Uncanny Magazine Issue 55 by Uncanny Magazine

Author:Uncanny Magazine [Uncanny Magazine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, fantasy, magazine
Publisher: Uncanny Magazine
Published: 2023-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

3.

I arrive at the apartment complex. It’s in a nice neighborhood, near a nice park, but the apartment, settled between some stand-alone craftsman houses, is ugly and dilapidated. It looks sad. The windows sag. There are stains on the faded cracked bricks. The drought resistant front yard looks as though it is struggling. Even the moonlight can’t cover up the patheticness that hangs over this place. I look at the card and see that I’m supposed to go to apartment six.

I wonder who lives there.

I walk up to the dirty double glass door entrance and try the door, but of course, it’s locked. I wonder how I will get in. There are buzzers. I suppose I could ring one and hope someone just buzzes me in. Or I could wait for someone to enter or leave and slide in with them. I could take a rock and throw it through the glass door, but I know that won’t work because I can see the shatter proof webbing threaded through the glass.

On the third floor, a light goes on and I look up at it. It’s 3 a.m. so it’s gotta be someone who can’t sleep. Instinctively, I know in every cell in my body it’s my mark in apartment six. Suddenly, I am outside the window and looking in, hovering, as though I knew how to float myself. I can see a woman hunched over the kitchen island with a cup in her hand. Her hair is a mess. Her sweatpants are faded and full of holes. The house looks lived in, threadbare, neat piles of papers and magazines and books spilling off of tables and shelves in haphazard ways. There are baskets with unfinished knitting projects. There is a television on with no sound. The woman puts her cup down and pulls a blanket from the back of the chair over her shoulders.

I move in closer to the window and as I pass through it, it makes a knocking sound. Like a tap tap tap. I see her shoulders rise at the sound like it startles her and she turns around towards the noise I just made. She is staring right at me but does not see me, so she is not surprised.

I am.

It’s my bitch boss Greta.

Seeing nothing in front of her, even though I am right there, breathing loudly, Greta relaxes again and kind of mutters to herself. I walk around the apartment, feeling what I’m supposed to do. Ghost things. Knock a few magazine piles over. Touch a lightbulb to make it flicker. Moan. I do these things, but Greta takes it in stride. And I realize that it will not work. She will not be afraid if I rattle chains or make her home feel spooky because the truth is everything about her life is spooky. It’s spooky that she is living in such a small way. That at work she parades around as though she’s got it all together, but I can see that she’s eating poorly and that she’s unhappy; that she’s a ghost in her own life.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.