I don't know if you'll remember this
This was years ago, back when you were in, uh
New England for the summer, clearing out your dad's place after he died
We were talking one night
Over Skype, I was in Madison, if I remember right
You were on your childhood bed, in your childhood room, propped up by
Dusty stuffed toys, taking these long, meditative hits from your dad's old pipe
And during these lulls in conversation wisps of
Pixelated, low-bit rate jazz would waft in from the kitchen
Where his records were kept in permanent rotation
You told me that for a while now
Whenever the sun went down, you'd taken to keeping the place as dark and familiar and
Welcoming as you could
Drifting from room to room by candlelight
Peering through the hallway mirror into the shadows over your reflection's shoulder
Hoping to be haunted
I never believed in ghosts
I mean, that said, whenever the train passes your flat, even today
I still look up to see if you're there
Perched muppetlike at the upper-floor window, waving wildly down at a train
Full of strangers because you know I'm in among them somewhere
Even though you haven't been there for six years
I'm reminded of something I overheard once at a Philosophy department function back in 2008
It must have been
Two professors discussing a theory I have never been able to place
That our memories, and our thoughts, and our emotions
Can be argued to inhabit physical space
That we shed them in our wake
Like footprints in fresh concrete
And they stay precisely where we leave them waiting for us to pass this way again some day
Retrace them
Resurrect them, in a way
And I might be wrong, but I think that's what's happening
Here, that bittersweet image of you at the upper-floor window, smiling
Waving, is effectively the first stop on this train's route
The tracks pass directly through this memory
These thoughts, these emotions
On the way to Ardrossan Harbour
From Glasgow Central Station to catch the six o'clock ferry
And today especially
It is a welcome distraction because
I'm going home for Christmas
For the first since my Dad died
And that big old converted hotel by the sea that I grew up in
That I spent 31 consecutive Christmases in without fail
Sometimes with my grandparents, sometimes with my aunt and uncle
Twice with you, but always at the very least my mum, my dad and I
That house is going to have just two people in it for Christmas
For the first time since I have been alive
Two people tracking mud through the hallways
Trundling along as if on rails
With no choice but to retrace footprints in the carpet from a long time ago
Some decades old, and
In doing so, pass through memory
After thought
After cold, grey emotion, like
I don't know
Like a hundred thousand unwelcome guests
Crammed into the narrow corridors
Of our dark hotel by the sea
As I said, I don't believe in ghosts
But that doesn't matter really
I don't think you did either
I think I'm about to find out
What it actually feels like to be
Haunted