ghosts in the walls

last night I was watching the debates and glanced over at the wall next to the tv. my walls are orange, with a stripe of white running through the center, around the room. and in the middle of the white stripe, next to the tv, above the stereo, was writing. writing that hadn't been there before, very faint, showing through the white. I got up slowly, horror movie cliches running through my head, and walked over to see if my eyes were playing tricks on me. they weren't. there was writing on the wall, specifically, a phone number. a 1-800 number. what kind of ghostly message was that? if I dialed it, would an eerie voice start whispering "red rum"?

I knew the scribbled number hadn't been there before. it was just dark enough that I would've noticed it at some point in the last year. I tried to come up with a reasonable explanation. maybe it was from long long ago and the ink was just seeping through the layers of paint now. but no, that didn't make sense. it would have seeped through earlier if it had been there all along. maybe it was the neighbors writing on their walls, but that made even less sense. they'd have to write the number backward on their side, and then how would it get through layers of drywall to appear on mine? this was too creepy - I called Miss C and left a message.

she called me back within five minutes and I explained the situation. "so I looked up and this number was just there." I walked up to the wall again. I'd been keeping my distance since the initial discovery - it was too spooky to inspect closely when I was alone on a windy night in an empty apartment without an explanation. but with Miss C on the phone things were more normal, so I examined it more closely. "I don't know," I said, "Maybe it was there all the time but--"

I stopped mid-sentence and started laughing. I recognized the scrawl, the unfinished 6s, the hasty 8s. I'd seen it on photocopies and rough drafts and numerous notes left on my kitchen counter. it was my ex-boyfriend's handwriting. the ex I hadn't thought of as a boyfriend until he wasn't there anymore. the ex who kept appearing out of nowhere throughout the summer. the ex who scribbled across the happy memories with confusion on every visit, staining all the lovely pure things. it was metaphoric no more.

he was in my apartment in september, and my best guess is at some point he grabbed a piece of paper and his sharpie to write down a number (off the tv? off an album?) and just leaned up against the wall to do it. the sharpie bled through the paper and left the imprint; I doubt he'd even noticed it. and now I'm cleaning up again, after boys, after ghosts, but this one will be easy. just one coat of paint, and it will all be lovely and pure again.

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