Loving A Phantom

There she stood crying out her whole entire heart and soul in the loneliness of her big, grand house. She didn't know how she got there, living in a mansion, no water, no light, and no possible way of washing the dishes; watching her life savings come down to only $3,200. She had worked hard for that money and all she had to show for it lied in the bottom of a can. She was their living in her father's old house, he left it to her to look after it while he chased a lost dream gone as far as the wind. Each of her eight brother's left with their wives to the state of their heart's desire. Her mother, still a pilot living in the sky like she always was and always will be. Margaret just found herself here in the midst of the same solitude that that she'd been trapped in for the last eight years. She was twenty nine years old and alone still. She told her father she couldn't pay the house taxes anymore and he told her he couldn't pay the light and the water bill. This was what things were coming to, he was going to sell the mansion and she was going to be forced to think of a solution because she didn't want to move to another state. She didn't want to have to stay at one of her brother's houses with their wife. If anything in their marriage was happy it wouldn't be anymore. She didn't want to cause trouble nor did she want to be around such a happy couple being alone herself. Knock. Knock. Knock. Margaret came to the door, "...Hello?" She said more in the form of a question rather than a greeting. Her eyes were swollen, red. Her eyes just barely wet from crying but she'd run her sleeve right through her eyes before coming to the door. "You must be Margaret, your father spoke to me about his interest in selling this property. I'm the realtor. My name is John D. Wenters...I was hoping you could give me a tour of the house." He had all the paperwork right in his hand. "Oh goodie. It's just my luck that daddy wanted me to give you a tour of the house and today of all days. It's his house but I'm the one living in it. If he wants to sell the house, he's going to have to come here all the way from Minnesota to deal with the realtors because I won't." Said Margaret coming outside and shutting the door, she wouldn't let the realtor in. He stood there in deep shock for a minute, Margaret looked at him straight in the eye, her arms crossed, "Well you best be going now, good day." She said, but her good day was more of a scary way, of saying, Get off of my porch, with her eyes. She looked real hard and not so friendly, and Margaret wasn't usually one to be not so friendly. Life had just gotten really difficult for her and now it wanted to take the roof over her head too. The realtor looked at her a bit awkwardly by being taken out of the house this way, "I'm going to talk to your father." He said leaving. "You do that but the answer is still going to be the same the next time you decide to swing by." Margaret almost smiled but she was angry, "You have no business selling this property, do you hear me!!?" "...Yeah, I hear you but I'll be back." Said the realtor leaving. "Better hurry up starting your car there, you may still have a shot at having something wonderful happen to you today, you just get off my lawn-!" She shouted and he began to roll up the windows. When he left she sat on her front steps to cry out the rest of it, by herself. Never should a woman be interupted when she's crying her heart out. Yet as she sat there, solitude her most faithful companion, she began to wonder if this was all there really was laid out for her; for her future. Was it always going to be this way. Should she learn to live with it, she asked herself these things, but how could she? "How can it be that this life be so cruel to me!!?" Exclaimed Margaret in the solitude of her father's land that stretched far out for miles. No one could even hear her echo, no one except one that was walking far, far away from her, much too far to hear when the wind came and whispered her echo right into his ear. "...Why am I so alone!!?" The wind carried her cries around the far, far forest and they circled around him. He could hear her crying, he could feel her pain, he knew now that there was a woman out there, that was feeling an incredible amount of sorrow, and he followed the sound of the wind as it carried her voice a long with her lonely thoughts as she uttered them quietly out on those steps. She left the door open of her house and went back inside to her kitchen slowly, she brought a gallon of water and the last of the soap, she poured some soap into a bowl with water, and put her old rag into it, it was rusty, it was dirty, it was worn out and falling apart, worse than a terribly well used sponge. With it she intended to wash her dishes but with the complications of not having any running water in her house. Margaret had a tall old pile of dirty dishes that came up towering out high from the sink and she began scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing, but she lowered her head and began to cry right over them, she wept and she wept and she wept. Not only was she alone but she hadn't done anything with her life in all those years except work hard at a job she hated only to be let go, and for what, for the misery of having to be alone for eight hours more in her beautiful but now frigid cold, dark