Proprioception and the modern man

Our ghost mostly lived in habits, in patterns, in the color of my toothbrush and the way I fold a towel and where I’m likely to sit on the couch. I would do these things and sometimes feel my leaves were rustling, not déjà vu exactly, but something like it.

Sometimes, though, our ghost would get into the phone lines or shake the dishes a little, like a train going by. Sometimes it went tearing through the living room or was on the ceiling staring down at me while I slept, which what do you do about that? I called an expert who came over, burned a few candles, said something like prayers, and then left in a huff, saying look, I don’t do metaphors. But it was a real enough haunting to me.

One day it started talking to me while I had the TV on mute during a Cosby show rerun. The closed captioning went to gibberish, and then it started in on me while Bill Huxtable made his exasperated faces. It said life is a puzzle box of well-oiled wood. It said being strong-willed is the same as being dumb. It said everything you’re going to do in being alive is just more cola wars, more senselessness, so what are you doing eating dry cereal in front of the television all your life. Then it said I can’t believe Vanessa’s dating a vegetarian, and that was the end of it.