I. Out of Darkness
Here in the realm of shadow,
in the deep darkness of a wretched chasm
that never lightens, lives a ghost.
Living lonely, it craves to spread this darkness,
but it knows nothing of the bright world above.
One day, it stumbles across a traveller exploring.
It has seen men stumble into shadow before;
those foolish men feared it, and they solved fear with violence…so this ghost hides.
But in his hands the traveller holds no sword,
and the flame of the traveller’s lantern blazes a foreign grey glow onto his face.
It illuminates his eyes, which dart around the darkness—
beneath the fear, these eyes betray a curious wonder.
One day, he will leave. And the ghost desires most of all to join him.
But the man must see it, must discover it—
so it chases him.
The traveller feels fear incarnate lurking in his wake,
the cave’s wind, breath, its echo, footsteps.
But he does not run to the light. Instead, he turns his head,
extinguishing his lantern to embrace the darkness.
He senses the very beauty he sought.
So the man wrestles this ghost, to understand its secrets,
translating them into a language all could learn.
Alongside each other, they exit the chasm, heading for the city nearby.
Fly, you fools, fly!
Beauty has escaped the shadows.
II. Two Towers
The fools see the traveller, bruised and battered,
approaching the two towers which frame the city’s gates.
What is that which walks beside him, glowing with eerie monstrosity?
The gates will never open for this ghost.
The fools see difference and label it barbarity—
they see it as a knife pressed against
their throats, so they respond with fire and blood.
Fly, you ghost, fly!
These fools will kill the traveller—
they are blinded by your beauty!
As the ghost flees into the forest,
the two towers glimmer brightly with the warm sunrise.
III. Fools Fly
The glare from enlightenment erases imperfection.
For now the city prospers,
flying in fear masquerading as beauty.
Radiant lights luminesce ever fiercer at every corner,
expelling the darkness beyond the walls.
It is a bastion of enlightenment,
but nobody sees that light obliterates color.
The ghost scavenges the verdant oak forest,
longing a friend like the one he once had:
One who loves beauty, one who longs to free fools from fear.
But for now it fades into the greenery
while fools fly higher.
The hands of time erode falsehood,
the fools have flown too high,
and the rising darkness illuminates the cracks for all to see.
One man remembers the eerie ghost which once threatened his city.
But without it, the rubble of crumbled falsehood smolders mockingly.
So he flees into the forest, to search for the very beauty he exiled
begging it to join him, to save his city.
Together, they sneak beyond the two towers;
From these ashes a fire has woken,
igniting with a vibrant blaze of darkness and mystery.
As it fuels, the fools begin to recognize their reflection.
With fools no longer enlightened, this ghost’s journey is now complete.
It withdraws back to the shadows, and they fly higher than ever—
for now.
But wait, what is that at the gates?
It is another traveller, bruised and battered.
What is that which walks beside him, glowing in its eerie beauty?
V. Autopsy
A ghost lays in my morgue… not that it’s dead, for the ethereal are immortal.
But it is expired, or that is why it was sent to me—
for condoning defunct ideas from a world long ago.
Let us examine this monstrous creature and determine its true nature.
The ghost glows with an aura that I can only describe as
horrific, animated, and utterly seductive…
It causes the hairs on my arm to stand alert,
and instills within me a fervent urge to run away.
In terms of form, the ghost lacks solidity and structure.
I cannot construct any word to describe it.
Despite a supernatural appearance, I am almost certain
this creature is natural, and not of another reality.
This form is constant, albeit deeply varied.
In fact, I suspect that every human perceives this form differently.
This ghost, however, appears to be incomplete—
a fragment, a shard of some coherent “Truth.”
As a ghost, it exists as a whisper of something… perfect?
As to what exactly this thing is, I won’t ever know.
But I think I have got something…
This ghost is not dead nor defunct,
it had the misfortune to be filtered
through a cracked and warped mind.
“This ghost that runs after you, my brother, is more beautiful than you; why do you not give him your flesh and your bones?”
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Vihaan Jetley believes in ghosts.