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A Phantasm of You

You didn’t come home last night.

You were not here when I came home from work, and you left no note explaining where you’d gone or when you expected to return. I called family and friends, and none of them had seen you. You hadn’t come to the attention of the police or any of the local hospitals.

This morning, I found you sitting on the bench opposite the grandfather clock in the front hall. But it wasn’t you. I’m a rational man and I don’t believe in ghosts, and yet this is what confronted me there in the hall. A spirit, an apparition, a phantasm of you.

Its eyes met mine. Its expression was inscrutably blank: neither anger nor concern nor sadness nor love. It was speaking, and yet I heard nothing.

I didn’t go to work today. I sat on the floor by the grandfather clock for most of the day, with the phone close at hand. The phantasm stayed on the bench. Its eyes never left mine, and it spoke silently throughout the day.

Your phantasm tells me nothing. It only reminds me that you aren’t here. I hate it.

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