FROM AN INKWELL

Southland Times, Issue 20675, 22 December 1928, Page 13 (Supplement)

FROM AN INKWELL

GHOSTS (By Brunnhilde.) To flesh and blood the impression might have been as the mark of a breath on the window-pane, and nothing more. Ghost no. 60395 was speaking. On the ears of the other ghbsts the voice trailed across in thin, disconsolate spirals, sluggish, interminable. From the swamps rose murky puffs of vermun, staining the still, thick vacuum where once there was air, making swollen patters squirming in space. From a crumbling rafter a bat hung like the xnaterialized threat of a shadow. Heavy cobwebs formed a malignant tapestry over the walls and soulless windows, so that sound and agony could beat against it endlessly for release. Light was the colour of earth when the wind and the rain have wrecked their will on it and left it cowering. Rats made their silent discovery and slipped back noiselessly into the shadows. The howling rain without seemed to be separated from the lack of sound within by death and rotting.

Words and sentences evolved, without creating sound. They may have been preyed on by the crouching stadows. Ghost No. 60395 spoke continuously, like the wailing of the wind in a cavern. “What they expect from us”—the voice tapered to pencilpoint, making a fine line across the void, joining nothing to nothing—“is progressivism, and unless we can sustain their interest they’ll let us fade.” A vaque dampness arose, like mist before the eyes, translated into the agonized keening of soulless torment. “There are not many of us who can afford to sacrifice another shade. At the present time the whiteness in our composition is negligible, and in the past week not less than thirteen of you have lodged complaints that you found it extremely difficult to summon the faintest gleam. Already somebody has made application for the use of phosphorus”—protest pricked the vacuum, which might have been a series of ghostly “No, no’s!”—“and the use of phosphorus is one of the last stages of decadence. It must be forbidden absolutely.” There was a respectful cessation as two or three shades flickered and went out. Somebody asked if anyone was keeping a tally of the casualties, but it appeared nobody cared to risk the expense of such energy at such a critical time. Ghost No. 456 suggested that all wringing of hands would have to cease. Several of the others quivered with fright at this, and out of the mists that arose came the voice of one in the thousands who sounded as if he surely must have reached his last shade. “Take away our business, and what will be left for us? Already the chains that have not been eaten away with rust have become too heavy and irksome for us to drag, and it is over three hundred years since No. 2301 emitted the last groan, feeble it is true, to have reached mortal ears. The •majority of us find it takes us all our time to drag ourselves across the old places.”

“The last time I dragged a chain I was watched with a deadly indulgence covering every pace I took”—one was speaking who still retained traces of whiteness—“and before I disappeared they actually clapped, though not enthusiastically enough to demand an encore.” The only indication that there had been a shade alongside the speaker came with the final flicker of irremediable departure. A shuddering arose like the movement of mites on a cheese

The voice of ghost No. 60395, again spluttered from the ague, gaining shape from desperation. “Boredom and ennui, boredom and ennui, where once there was the prickly thrill of fear and the delicious curdling of congealed blood. Wo-e-e”—the voice trailed into a sickly echo taken up by the peening others. One of the baby millionths said there had been a movement amongst some of his class to learn the Charleston and the Blackbottom, but their lack of flesh had prevented any progress being made in that direction. Another had tried rolling the eyes, but this effort, too, was met with the inevitable failure of rolling what does not exist. More than one had actually completed their rounds without being noticed, and in one instance had been ignominously chased down the stairs by a man who preferred the spiritual companions arising out of his delirium tremens. A midnight house-party had screamed with laughter at the approach of No. 43781, and some of its members had squirted a soda syphon at the apparition, others enveloping it in clouds of cigarette smoke. No. 43781 had returned drenched with the dregs of several wine-glasses, and had never recovered from the consequent chill. “The fact of the matter is,” said a late arrival dripping with exhaution, “that from being a time looked forward to from one year’s end to another, Christmas is becoming the most dreaded season in the year for the majority of us who have to go out then. It’s all right for those of you who have dates through the year, because there’ll always be a few isolated people sufficiently interested in your date to treat you respectfully, even out of respect for tradition. As long as you make an appearance at all they are perfectly satisfied, and go out of their way to give you all the assistance you need with their imagination. But ever since that fellow Ford invented a universal rattle our chains have been no further use to us; we could have discarded them long ago. As for wringing our hands —their theatre-stages are so full of magnificent gestures that only fools would compete’against them.”

Something resembling the guttering of a candle attracted attention to a section hovering like a limp and bloodless spider over a dank mound of decayed wood. They j waited for the wisps of sound, fashioned in ! the guise of words and sentences trailing j into the hanging cobwebs. Ghost No. 608 was speaking. ‘“The only opportunity left I for us to show what we are made of is to 1 sign a contract for revue work and try to , live that way.” The low moans may have been of assent or of protest; as their significance could have no possible value, a translation was not necessary. A voice from the i ten thousand section wavered into the ar- ■ gument, although actually there was no • argument. “Can we show what wc are 1 made of, even then ? What are we made I of?” I Into the vacuum slunk a thousand inj sidious murmurs. One after the other ’ echoed the same question: “What are we ; made of?” It was as if all the creeping things in the world were escaping. Clots of cobweb fell in fitful quavers. “What are we made of? What are we made of? What are we?” Ghost pleaded ghost, and the only an- , swer was the pale, crushed echo, “What I are we?”