Image created by me using Canva
Owning a home on the top floor of a skyscraper has a lot of disadvantages. For example, carrying groceries and passing numerous floors. Having to pointedly ignore the stares screaming ‘Why are the bags so big and bulky?’ or when you’re carrying a heavy load that won’t fit in the elevator. So you have to pull up your sleeves and tug that couch up the numerous steps to your room.
The apartment on the top floor does have some perks too though. You’re the first to know if the rain or snow is going to fall cause you’re the one who’ll first be hit, you also have the best place in the world to just laze about and have a sunbath, then a personal favourite for my fun-loving, nosy and adventurous wife and a lot of other women who may own an apartment on the uppermost floors of a skyscraper; You have the best view of your surroundings to spy and gossip.
On this faithful day, while I was lying on my beach chair on the patio taking a nice healthy bath of the sun rays, my beloved Mary was passing the time spying on her newest person of interest.
“It’s strange….”
I looked to the sky as she murmured to herself, while monitoring the man sitting next to the wall for like the hundredth time this week.
“Hmmmm, it is indeed strange.” She says again, this time a bit louder. No doubt, waiting for me to enquire what exactly was strange.
“Hmmmm” She begins again before I cut her off, tired and annoyed at the constant want for attention.
“Okay okay Mary, what is strange?” I answer with feigned enthusiasm,
She didn’t seem to notice, as her eyes literally sparkled when she left the telescope spot to answer me.
“He’s doing it again.” She began, shoving me to take a look at the telescope.
I saw the same scraggly looking old man she has been looking at for 3 weeks. A distraught old beggar who didn’t warrant the slightest turn of the head.
He seemed too tired to beg even, he just sat down with his back next to the wall, unmoving and yet giving a sense of being very much alive even as I spied from a distance.
“What exactly is he doing?” I asked.
“What are you seeing?” Mary asked me back.
I looked again at the man from the telescope, he was still sitting down, unmoving. Then suddenly, he looked at me, looked in my direction.
I slowly removed my eyes from the telescope, goose bumps covering my skin as I went to go sit down.
“How was it?” She asked
“Is there something I’m meant to experience?” I asked her, the irritation being replaced with anticipation and a bit of anger.
“They say he’s mad.” She started, ignoring my earlier outburst.
I looked at her wondering what exactly she’s aiming at.
“I feel their assumption isn’t entirely true.” She came close to me, her eyes dangerously wide.
“I went down to talk to him.” She said then began jumping like a little girl in an amusement park.
“You what?” I asked flabbergasted at her indiscreet lack of sense of danger.
“You’re not meant to go to someone as dangerous as him.” I began scolding her as she danced around removing clothes from the line wear.
“It was just a little chat.” She said from inside the room.
“He beat a whole police troop that tried to remove him from that wall nearly to death and you went down to just have a ’chat’?” I shouted
“Oh he’s more dangerous than that.” She giggled as she came out, wearing a dark blue dress with a bonnet and a basket in her hand.
“Where are you going?” I ask her shocked at the craziness of it all.
“I’m going for the ceremony,” She says nonchalantly, going out the door.
Immediately I rush into the room and throw on a trouser and a shirt, rushing out of the apartment to catch up with my wife who was waiting for the elevator to come up to our floor
“What ceremony?” I ask as I finally caught up with her.
“The ceremony that’s about to start downstairs, if you want to know more, simply follow me.” She answers and went into the elevator.
“I enter too, determined to get answers for this strange behaviour she’s showing.”
The ride down the elevator was awkward, she said nothing and I had too much to ask. ’Who was hosting this ceremony?’ ’What’s the ceremony about?’ ‘How come she’s just mentioning the ceremony now?’....
When we came down from the elevator, the down floor was incredibly different from the peaceful solace of the upper floor. No matter how many times I pass through here, I’m never used to the change.
Mary wasn’t as moved by the rowdiness though, briskly she walked outside and I followed, then she turned the corner, walking to the side of our building and walked straight to the wall where the mad man/beggar stayed. He didn’t seem quiet as unalive as of when I spied at him earlier today.
He spotted us as we came closer and then he stood. I stopped on my tracks, remembering vividly the amount of ambulances carrying the policemen on stretchers away from this same neighbourhood.
“You seem like a smart person Mr. Miles, although you may come closer.” The mad man regarded me before bowing to my wife. Despite his invitation, I crept farther away, wondering how he knew my name and what he meant by I may come closer.
“Has the ceremony started, Maalik?” My wife asked him as she stood near the wall.
“Not yet, I was waiting for you before I open it.” He said then, stood up, dusting his trouser and stretching his back.
He seemed a bit too energetic for a man who I hadn’t seen eat or take anything. He went to another side of the wall opposite of my wife and then raised his left hand while Mary raised her right. Before my very eyes a doorway opened on the wall.
“What is this?” I asked shocked at seeing a doorway just form from a brick wall. Maalik dropped his arms and then the doorway solidified.
He looked at me and smiled, “You have a very different expression than your wife did when she first saw this.” My wife dropped her hands too, and her whole body slid to the floor.
I rushed to her but Maalik stopped me, again way too strong for a man who’s meant to have been begging on the streets for years.
“Don’t touch her Miles, she’s doing her duty now as the ferryman.” As he said that, I began seeing people walking towards the doorway created, as they neared the door opened, showing a blackness that seemed ready to swallow the sun itself.
The people walking towards the door didn’t seem perturbed though, they walked on solemnly. Something seemed a bit wrong with them, looking translucent and devoid of life.
It’s not until one of them walked through me that I understood. They were GHOSTS!!!
Maalik walked over to my wife’s body and put her in a more descent position. “I don’t think we’ve had a valid introduction.” He said as he set her to be sitting, prepped against the wall.
He turned to me and smiled “I am Maalik, the doorkeeper and this is the door of death."