The ghost reflected on how she had become a writer ...
"No, Tanya!" Irena Bird put down her pen in alarm.
Tanya rushed to bite through the electric cord before her mother could reach her, but it proved too tough for her little teeth. At least in one go. Irena grabbed her daughter and separated her from the cord. "Electric cords are dangerous," scolded Irena.
"Letric!" said Tanya, reaching.
Irena had written the idea for a story, but decided this wasn't the time to work on it. She tossed a ball to Tanya, who gleefully tossed it back.
"We should add examples," said Irena. "It's true that just documenting the syntax is enough. Theoretically. But it can be a lot of work for a customer to figure out even a single legal command given just a syntax tree."
On the boss's desk was a red toy bird that slowly, repeatedly, dipped its beak in a glass of water. Next to that was a set of five suspended silver balls, where if you pulled one back and let it go the ball on the other side would get kicked out a little, then swing back, click click click click click.
The boss smiled his half grin, one eyebrow raised. "I like it," said the boss. "That is a very good idea." He admired his dipping bird. "I believe in empowerment, Irena," he said. "I'm putting you in charge of adding examples. How are you doing on refactoring the Delete documentation?"
"I haven't finished yet," said Irena, embarrassed. "I was working on Insert and Find. Insert is done. Find is complicated."
"Update, Create, Delete? You have Create done now, right?"
"No. You gave me these a month ago, they're at least four months of work together, and I started on Insert and Find."
"I don't see why you're not done with Delete yet. Delete should only take two weeks, it's been a month now."
That's unfair, Irena thought to herself. No matter what I had worked on first, he'd have complained about my not doing something else. He's the one who assigned me four months of work to do in a month. And saying I can add examples as long as I get my assigned work done first, hah.
"I'm home, Honey," said Adam as he walked in the door, throwing his coat in the closet and plopping down on the la-Z-boy. "Oh man I had a rough day. What's for dinner?"
"Chicken and potatoes," said Irena. She had picked up Tanya from the daycare on the way home from work, and had put the potatoes in the oven fifteen minutes ago. Tanya was picking up shoes by a shoelace and laughing as they spun.
[Husband talks all the time, how rough his job is. Irena tries to mention story she's thinking of writing, he talks through her. Repeatedly. Assigning her more work when she tries to finish her sentence.]
[Tanya pulls a dresser over, luckily it missed her, Irena puts it back, thinks about how to secure it, later.]
[Irena at work. This is too much. Don't worry about xxx, says the boss, I'll handle it by having John rewrite it like this. Oh no! That's how it had been before, I just spent two years fixing that! You sure? I'm sure John wouldn't mind rewriting it. Irena gritted her teeth, determined to do what it took to keep them from messing this up again.]
Irena admired the title. She had just written it in big letters on the first page of a new journal. Beneath it she wrote
Her pen hovered over the journal, wanting to keep writing. But she held back. So many possible plots, possible characters. She had fixed on a location, and a main character, and certain personality traits. But a whole backstory remained to be filled in first. The start of her book, she knew, was in the middle of action that had come before and foreshadowed what would come later. It's not time to write yet. Thinking first, then.
Irena went down to the kitchen to fix hamburgers, spinning possible conversations between the lead character and the best friend in her head. And keeping an eye on Tanya, who was playing with wheels and blocks.
"Hi Honey I'm home," said Adam, coming through the door and mussing Tanya's hair. He plopped down on the la-Z-boy.
[He complains about work, in detail. Irena commiserates, he complains in more detail. Irena starts on what happened at work, he talks through her. She mentions a story she ... he talks through her, complains how little time he has. She says she started writing ... he talks through her, telling her not to interrupt him, telling her some work she needs to do. And another thing she has to do. She says she started writing a story, while he's assigning her a third thing ...]
