“Spell cream.” Celia asked the student. She drew five dashes on the blackboard.
“C…r…e…e…m!” Before any other student could laugh, she lifted her hand, and they calmed down.
“Are you sure?” She wrote the letters above the dashes, and it spelled ‘creem’. He looked at his classmates, but nobody was allowed to help. She said the word again, slowly, and then he jumped twice.
“C…r…e…a…m!” The classroom erupted in applause. But Celia felt sorry for the children who thought spelling ‘cream’ was a conquest at the ripe age of eleven. She could not imagine the mathematics teacher’s struggle. It was easier for them to learn hieroglyphs than numbers; they were just old people’s emojis.
Going home was necessary. She longed for her peaceful one-room micro apartment. She could not care less. It was small, but it was hers. The only time she lucked out in life, Celia’s not-so-beloved aunt left it for her. Aunty was an angry cat lady. Celia paid for a deep cleanse of the walls; changed the parquet floors, seasoned in years of cat piss. Now it was renovated and hers. No more drunk roommates with wannabe rock star boyfriends. No more cigarette butts floating inside bottles filled with piss. Celia thought about getting a pet to share her loneliness, but she could not afford another floor renewal. Celia spent her time in sacred silence after correcting tests and preparing lessons for the ungrateful students.
Celia’s mom often asked her why she would not settle down with a man and pop a baby or two. For what? Celia had twenty-five screaming children on average in her classrooms. Noisy, and plagued with screen withdrawal. Incapable of spelling ‘cat’ and ‘cream’. She longed for silence, peace, a glass of wine, and sometimes a movie from the eighties to remind herself that humans without veneers once existed on the big screen.
Sometimes, Celia would go on flash dates with the two friends that remembered her. She wondered if she gave the impression of being unreliable and exhausted. Men were surprised when they found out she only needed a couple of hours of release, and then out of her house. Some men even took offense at her; they talked about biological clock nonsense and how desperation would knock on her door when she wished to have a baby! But she knew they just needed someone to wash their underwear and book their dentist appointments. Celia was desperate for a pay raise – and for her new wand to arrive. Celia thought of men as candy: unnecessary, but delish.
Antique stores were her real passion. However, it was hard seeing objects considered antiques that were as old as herself. Her ovaries were still kicking eggs, goodbye! She looked at a talking board. Yellowish, perhaps once orange, with worn out print showing black letters and numbers. She wished to find a spirit that could speak her language. She laughed at the thought of a spirit struggling with Latin alphabet. And most importantly, a spirit that knew how to spell ‘cream’. She took the board home; Celia was stupidly hopeful at the thought of meeting a literate ghost.
But first, the spelling board did a brief internship as a charcuterie board. It fitted perfectly with wine, cheese, and her benzos. Half a glass of Chianti and twenty drops diazepam. She wanted to sleep. She had the whole weekend to be awake. Friday night was to vegetate on her couch.
“Spell cream! Whoever, spell cream! Loud and beautiful; all five letters.” She shouted, and the glass of diazepam moved. C, R, E, A, M. Celia slept. She dreamed nothing and woke up with a headache. Nothing out of the ordinary except for the huge writing on her wall spelling ‘CREAM’.
*
Ugh. Loneliness is such a bitch. Out of everyone in the building, the needy teacher was the only one making contact. I spoke with her, of course. If I were alive, I’d bone her and never call back again. She isn’t ugly or wrinkly. She is just so boring. She sits on her ass when she comes home and uses the vibrating thing between her legs. She watches her computer and her phone at the same time and pays attention to none! She drinks the sleepy drops every goddamn night! How come I am stuck with her? I am, sadly. She conjured me. She called me, the teacher. Anything… she could have asked me anything, and she asked me to spell ‘cream’?!
She will see the cream! I wrote cream with her wine. She will see me… oh, she will see me! I am ugly. She is boring, and I am ugly. My face fell off, but my dong is still in pretty good shape. What would she use my dong for? I am nothing but a projection. A projection tied to a boring schoolteacher. I watched her sleep; I watched her wake up. I am stuck with the blandest person on Earth!
*
Celia asked herself if after twenty drops, she would still have strength to sleepwalk and draw ‘cream’ on the wall. Fucking children that can’t spell a five-letter word. She scrubbed the wallpaper, and some of it melted in her hand. “Ah! Damn it, fuck!”
“That is entirely your fault.” Celia heard a masculine voice. Searching in the apartment was stupid; she was alone. She looked out of the window. Living on the first floor was dangerous for women. She knew of invasions from men climbing the walls. Celia ran to the kitchen and got the biggest knife she could find. “Unnecessary, I am in front of you. You conjured me.”
