The Verse 

of 

Rhys Hughes

The Sheet

Rhys Hughes

I have suspected for a long time that the ghost that haunts my house is actually a person dressed in a sheet. They don’t glide up and down the stairs silently like a moonbeam but clatter and trudge in heavy booted feet, making each step squeal. I sit in my favourite armchair, reading a book, waiting for a supernatural breeze to stir the draperies over the window, waiting for a waft of dead air to stiffen the hairs on the nape of my neck. But nothing like that ever happens. The ghost is a clumsy oaf, probably unable to see where it is going, prone to tripping over the creases in the rugs, colliding with items of furniture, knocking ornaments off the mantlepiece. I once threw my book at the thing and it cried out in pain. A ghost shouldn’t act in such an uncouth manner.

And I wonder where it came from, if there really is a person under there? I can’t imagine who that individual could be. A long lost relative? A mischievous former friend? Simply a madman or madwoman with nothing better to do? The other curious aspect of the case is that the ghost is quite short, only half my own height. Does this mean the person is a dwarf or a child? Perhaps it is neither but a paranormal entity of a different kind. A goblin or imp. That would be worse, I think, than any authentic phantom or malicious mortal trickster. Do goblins and imps wear boots? I doubt it. I sit in my chair and sip wine. I fling the wine glass at the ghost, but the ghost has become wary of me. It dodges the missile and the wall is stained red rather than the sheet.

When I was young, I too dressed in a sheet and pretended to be a ghost. It’s a common enough game. On one memorable occasion I was unable to obtain a white sheet. I made do with a striped one instead. I felt less like a phantom and more like a desert bandit. But desert bandits can die and turn into ghosts too. In tropical and equatorial countries, where it is too hot to sleep with sheets, it must be difficult or impossible to pretend to be a ghost in such a traditional style. Do they have traditions of their own? Of course, they must. On another occasion, I wrapped myself in a sheet with a black and white check pattern. I resembled an undulating chess board as I moved from room to room, sometimes diagonally, a bishop, or else in hops like the knight.

Who occupied this house before I bought it and moved in? A little old lady, perhaps, who already was a shrivelled dried fruit of a human being, but who, at the moment of her death, contracted herself even more, a shrunk and desiccated relic of a grand dame. Might she be under the sheet? But that makes no sense at all. A walking corpse under a sheet, pretending to be a spook? That is as absurd as a zombie wearing a wig and mask and howling on all fours to fool observers into believing a werewolf is at large. Well, there is a ghost at large in my house, but it isn’t large. We have covered this point already. And there is no valid place for wordplay in this brief account of a travesty of a haunting. Poetry is irrelevant when talking about wandering spirits.

I almost yearn to die, turn into a ghost myself, a genuine spectre, and haunt that impostor under the sheet. Terrify the scoundrel into casting off the disguise and revealing itself for what it really is. But I enjoy life too much, despite all the limitations of my present environment, my self-imposed exile in this mansion, a daily routine that rarely changes, the dust and isolation, the gradual corrosion of my physicality, the sapping of my strength. I am no longer fresh, vibrant, eager. I am already halfway or more to becoming an elderly man, stooped, warped and grumpy, too slow and tired to chase and corner the ghost, to snatch off the sheet with a flick of my bony wrist. That opportunity is long gone. I am wholly at the mercy of the imp or dwarf, the trickster.

And then one day I drag myself up to the attic, the first time I have visited that cluttered space since my sixtieth birthday. It takes a great effort, I pause on each rung of the old ladder, hauling myself through the trapdoor, my skeleton in anguish inside me, bones like xylophone resonators. I drag myself onto sagging floorboards and I stand on my unsteady legs like a drunken ostrich. But I have triumphed, the summit of the climb has been achieved, I am gratified. So I catch my breath and allow my heartbeat to slow. Then I explore the dim volume of the lofty sanctum, slowly, carefully, lovingly, marvelling at all the memories boxed and shelved, the frayed nostalgia, the toys of a bygone era, the adjuncts of a life that no longer properly belongs to me.