"GODDAMMIT IRENE! Am I the only one who sees how much work needs to be done around here? The floor hasn't been vacuumed in weeks! The laundry's piling up!" He looked in the refrigerator. "There's no beer in the fridge! And you're spending time writing STORIES? I wish I had so much !@#$@# time." He slammed the refrigerator door. "I'm going to the bar to cool off," he told her, disgusted. He left, slamming the kitchen door behind him.
Irena watched him go. Her heart beat rapidly. She centered herself. Where's Tanya? She looked around the kitchen. No Tanya.
She jogged upstairs. No Tanya. Then she heard her giggle ... outside the window. She looked out the window, and there on the eaves was Tanya, toddling along the roof. Unbelievable.
Irena stepped out the window, carefully walked over to Tanya, and nabbed her. Carefully, holding the wiggling child, she went back to the window. She placed Tanya inside. Irena's foot slipped.
She flailed for something to grab, but found nothing, and slid off.
The edge of the eaves caught her jaw, spinning her backwards. Her head hit the sidewalk, hard.
Somehow Irena couldn't move. She was aware of Tanya in the house. Tanya wasn't sure where Irena went. After a few minutes, Tanya realized she was unsupervised, and tried climbing the dresser again. It fell over on top of Tanya. The top drawer wedged so it couldn't fall all the way over. It pinned Tanya hard. Tanya was hurt, and cried. Irena couldn't do anything about it.
A neighbor walking their dog found Irena. They called an ambulance. There were sirens. A team of paramedics examined Irena. Another heard Tanya, went in the house, and unpinned her from the dresser. Tanya had a gash on her arm. The paramedics pulled a white sheet over Irena, put her in the ambulance, and drove away. But, oddly, Irena's awareness did not follow. It stayed with the house.
After a few hours Adam came home. The police were there. They told him what happened. Adam went into a rage. They brought him his daughter. He held his head. He said he was too distraught, he couldn't handle this right now. Maybe Irena's sister could watch Tanya for the night? Adam went back to the bar and got himself royally pissed.
The memorial service was at their house. Adam mostly sat there quietly with bloodshot eyes. He had, amazingly, vacuumed beforehand. Tanya had been staying with Irena's sister, along with her three other kids. Her oldest seemed to be doing most of the Tanya-watching.
Alice and John came from work. Irena listened to the office talk. The boss had left, jumping ship for a higher position in a rival firm. A new boss had been brought in from another division. The new boss had decided to throw out everything and start again from scratch. Nothing Irena had ever worked on would remain.
They all talked to each other, awkwardly, morosely. Nobody seemed to have known Irena well. Alice said she had been a hard worker (Adam coughed), but beyond that there wasn't much to be said.
"Why am I still here?" Irena wondered.
She'd heard that ghosts were left by horrific accidents, or when they had unfinished business. The blow to the head had made quite a mess. But it wasn't due to anyone being violent. That probably wasn't it.
It couldn't be about finishing the document refactoring at work. That documentation was more dead and buried than she was. It certainly wasn't about fixing Adam dinner.
Could it be Tanya? No, her sister's family seemed to be handling her fine.
Maybe she was supposed to have done something? Published a book, maybe?
Celestial horns sounded. The heavens opened. Angelic choirs sang in a thousand voices:
Y E S
"Huh!" thought Irena. "Well that solves that. I must be pinned to the house through that novel I started."
All this time she was supposed to have been writing! But everyone and everything in her life had seemed to have been doing their utmost to stop her. Why was that?
[Cannot pick up the pen. Opening books is difficult.]
[Exploring the attic, a dead laptop. But when she touches it, it comes to life. She can type, and her favorite editor works. Even though it clearly has no power. She notices that the words she types appear written in the pages of her journal.]
She never had time to write before. But now she had plenty of time. Maybe she should do some practice runs first? Get her skills up?
She tried short stories. They came out well. Very well, if she said so herself. That last one, it had five recognizable characters, a plot, and emotions!