Celia’s chest pumped up and down, dilated pupils and nostrils. The knife pointed at the stale air smelling of old cheese. “What? Where? Are you going to hurt me?”
“How?” He moved the diazepam glass and hoped she would put two and two together. “B, I, T, C, H… Y, O, U…A, S, K, E, D…M, E…T, O…S, P, E, L, L…C, R, E, A, M…I… A, M…M, A, R, K…A…S, P, I, R, I, T… D, O…Y, O, U…W, A, N, N, A… S, E, E…M, E…
“Why the fuck not?” Celia let the knife drop and then refilled her dirty glass. She took a sip of wine, being careful to position her lips on yesterday’s lipstick stain. Mark appeared for her, and she gasped. She tried to point discreetly at his face. “There’s something off, you know, right?”
“I know…” Mark remembered losing his face very well. After much pondering, he considered himself a lucky man, for having eyeballs, and a dong. Nobody really needed lips.
“I can crochet something, so, you know…sorry, nice dong, though. Are all ghosts naked?”
“I am the only ghost I know, ma’am. I died naked.”
“You know you don’t need to float, right? Sit down. Can you sit? I am sorry, this is my first date with a ghost. Are we on a date? How does that work?” She thought about pouring more wine but decided to drink from the bottle.
“Why do you expect me to know everything, ma’am? You called me!” Mark floated to the armchair in front of her couch and pretended to sit on it. “You told me to spell ‘cream’. I guess I was the ghost closest to your board. What do I know? I am dead!” Mark thought for a second before continuing. “Even if you crochet me a mask, how could I use it? Aren’t you a teacher? I thought teachers had to be smarter…”
“Don’t need to be so rude… Are you going to live in my house? Do you require any tending?”
“I am not a dog!” Mark screamed and Celia felt the living room’s temperature suddenly dropping. “I don’t need anything from you, and you don’t need anything from me.”
“How did you die?” Celia blurted out. The aired Chianti was rushing straight to her brain.
“Uh…that’s… I was with a lady, and she had a husband. I fell from the second floor. The balcony of your apartment uh… it kept my face while the rest of my body smashed on the floor. I guess.”
“I understand the lady.” The red wine crawled from her brain to her crotch. “At least you died happy.”
“At least I kept what was important.” He pointed at his eyeballs.
“You wrote ‘cream’ on my wall. You can touch me. You do not need food, underwear, or dentist appointments. Would you be my boyfriend?”
“You spend too much time on your phone.”
“I could spend my time with you if you want it. Do you like cats? We could have a cat too.”
“I had a ferret once, but it died within five years. I was sad.”
“A cat lives twenty. You and the cat could wait for me while I work. Cats see ghosts. I’ve heard…”
“They stare a lot.” Mark agreed. “Before accepting, you need to feel me.”
Mark leaned and touched Celia’s knees. The living room was small and cramped. The sunlight still avoiding west. Mark was a godsend, she would never have to turn on the air conditioning in the apartment, ever again. Celia felt his cold fingers on her knee and then thighs. “You can stay!”
*
I can’t complain, really. Celia works hard as a teacher. She comes home, I am waiting, always naked and available. We have a cat now, and her name is Lily. Since winter arrived, I moved to the living room. She prefers the wand; it is warmer than I could ever be. I don’t take it personally. I know my temperature. I love creeping in the corners of her little apartment. I had the wrong idea about my wife. She doesn’t mind the lack of lips; she prefers fingers anyway.
I thought she was bland. As her designated following entity, I attended one of her lessons. My Celia gets bombarded with screeches and snot. Children are feral. When she comes home, her clothes are beside the bathtub. Food is warm, and her favorite series is playing. She reads for me, and I spell many words for her. She stopped dropping diazepam in her wine.
*
Celia looked at the cat with sadness. She felt regret for adopting her beautiful feline. Mark noticed her stares.
“What is it, honey?”
“I’ve had an idea. But I can’t do it because of Lily. I wanted to join you. I also don’t want to need food, laundry, and appointments.”
“You love shopping for clothes, don’t be silly. Are you stressed about your job?”
“I am aging, dear. I will be old and wrinkly. I am… I… look, I’ve got a couple grays.
Mark did not wish death upon his Celia. His dong felt great in the warmth of her body. And between his eyes and his dong, only one held top priority. Mark plucked his eyes out. “Problem solved.”