I encounter a fishing rod leaning against one sloping wall. I don’t believe it was ever used. My grandfather gave it to me before he understood my character, my disdain for rivers and the sea, nature in general. I am a studious fellow only. But I discern a use for the rod now. I hold it gingerly, the barbed hook glints like a sad wink in the artificial dusk. And then I hear a noise, a stamping sound, the crash of a vase. The ghost is circulating on the floor directly below the attic. My lips are sealed tight as I lurch to the edge of the open trapdoor and peer down at the violator. Yes, the ghost is there, next to the ladder, and I wonder if it plans to climb the rungs and confront me in this hallowed asymmetric chamber. Well, let it think whatever it chooses. Watch me!

I keep to the shadows but extend the rod over the trapdoor hole and quietly I allow the hook to descend on its line. I am patient, I am calm. But at last I feel a bite, the barb of the hook has snagged on the fabric of the sheet. At last I have what I want, a chance to reveal my tormentor for what he or she truly is. With a yell of delight, I jerk up the rod, reeling in my flimsy prize with all the power that still remains in my hand. The ghost below yowls. I step forward to the very lip of the square chasm and peer down. The hook has plucked off the sheet. The ghost is naked. And what do I find under that sheet? A dwarf or child, goblin or imp? No, unfortunately not. There is a ghost under the sheet, another ghost, and this time it’s a real ghost. Whose? Mine!

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The Distribution of Fear

Rhys Hughes

I was once told that fear is evenly distributed around the world. But I’m not sure what this means. That everybody in their lifetime feels exactly the same amount of fear? That seems unlikely. I am certain there are people who feel more fear in total than others do. Existence is unfair. Then it occurred to me that it is perhaps a reference to death. We all die, no matter how successful we are, how fortunate, wealthy or respected. But do we all fear death equally? Obviously not. Some of us are far more troubled by the prospect than others. It has even been known for individuals to welcome death, to crave it.

Considering the matter carefully, I decided that it was Death itself that was terrified. Why should a force of extinction not resent the task it has been given? We assume that Death enjoys his work. What if it is a punishment imposed by a draconian deity on a timid entity? What if Death feels the exact same amount of fear whenever he is required to reap a soul with his scythe? This scenario would justify the assertion that fear is equally distributed around the world. Death feels his quota of terror no matter what we feel.

And we personify Death but regard fear as an inner emotion manifesting as a physical reaction. Maybe Fear is a creature too? The personification of Fear is the entity most dreaded by Death. And now I wonder what Fear looks like. The figure of Death is familiar enough, a skeleton in a ragged cloak, but Fear? How does it present itself? I tremble when I consider the options. Slowly, the door of my study opens. I look up from my desk, where I am writing this account. Fear had entered the room. I jump to my feet.

He is dressed in armour and on his head he wears a helmet with a fantastic visor that resembles the gateway of a dungeon. He lifts his gauntleted hands and opens his visor to show me what I most fear. Inside is a smaller helmet with the same kind of visor. The answer is that Fear is what I most fear! Hissing through the grille, he opens this smaller visor. Behind it is an even smaller helmet. And to maintain a consistency of scale, his body shrinks so that the new helmet is in proportion to the rest of him. He growls.

I have annoyed him. I ought to feel more afraid of other things, of torture and mutilation, who knows what? But I am most scared of Fear and he is unable to alter this fact. He keeps opening his visor and shrinking as he does so. Soon he has reduced himself to the size of a single molecule. The next time he opens his visor he will vanish for good. I have conquered Fear, I have reduced him to nothing. Or rather, Fear has destroyed himself. A face of fear inside a face of fear. By refusing to believe that Fear itself is my main fear, the chain reaction has taken him beyond a negative infinity.

If Fear was my deepest fear then I must be Death, for he is the only being for which that equation is true. But the rule that states that fear must be evenly distributed around the world means that Fear must continue to exist somewhere. I lift my hands to my head. Instead of a cracked skull partly covered with the torn hood of a ragged cloak, I feel the metal of a helmet, a helmet with a strange visor like the gateway to a dungeon.

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