Ghosts

They hung upside down from the tree and seemed to be forever crying. It wasn't silent weeping either. It was the kind that wouldn't let you sleep at night. None of us had slept in years.

We had them on our conscience and they had our sleep on theirs. It wasn't that we hadn't tried. To move. Them first and us later. We only got as far as the garden gate. They began howling so we turned back, our gritty resolve ripped through with those pitiful howls. We had no choice. I made them turn back...because where we were going there was no one we would hate as much.

A lamp burns near the window to attract passing travellers. Some of the brave ones stop sometimes for food and a story about the tree in our garden (in my young days I was quite the story teller). My favourite part is where I lean close, let them breathe me in and point myself out to them, my lifeless body hanging upside down from the lowest branch of the old tree.