She'd eventually have to try a love scene. Practice time. How about Sam, who she'd dated twice? The first date they'd seen a movie. The second, he found out she'd gone on a date with someone else after the first date, and he dropped her like a hot potato. What if she hadn't? Or better, what if he'd been a slightly different person?
She gave it a go. She assumed they'd been on several dates, then he made a move. And she let him. And it was very awkward, and he'd left embarrassed. But she came back, and they tried again. This time she lost her virginity, in tears. Hm, she thought, plausible so far. Irena wrote how the next week he begged her to try again, and they had. Each time easier. Each time more intense. She wrote, and wrote. At the end they couldn't imagine how they could ever be apart.
After eight hours, she sat back. Sweating, heart pounding. Or whatever the ghost equivalent was. She stared at what she had written. "Oh. My. God."
She was in love. She was totally in love. Why had she ever bothered with all these other people when she could have been with Sam? She wanted to leave everything, drag him to bed, and bang his brains out. Except she didn't know what had become of him and she was dead, of course.
But, this wasn't Sam. Not really. The real Sam, he really did dump her after the second date because she'd dated someone else. This Sam was just a character. In a story she had made up. Enough of a different person that he wouldn't have dumped her. She was in love with a figment of her imagination?
Well that was easy, she thought. She'd just have to write more, so she could experience being with him longer. But as she thought through further plots, she saw it would fall apart. Even this Sam still wouldn't stay with her. He was always afraid to make decisions. Always trying to cleverly switch to some other plan so he didn't have to face his actual responsibilities. Once commitment reared its head he would have weaseled away. She thought through likely continuations. She saw adventures, personal realizations, rival lovers. It would end with her brokenhearted and Sam with a woman who really could hold on to him. And all the stories would be marvelous.
Next she tried a short hard-boiled detective caper. "Lousy Dames," thought the private eye as he flicked his cigarette butt into the gutter. Irena was having a ball.
[Irena has finished her novel. Adam has blown their savings, and is selling the house. He gathers Irena's old books, including the novel, and takes them to a used book shop. Irena follows.]
This is my chance! thought Irena. If clerk sees my novel, he could decide to publish it. And I'll have achieved my purpose. And my soul will finally be released.
She watched him go through the books, one by one. The novel was near the bottom.
What comes next? though Irena. I lived a pretty good life. I did my best at work, I raised my daughter, I kept my marriage together. I suppose I'm going to heaven.
The clerk was halfway through the stack.
What's heaven like? Eternal singing and worshipping, she'd been told. A neverending church service.
There wouldn't be much chance for writing there, would there be. No. I don't see how.
The clerk was nearly to her novel.
I lived my whole life being good and not writing, she thought. But writing is what I'm for. And I'm going to go to heaven now. And once I'm there I won't write again, this time for eternity.
Irena knocked over a pile of books behind the clerk. He looked back, cursed, then cleaned them up. He shoved all of Adam's books, the novel included, into a bag and paid Adam $10 for the lot of them.
The bag was stuffed in the deepest basement to be looked through later. In the basement were stacks of thousands of unsold unused journals. And a dead Macintosh computer.
150 years had passed. Irena had filled 300 novels, and was working on five more at the moment. All sorts of people passed through the used bookstore, so she had no trouble keeping up with the times and generating fresh characters. Ghosts were supposed to be snapshots of what people were. Unable to change. But it was obvious Irena was improving. Fifty years ago she'd started doing accents, where she couldn't before. Her knowledge of history and geography was now immense. And she'd had a lot of time to hone her technique. Her characters lived and danced and enjoyed the worlds she built for them. Her writing was only accelerating.
Someday, some year, someone would come to her deep subbasement and actually look at one of the books that had filled with her novels. And then she might be in trouble. She would try to distract them when it happened.
Until then, Irena Bird was having the time of her life.
This was in response to a prompt on reddit.com r/WritingPrompts, "You are a literal Ghost Writer - a Ghost who writes books - and no one believes you."