Beyond the Grave

Prompt: Write a story in which a ghost serves as your main character.

Source: writing.com

Original Airdate: October 7, 2010

Response:

She leaned in, tilting her head. The light was dim, but she could still discern Bradley's features where he lay sleeping. One tiny arm was visible above the covers, clutching at the cowboy-patterned quilt.

His eyelids were perfectly smooth, seamless, fringed by long, dark lashes. His hair was getting too long, in desperate need of a cut to prune it out of his eyes. She itched to brush it back from Bradley's forehead.

She leaned in closer; his heat radiated into her, like lazy sunbeams through the window pane in the family room. She smiled, remembering a day when she had come out of the kitchen to find Bradley curled up in a patch of sunlight like a cat. He had smiled as she came in, but otherwise she would not have been able to tell that he was awake.

She ached to see him smile again, but she knew she might have to wait a very long time. He hardly smiled while awake and somehow less when he was sleeping. She had not seen him smile since the funeral though she had only rarely left his side.

Forgetting, she leaned in to press a kiss to Bradley's forehead. Her lips passed through his skin and, though, she could not feel anything except the vague impression of his body heat, she saw him shiver. She retreated hastily.

She folded her hands in her lap. If she there had been tears left in her, she would have cried.