, it’s just that my body and voice were projecting something from me.   

The ghost, I guess Camille, no, the ghost just stared blankly at me. “Bells” they muttered. “I want to see them.”  

“What does that even mean, what does it mean!?” At this point tears were stemming from my eyes. “Tell me, tell me so I don’t end up like you, lost and confused. I’m barely living as it is, I’m tired of this life, but I don’t want to end up like you!”  

As soon as the words left my life, my body began trembling. It was as if something had been released from me.   

“It isn’t fair that a kid like you who was loved by their whole family has to be stuck like this.”  

The ghost’s look of sympathy had turned into confusion. Wordlessly I got up and gestured to them to follow me. We walked for about 10 minutes towards the pillar with the memorial on it. Upon seeing what was essentially their tombstone, there were no tears like I expected, but rather a look of content on their face.   

“So they did care.” It was the most human sounding they had ever been.  

Looking up at the ceiling, I asked “can you see the bells?”   

They shook their head no, but still smiling, they said “I’ll see them soon enough, thank you Jaslyn.”   

They walked up steps and disappeared among the crowd.   

I took a different train route than usual, but I was very familiar with it. When I got off and headed towards my destination, the surrounding ghosts were easier to see through.   

After some searching I found the house. When I knocked, I was greeted with the faces of my sister and daughter. They had asked if I was fine or if I needed anything.  

“I’m going to be fine,” I said with a small smile on my face.    

“But for now I’m just happy to be here.”