home. "...What happened to me?" Margaret cried and the whispers were brought to him. "I was once young, I was once happy, I was once adventurous, I had so many dreams that I was so sure I would pursue but what happened to them? Where did they go?" She let go of her rag, and walked into the bathroom and opened her cabinet and looked in the mirror. "This isn't you." She said to herself running her hands through her hair a bit to make sure it wasn't too messy. She then closed it, not wanting to have another look at her sorrows. There was no way for her to smile, no way at all for her to pretend that she was okay, and even if she did try to fake it, her eyes would give it all away. Not only was her face swollen from crying but she was hiding under a hoodie today. She was going to wear a sweater, so she could cover her eyes if need be and not have to face the day. The water wouldn't leave her eyes and even if she dried them, they were almost promising her that they'd come back again. She wished they wouldn't do that. She slid the straps of her purse over her shoulder and grabbed her keys. She hurried out that vacant, empty house, not wanting to be there in such a lonesome place right now. The only thing she was confident of was that if she stayed there alone, it would ruin her, because it would take away her peace and make her remember her pain. She knew that tommorow she was going to try and pretend that she didn't feel the way that she did or that she didn't care that she was alone, even after so many years, only another part of her was convinced that she wouldn't be done crying for another three days. Still, after she picked herself up, and patched up the wound, it wouldn't stay healed for long, it would happen what always did; it would hurt again. Right now, she wasn't out searching for a cure. She wasn't searching for a husband either, she had tried them plenty of times but that never seemed to work. No one seemed to understand her or they just weren't compatible. It was way heavier on her heart than she let anyone know, especially when people she knew would start talking to her about their spouses and how they were getting married or were on their anniversary. It stung her to the core of her soul because she couldn't imagine such a happiness or why she couldn't live without it. Margaret's constant thoughts, "It isn't fair, why can't it happen for me? Is there something wrong with me?" It would often times make her wonder if she was even pretty, she thought she was but she wasn't sure if it was true. It was harder for her to accept; to really know. "...How do I know, if I'm enough?" Asked Margaret softly to herself. And she rolled up her windows and parked the car. She was having a conversation all with herself. She didn't want anyone else to know the cause for her tears. It was embarrassing for her that she had to cry because she was alone. It wasn't only because she wasn't married but that was a great amount of reason behind her sadness. She didn't know that anyone was listening. She got out of the car and walked through the empty park, hoping to breathe some fresh air. There were no playgrounds, just a big empty lot with a swingset for two and trees spilling to the ground autumns leaves. The ground was almost a canvas of red, orange, brown, and yellow. It was almost like a lake of lively and dim colors. She walked through and saw the trees shake off the leaves in the wind. She was wearing her awful pink, knitted, turtleneck sweater. Her mother had made it just two years before she was born. That sweater was 31 years old. It was rare for Margaret to take it off these days, it was just so warm when her soul was so cold, struggling to carry the difficult weight of the heart ache she tried with diligent effort to conceal. Her mother wasn't really in the picture much but her sweaters were probably in all of them. Suddenly she heard the leaves crunching as though someone were walking on them. She froze stiff for a minute feeling a hot chill on her skin, because she became afraid, "It's nothing." She said softly to herself. She began retreating slowly, and turned around and walked herself to the swing. She sat down and didn't move, then suddenly the swing beside her began to move. "...It's just the wind." Said Margaret trying to think logically but the wind had ceased, and then suddenly she heard a whisper, "...I know how you feel." It said real softly. And what was that for, that woman flew right of those swings, "Aaaahhhhhhhhh!!!" and she began to run and run she did, screaming at the top of her lungs. She fell three times into the dirt and she got up and just kept running. She got behind her wheel and drove quickly knocking over a stop sign and driving right over the sidewalk when she took the turn. Her speed limit was begining to reach 70miles on a 25mile road right when she was crossing the bridge, 75, now 80mph. That was when she saw him right in the middle of the road, he was half transparent and a radiant glowing color green was coming right off of him. He seemed as colorless as a black and white film and she lost control of the vehicle now in a horrifying terror, and she went right over the bridge in her car, and landed with the car on it's side in the shallow river. Her face was cut but there wasn't another scratch on her and she saw him through the dashboard window, a phantom coming right to her.