Excerpt from Me, Myself & I

swimming pools and parties every weekend to share their champagne and good laughs with company; and then there’s me -- the loser.’

Oddly, I heard giggles right in front of me.  I recalled turning the television off.  Momentarily I glimpsed above the newspaper, then returned to my depression.  Again, I heard giggles.  I lowered the newspaper only slightly to witness the unbelievable.  A young guest was sitting at the table across from me.  I shrieked, nearly falling off my chair then jumped backed -- standing in shock!

“What?  How did you…?” my mind raced about as I was trying to make sense of nonsense, but I fell short.  She looked just like me when I was young. 

The little freckled-faced kid stopped giggling.  She watched me with uncertainty, lowering her head, as if she were about to be scolded for doing something wrong.  The child was hugging a teddy bear.  I asked her how she got into my apartment and, more importantly, who she was.  The child said, “You”.  Was this some sort of practical joke?     

“Missy, what’s your name, dear?” I asked for clarity. 

“Leah Jones.” The child sheepishly responded.

“That’s my name,” I corrected.  I noticed her two bottom baby teeth were missing from that adorable face.  Her brunette hair was clipped back.  And what’s the chances, she wore a blue Garfield sweater!  Through all my sadness and swollen eyes, I couldn’t help but smile.  The child stared at me while sucking her thumb.  I gazed into her sparkly baby blue eyes.  Amazing, I said under my breath.

            The fixed stare was rudely interrupted by a tapping of a wine glass.  I freaked out as an elderly woman with a hunchback appeared on the other side of the kitchen table, slouched over on her chair.

“Don’t say it!  Let me guess, you’re the older version of me, right, Leah?” I cleared my throat looking at the emaciated version of myself, that I will eventually morph into.

“Correct,” the lady agreed.

            “You visiting ghosts are something else, aren’t you, showing up like out of a puff of smoke.”  I had a thousand questions and thoughts surface my mind, some spooky, others enlightened. 

“If that’s the way you wish to see it,” the lady acquiesced.  The thin white-haired elderly sipped on her wine, relaxing peacefully, as I would routinely do during morning breakfast.