In the begining, there was Harold.

            Harold, the awakening spirit, lived in the attic of a little log cabin with sagging sub-flooring, cracked windows, leaking toilet and unfinished walls. The old wood stove sat in the middle of the living/dining room area, and during the winter, it could never quite huff and puff enough warmth into the unchinked logs.

            The cabin sat at the top of Marijuana Knob. The realtor claimed that it had easy access. What he didn’t mention was that one needed a vehicle with high clearance to get through the bumps, ruts, and washed out roads during the summer, and four wheel-drives to get through the snow, ice, slush and mud during winter and spring.

            Harold, terribly lonely, longed for companionship. He had scared the heck out of the last tenants, walking around naked at night with his head in his hands, black pits for eyes and nose and a mouth that opened into eternity.

“It’s not my fault,” Harold mumbled to himself. “I didn’t ask to be brought up here and killed. Didn’t ask to be a ghost. Death’s not fair. That’s what comes in August at the end of Schweitzer cut off road.”

            He hoped and prayed that a new renter would arrive soon. Maybe they would find him amusing. They’d invite their hooey-hooey friends over, bring out the oijee board, and hold séances and spiritual readings. They’d ask, “Is there a spirit in the house,” and he’d move their fingers across the board, spelling out his poems, which he knew they’d have published. 

            Perhaps he shouldn’t have materialized in the nude. He tried to put on clothes, but they slipped through his fingers like air. How could he have known that the man would have a heart attack and have to be airlifted from the cabin in a helicopter? If he was in such pour health, he shouldn’t have been out here in the middle of nowhere to begin with.

            Harold pouted in his room, fingers tapping the top of his head, which sat on his skinny white knees. “What to do what to do” he tapped. Maybe he could get some duct tape and try to reattach his head. But where could a ghost get duct tape? And how could he cut it?

            Maybe he should break the book of ghostly rules, and change the sign on his attic room door from “stay out” to “please come on in and let’s be friends.” No, that wouldn’t work; he was all out of catsup, which he used to write with instead of blood, which made him feel woozy.

            He’d confine himself to singing in the middle of the night. That’s it, he grinned, which actually looked like the snarl on a people eating dog about ready to bite, I’ll sing my poems to them, that way they won’t need a oijee board!”

            He made gargling noises to clear his throat, and then belted out:

            I am a nice and friendly ghost.

            I’d really like to be your host.

            If you’d cut a little duct tape for me.

            I’ll take you for a ride and you’d say wee.

I have so much talent he thought. Then he got depressed.

            I am all alone in the darkness where there is no light.

            It is not day because it is night.

            No moon to guide me.

            So I can’t see.

            I feel like dying.

            Now I am crying.