I

People think I’m a ghost simply because they can see through me. They shriek and run away. There’s nothing particularly pleasant about being transparent, but it wouldn’t be so bad if only people would treat me like a normal person. I’m only semi-transparent, after all, and entirely solid. Besides, I’m not even close to dead.

aI turned transparent all of a sudden late one Monday morning. I was sitting in my living room watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. It was boring, so I got up to turn it off and happened to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I thought it was a trick of the light at first, or that my eyes were tired from staring at the tube. What I saw was like the converse of a reflection in a window: I could see myself, but I could also see the clock right through my head. It was eleven forty-three. That was seven months ago.

Since then, I’ve consulted with many doctors. I can tell that they don’t know what to make of my condition. They tell me not to worry, that opacity isn’t necessary for good health, and that my transparency will probably wear off in time. It hasn’t yet. If anything, it’s gotten worse. That’s why I’ve finally agreed to go see my mother’s psychic, Madame June. I put it off as long as I could, but it’s hard to remain anti-superstitious when everyone thinks you’re a ghost. If anyone else has ever been in my situation, I’m sure they would concur.

The psychic can’t see me until next week. Until then, I’ll continue to wear gloves and a scarf even though it’s August and ninety degrees. I find it’s better to look like a crazy person than like a ghost. People know how to deal with crazy people. They judiciously avoid me, but at least they don’t scream.

II

It’s been five years now. Five years ago today I stopped being able to read the newspaper through my left hand. That was my last appendage to regain its opacity. I wonder if it would have been my right hand if I were a righty. Madame June doesn’t think so. I guess I’ll never know.

The way Madame June explains it, I simply stopped existing for a year. I was a sort of ghost, but not the ordinary dead kind. A ghost’s stuck in a transition between life and death. I was in a transition between two lives--or between two selves in one life, I should say. I left one me behind, like a snake leaves its skin. Now I’m a second me. Most people only get one. One me per customer. Madame June says that I’m lucky. I’m just not sure.

The old me was like some supposed friend I cast off after realizing that he was only out to hurt me, to drag me down. He wanted my life to form a coherent whole. A picture. A story. A movie. Tragic and beautiful. Romantic. I was to be the consummate martyr-without-a-cause, poisoning myself slowly for the purpose of watching my loved ones weep at my deathbed. The old me would wretch if I saw myself now, contorting the plot to allow for healthiness and happiness. I’ve destroyed all that I worked so long for.

As time goes on, I feel more and more distant from my old self, the one who smoked too much, never held a steady job, wrote heart-wrenching love songs, watched vacuous children’s TV shows, and eventually became transparent. Madame June told me that this would happen. It’s for the better, I know, but still I feel cheated. I’m losing my childhood. I’m becoming a five-year-old full-grown man.

III

Madame June died on Thursday. She was ninety-seven. She was old when I first met her and now it’s two decades later, but barely a month ago, the last time I saw her, she was still going strong, as energetic and imposing as ever. I guess I must have thought that she was immortal. Now she’s gone. It doesn’t quite seem real. She once told me that she would become a ghost when she died and hang around looking out for me and her other clients for a while. I can’t feel her presence, but I had come to trust her completely.

Madame June’s daughter asked if I would speak at the funeral. I was her favorite client, she said. She loved me like a son, she said. She believed I understood death better than anyone, she said. Do I understand death? Memories I had long lost touch with have begun to bubble up from the depths of my brain, memories that seem so distant I can’t be certain that they’re mine.

I dig and dig through years’ worth of papers. I don’t save papers, but I did once, I think. I know where to look. I recognize journals. Paintings recall the smell of paint. I see that this blob was meant to be a dog and that poem was meant to be profound.

I learn I was someone else once.

I was someone else and I disappeared. Do I understand death? After so many years I’m beginning to mourn. I died without dying and nobody missed me. Nobody knew me. Nobody knew I was dead. And the doctors were wrong. It was dangerous. A ghost on Earth--dangerous. It’s a miracle that I survived.