13 Days 13 Shorts: Ghosts

I hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday! During this calm before the festive storm, here's my good friend Sabir Pirzada's short about ghosts. I am so excited about the different formats and styles that are occurring in this year's 13 Days, and this short is by no means an exception. Enjoy this mind bending read!

GHOSTS by Sabir Pirzada

It’s all a blur, really. I remember dying and then seeing my mother, or maybe it was the other way around. I think there was a knife. Someone shouted. There was red everywhere.

“Who are you?” a familiar voice said, though I couldn’t hear it. I sensed the thought nearby yet impossible to reach.

I attempted to speak the words but I had no voice. “My name was Adam,” I wanted to say.

“Stop shouting,” the voice said. “I can hear you just fine. Now, tell me plainly why you are here.”

“I am here precisely because I don’t know why.”

“But then, you do know.”

“Hmm… I suppose you’re right.” This contradiction put me at ease. I felt a calm wave of acceptance take me in. No sooner had I found solace than I had been thrust upon a dark and dangerous place. They called it “earth.” It was home to me once, years ago. Now, it was a prison.

The sun was too blinding, so I always hid in the shade until night. Then I was free to roam wherever I pleased. The best times were when the morning fog would roll in, and the sun would be pleasantly blocked so that I could see the world as it was meant to be seen, small and empty.

As I knew I had to, I went to visit my mother. She cowered in fear at the sight and sound of me, though there was nothing to see or hear.

“…Adam?”

“Yes, mother, it is I.”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing. I am here and always will be here with you like a good little son.”

“Please, Adam, leave me in peace.”

“Like you left me in pieces?” I was not sure of the truth or accuracy in my accusation, but I felt no guilt. I felt nothing, save the coldness of my own presence.

Suddenly the red came back. I held the knife and my mother was the one shouting. She told me to take my own life, or perhaps she told me not to. Then, like a fog, the memory faded.

My mother closed her eyes, hoping I would leave. Her son entered. I couldn’t remember his name. He saw and heard nothing, which was as it should have been with him.

“Mother, is everything all right? I heard shouting. Abel was frightened.”

“And what of your other mother?”

“I know not what lies in the hearts and minds of women.”

“No matter. Tend to your brother, then, and think nothing of me.”


We were again alone. Curiosity violently overtook my essence.

“What am I, Mother?” At this, Mother began to weep.

“You are nothing, Adam. Just a ghost left to haunt me. Without purpose, form or matter, you simply are.”

“Why?”

“Because the time is not right yet, and I have no more use of you until then.”

“Will you at least, then, grant me company until that time arrives?”

At this, the son entered once more, carrying the red on his fingers.

“Mother, why are you crying? Is it because of me?”

“No, of course not. You are my son. My reasons for crying are my own, but tell me, why do you carry the red on your fingers?”

“I am as you made me.”

“Indeed.”

A fog arrived. With its disappearance, I was no longer on earth or anywhere else. A presence loomed within me or about me.

“Who are you?” I asked. He attempted to speak the words but he had no voice. “My name was Abel,” he shouted without a voice.

“Stop shouting,” I said. “I can hear you just fine. Now, tell me plainly why you are here.” Thus began Mother’s recurring nightmare. She wept often.

As for me, I lie here with Abel and others, condemned to the darkness and the fog, forever lurking.

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