Chapter 81
In fact, upon returning to hovering
over land, he descended and parked
his boat beside a lamppost on the shore.
Chapter 82
He tossed the rope around the pole
and hopped out. Five minutes later,
he returned with a bouquet of daisies,
it was a present for the ghost.
Chapter 83
His house was fluttering all its big
and little sails on the invisible walls.
He could see his rocking chair going,
though by the time he tied his boat to
the tree and turned to look again,
the chair was still as a painting.
Chapter 84
He never had any trouble with the ghost.
He only noticed it passing a few times
in the day. Sometimes he wondered if
it was giving him dreams, when he saw places
from long ago where he had never been.
Chapter 85
He made sort of a big show as he entered.
“Hello!” he called. He walked slowly like a
deep sea diver. “I brought you a present…
I want to say thank you…”
Chapter 86
Albert stopped in the kitchen and listened.
Nothing. He reached into an invisible cupboard
and took down a vase. He reached for the
invisible faucet on the invisible sink and filled
the vase with water.
Chapter 87
The house was still quiet. He settled
the flowers into the invisible water
and held it up to the air.
Chapter 88
“I just wanted to say thanks for scaring off
that fish…I guess it was getting on everyone’s
nerves…” Nothing happened. “I don’t know if
you like flowers, I don’t know what ghosts like.”
Chapter 89
Nearby, someone laughed and someone else,
closer to Albert said, “We’re not ghosts.”
Chapter 90
Albert stood there and listened to them.
“This used to be our house,” another unseen said.
“We didn’t want to leave,” said a girl’s voice.
Chapter 91
“Ohhh,” Albert said, figuring it out,
“You’re from The Invisible City…”
Someone corrected him,
“It’s only invisible to you.”
Chapter 92
“You’re not ghosts?” Albert stumbled on.
A laugh, “That’s what you people call us.”
From the sounds of their voices, there were
four of them. Albert asked, “You’re a family?”
“That’s right.”
Chapter 93
Albert sat in his rocking chair. On the table
where the fish used to be were the flowers.
Outside, which was all around him, leaves
were blowing, falling and swirling on the
jagged grass, rain was hissing, the yellow trees
were bending and waving.
Chapter 94
“I lost my job,” Norman Withers told him.
“We ran into some hard times. We lost
the house. We had nowhere to go.
What were we supposed to do?
So we stayed with the house.”
Chapter 95
“We didn’t think you would notice us,”
said Doris. “We tried to be quiet.”
Her children were near her, Albert
could hear them too.
Chapter 96
So there was an invisible family
in his invisible house. Now that he knew,
it was better. He let them have their rooms back.
They could live the way they were used to.
Chapter 97
He tried to give them space.
He had a little room in the attic,
a bed and a light, creaking floorboards…
basically Albert Roselli became a ghost.
to be continued...Next, Part 3: The Bees
Drawings by Rustle
'listen, talk, walk
every tries
out of this world'
Photos of birch trees taken at my job
Annotated Air Travel:
1. If you drive across Lake Washington,
you may notice the floating bridge is
named after governor Albert Rosellini.
2. Here is Rustle's complete
knock-knock joke:
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