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Forces to be Reckoned With
Author: Alastair Millar “They can’t do this!”, fumed the Officer …
The Ghosts of the City
Author: Daniel Miltz
They live remote, because living remote they remember everything. The neighborhood leans inward like old men listening, and the people hold faces that don’t blink. During the day, the ghosts come out wearing the habits they died in: a man still counting coins that lost their value in another country, a woman gripping grocery bags filled with nothing but regret. They don’t float. They linger. They’ve learned the city’s most important rule, don’t take up space unless you have to.
In the neighborhood, the ghosts blend in better. They sit on stoops and smoke air. They argue in languages that were supposed to be left behind, arguing about land that no longer belongs to them, about who suffered more, who survived, about how things used to be better when everyone knew their place. They haunt the house windows, staring down at kids who don’t say hello anymore. The ghosts call it disrespect. The kids call it survival.
The children are alive, but only technically. Rotten behavior grows well with some of them, like weeds through cracked concrete. They shove each other for no reason, laugh too loud at pain, talk about everything except their own emptiness. Their attitudes are armor, thick, loud, sharp-edged. They learned early that kindness gets stolen, that softness gets you laughed at, that selfishness is the only thing nobody can take from you. The ghosts watch them with tired eyes, recognizing the pattern. This is how haunting starts.
In the parks, the ghosts spread out. Parks are supposed to be for breathing, but the city forgot that. During the warm months, old men play games against opponents who died years ago, slamming their fists down like they can still win something. Mothers push invisible strollers, humming songs from the words worn smooth from repetition. The grass is thin here, trampled by memories that never learned how to recognize them.
Some ghosts don’t know they’re ghosts. They still punch clocks, still complain about prices, still shove past strangers without looking. They don’t move on because moving on costs energy, and the city already took most of that. They carry old rules into new streets and get angry when the streets don’t obey. They say, “I earned this,” even when nobody knows what this is anymore.
The city itself is the worst ghost of all. It remembers every promise it broke. It taught people to hurry, to hoard, to harden. It rewards selfishness with survival and calls it success. It doesn’t ask you to be good, only efficient.
Sometimes, late at night, a living person pauses in the neighborhood. They feel the weight of all that staying. They breathe, really breathe, and for a moment the ghosts quiet down. One or two fade, just slightly, unsure. Moving on is contagious, but so is staying.
By morning, the city will be loud again. The ghosts will return to their homes. The kids will keep acting tough. And somewhere between the park bench and their domains, a new ghost will begin, still alive, already stuck.