i haven’t posted any writing in a while, so here’s a snippet from one of my wips, in which medium!virgil meets ghost!patton for the first time :))
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He had been three years old, and had somehow managed to wriggle out of his mother’s line of sight and wander the graveyard out back, his beloved stuffed black cat clutched in his chubby fist. As he toddled over the uneven earth and roots, tripping occasionally, he noticed a man perched on the old wooden bench under the weeping willow.
The first thing that struck Virgil at the time was how sad the man seemed. Sadder than anyone he’d ever seen, he thought, even though he didn’t seem to be crying. This perplexed Virgil, because it was his understanding that sad people were supposed to cry. He watched for a moment as the man stared out at the copse of trees among the graves, letting out a sigh so full of despair that Virgil could feel his heart get heavier.
The second thing that he noticed was the man’s appearance. He was young, maybe thirty, with round cheeks and large eyes that drifted over the graveyard, lost in thought. He wore a well-loved gray cable knit sweater, fraying at the edges, and a round pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. But what caught his attention was his alarming lack of color. It looked like someone had cut him out of an old photograph and pasted him on the bench. His skin was a worrying shade of grey that matched the clouds in the November sky.
The grey man’s gaze fell on Virgil, and he smiled a bit, if only to himself. Virgil was much bolder as a toddler than he was as a teenager, and he certainly didn’t want the man to be sad, and so he lifted up his small hand and waved.
“H’lo, Mid-ster!” He called over to the grey man, who startled so violently he nearly fell off the bench. He stared at Virgil, open-mouthed, and whipped his head around this way and that, making sure that there was nobody else around.
Perplexed by this reaction, Virgil decided to try a different tactic. He raised the small stuffed cat up high in the air. “D’is my kitty, Mittens!” He said, raising his little voice higher. “My mommy gave her to me.”
The grey man only seemed to grow more shocked. “Are—are you talking to me?” He asked haltingly. His voice was raspy, as though he had an awful cough. Virgil frowned.
“Ya!” He replied. “I’m Vir-gil.” This was how his mother had taught him to politely introduce himself to adults.
“You can—y-you can see me?” He asked, voice hitching up, clearly on the verge of tears. Virgil shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t like it when people cried.
“Ya,” he responded. Then: “Don’ cry. I’m sorry.”
The grey man got up and slowly, almost dreamlike, walked toward Virgil and knelt down to eye level. Up close, Virgil could see that his skin was see-through; the bench was still visible through his torso. His dark eyes were shiny with tears threatening to spill onto his freckled cheeks. “…a medium,” he whispered to himself. Virgil felt confused at the word, but was more concerned about the sad man. “…Virgil, you said your name was?”
“Yuh,” he said, holding Salem tighter. He vaguely remembered that his mother told him not to talk to strangers, but there was something comforting about the man, odd and otherworldly as he was.
“I’m Patton,” the man said, staring at Virgil in amazement. Then, all of a sudden, it was as though a switch had flicked on his head, his melancholic demeanor replaced by a more concrete concern. “How old are you? What are you doing out here alone?”
“T’wee,” Virgil responded with pride. “I live here.”
“Where are your parents?”
“My mommy’s inside makin’ lunch. I don’ have a daddy.”
Even as a toddler, Virgil could sense the shift that took place in Patton at those last words. The depressed glaze over his eyes was gone in a blink, and suddenly the ghost before him—though Virgil didn’t yet know he was one—seemed all the more alive.
“Oh,” he breathed, brown eyes suddenly sparkling. Virgil blinked. The man’s colors were still muted, but there were colors, now. His sweater was a faint baby blue, and his cheeks were rosy from the cold. “Okay, sweetheart. Well, you should get back to your mommy. I’ll take you to her, okay?”
“‘Kay,” Virgil responded, going to grab for his hand. His own passed right through it, like water. Virgil looked up, confused. “Are you real? Or ‘maginary?”
“I’m real,” Patton said, and Virgil believed him. “But I think only you can see me.”
“Oh,” Virgil said. And then: “Why?”
Patton paused, contemplating. “Because you’re a very special little boy, I think.”
Beaming with pride, Virgil toddled back to the old house with his stuffed cat and a ghost.