15 Ways to Stay Alive

After Daphne Gottlieb

1. Never check the notifications on your phone, there is a missed call.

2. Always keep your door unlocked but closed. You will want someone to enter it to save you when time stops.

3. Curb the arrogance you may carry regarding the truth about ghosts.

4. When you see the missed call make sure to call back in private, with background music, but don’t forget you left the window open. There are crowds in the parking lot enjoying the summer weather.

5. Offer to help with an unwillingness that is palpable.

6. When time stops you can still get yourself a haircut, spend more than you knew haircuts could cost, accept the hot towel and head massage.

7. If anyone faints just wait it out.

8. When someone does enter your room, make sure to keep your eyes to the floor, ignore the ghosts forming in the corner.

9. When you can’t see them, you can hear them, you know they’re there, in the dark spaces, you can call out if you need to.

10. Check in periodically but only momentarily to see how you can help.

11. Accept the loss of the nicest day you’ve ever seen. Accept no one else checked in to help. Accept that without knowing you knew to get a haircut.

12. Swallow your pride and allow the spirit to rise.

13. Speak out loud to the crowd. Promise them comfort and a better place. Reassure them we’ve recovered from fainting already, that the weight of being alive does not carry into the afterlife.

14. Know in the dark, time has continued previously, disembodied.

15. Remember the open window when you leave, don’t lock the door but forget your phone, never let anything leave that room.