ghost town

Ramble Wallis swept the park bench free of broken glass, sat upon it, and said, ‘The town’s dead, captain. So that’s your problem.’

The captain: a worn, crease-faced fellow with white creeping into the hair around his ears and salting his modest beard. He adjusted the cuff of his dress uniform. It was pristine, this uniform, and Ramble guessed it belonged to the navy, but only guessed.

Cuff adjusted, the captain clasped his hands behind his back.

‘I don’t mean dead in any kind of ….’ Searching for the right word, Ramble lifted his flat-brimmed hat—black, and like the sort villains wear in westerns—he lifted it with his knuckles and scratched his unwashed hair. ‘… Any kind of metaphorical sense. I mean she’s dead, the town. Like someone killed her.’

‘Belay that,’ said the captain. ‘Hard to port.’

Ramble studied the captain for a moment, then crossed a leg over his knee and fumbled a lighter out of his jacket. ‘Belay shit,’ he said, slipping a cigarette between his lips. It waggled as he spoke. ‘Makes no difference to me if you believe it. Take a seat, man.’

After a hesitant moment, the captain straightened his coat and eased down beside Ramble. The seat of his pants hovered about an inch above the bench. He was getting better at it, Ramble thought.

The cigarette wasn’t catching. He harassed its tip with the lighter, his brow furrowing with rising irritation, until he remembered he’d bought the pack at one of the town’s corner stores. He grunted and spat the cigarette to the dirt, which it fell through.

‘Even these smokes is ghosts,’ he muttered.