Unfinished Love

Unfinished Love "Thump...Thump...Thump." The soft pounding noise woke Brian. Tired, envied eyes focused on his wife while he cursed himself for being a light sleeper. "Thump...Thump." The thirty-year-old slipped out of bed, stepped into the hallway, opened his daughter's bedroom door. Fast asleep. "Thump!" Brian recognized the sound, but couldn't place it.

Brian closed his eyes. His neighbor had recently installed a basketball net. "Thump." Brian scurried down the stairs and ran outside. The street was deserted. Brian felt the cold night air and shivered.

"Thump." He listened for direction. "Thump." The side of the house. Brian sneaked around and spotted the culprit. A little boy, about eight years old, bounced a ball off the wall.

"Hey!" Brian snapped, and immediately regretted it. The boy turned around. Brian shivered again. Not from the cold, but from the sight of the boy. The boy illumed, which created a magnificent glow against a pitch dark background. It looked as if Brian stood in front of a four-foot incandescent light bulb. Brian controlled himself and asked in the same manner, "What are you doing here?"

"It's late, son." Brian said gently. As Brian moved closer, the boy clutched the ball and bent back. Calmly, for his sake as well as the boy's, Brian held out his hand and said, "Don't be scared." The frightened boy ran towards Brian and passed through him. During the moment the permeated his body, Brian felt queasy. The boy vanished.

"You look tired, dear. Did you sleep well?" asked Valerie, in a refreshed voice.

"No. A little boy, about Susie's age, was bouncing a ball off our house."

"A neighbor?"

"No. A kid I've never seen before. He ran away when he saw me." Brian was embarrassed to say he saw a ghost. Valerie would joke about the hours he worked.

Brian worked the graveyard shift for City Taxi Company. Like most garages, City Taxi employed a driver who had once picked up a girl returning from a party, leaving her sweater; when the cab driver returned to the house, the mother answered that the girl had been dead for several years.