This morning they came to tell her that her lover is dead, lost in a storm in the night. Today she is walking along the beach, squinting out into the storm-grey water, looking for him to return. She knows that they are wrong.

People come and speak to her, offer her condolences. She looks at them blankly, says that Jackie will be back shortly, if not today then tommorow. If not tommorow then the next day. Her neighbors leave the food they brough on her porch and walk quickly away, shivering.

After a week it is apparent that she is not going to make funeral arrangements. Although they do not have the body, it is important to her neighbors that there be a funeral, that acknowledgment be made. After all, every few years another sailor is lost at sea. Who knows which of them it will happen to next? They make the arrangements: there is a funeral, a stone placed in the cemetary. She does not come to the ceremony.

It becomes a habit with her neighbors to bring food, to leave it on the porch as it becomes intolerable to speak to her. They tell each other that it is just for awhile, until she can manage for herself again. After awhile they don't speak of it at all. They leave food at her door as their grandparents left morsels for the fairies. And every day she spends walking on the beach, squinting her eyes against the wind, looking for her lover.

Her house falls into disrepair: she does not tend to it. Her hair grows long and matted, she grows thin as she frequently will not even eat the food that they leave for her, preferring to let it molder on the porch where they leave it. She continues to spend her days on the beach, but I am not sure that she even remembers anymore what she is looking for. The wind wears her down, the waves wear her down like a piece of glass. She walks along the beach and looks at the sea because that is what she does. It goes on for years.

There is scarcely any translation from living to death, for her. Immediately when she dies her ghost rises from her body and continues to pace the sand, squinting out into the sea.

***

That is a very old story, a cliche actually, pared down to the essence, the barest thread of plot. Time has pared it down much like the sea in the story wears down the woman, wears her down to a ghost, to a wind, to a whisper, a meaningless search. But I believe it is still possible to animate the story in the telling. I am thinking about Jackie, the lover. Jackie who was lost at sea.

If Jackie were as dedicated as the woman who loved him, the story might have another turn, take another twist. Jackie is lost in a storm. Thrown overboard, in darkness flailing water, freezing and drowning and choking while trying to stay afloat. How long would it take a ghost to form after such a death, what determination would it take to pull tatters of spirit together into a whole? Such a ghost might form, after years perhaps of struggle, having forgotten the purpose for the struggle. Such a ghost might form, even though forgetting the reason for formation, and drift towards land. Buffeted by spirited wind, for the pull would be weak, yet such a ghost might still be drawn toward the beach where the woman walked. And this voyage might take years.

Why do we believe that what is impossible for us would be easy for a ghost? Why should a ghost walk on water, confident and swift, and not flail as confused as any mortal, now sinking deep beneath the waves, lost in the alien dark world of fishes, now drifting lightly above the clouds, seeing only a blanket of white below, and above the sound?

But in this story Jackie was as faithful as the woman walking the beach looking for her lover. Even as a wisp, a tattered remnant, Jackie is drawn towards the beach.

And here perhaps is the saddest moment of the story. One ghost passes another on the beach. And would they even recognize each other? Personality is gone-- all that has brought them this far is the remnant of determination, of faith strong enough to last past years and death. Faith that has forgotten its cause, waiting past memory, searching past the knowledge of what is being searched for. One ghost passes another on the beach.

And Jackie, it seems to me tonight, would be drawn to the little cemetary, and to a very old stone. The stone that her neighbors erected for the woman after she died. I do not know what was carved on it, perhaps only her name, which is lost in the story. Perhaps even the name had been erased by wind and rain. Still, I feel certain that the ghost of Jackie would be drawn to this stone, would curl around it as though around a source of light, of warmth. Would stretch out on the grave.

It isn't a cheerful ending, but it pleases me tonight. The ghost of the woman is wandering the beach, the ghost of Jackie is stretched across her grave. They pass each other at least once, but they do not recognize each other.

At least not while I am watching.