After some contemplation, I was wondering about the wiseness of becoming Veronica Lindell's muse. The girl seemed to be too immature and insecure to become the true artist that she could be.

I did not understand why she was so concerned about what her teachers and peers thought about her at that learning institution. Indeed, my entire life was spent on the outside looking in so I had little sympathy for her plight. From what little I observed of her school, I did not consider her lack of education upon their stages any great loss. Most of the young men and women there seemed crude and undisciplined. If that was an example of such fine artistry, things seemed to be deteriorating to a sad state indeed!

Besides, I could not help but be offended. I had offered her my genius, given her a chance to find greatness. If she would just allow me into her psyche, she would attain heights so much greater than any paltry milestone she would achieve in this nursery school!

Yet she dismissed me as some sort of feeble joke! Why was I bothering with her?

Still, before flying from away from her forever, I tried to see things rationally. She would be leaving this place in two months. Then I would have her completely to myself. Why did the thought of such fill me with sublime satisfaction?

I observed the young girl sitting upon her bed, staring about with perplexity. She was dressed casually in a light cotton shirt and one of those scandalous leg-bearing items of clothing called shorts. Even in such a state of dress, she was a vision. There was something delicate about her, despite her sarcastic act of bravado she was attempting to put on.

I could sense her fear, and yet I knew that she needed me. She needed me desperately. That also satisfied me.

I resolved once again to reach her mind.

Abandoning my ghost's tricks upon her computer, I simply spoke inside her head.

You are wasting your time shedding tears over those fools, child.

Veronica spun about the room, looking up at the ceiling and all about, trying to see me.

You will not be able to see me, Veronica. As I told you, I am a ghost and not of the living world.

"That voice…" she commented as if she were in a trance. "What a beautiful voice! You're really the Phantom of the Opera, aren't you?"

Yes, Veronica, I said impatiently. Haven't we already established that?

A mischievous expression made her eyes beam as she smiled. She was enchanting…oh, very much so!

"If you're really the Phantom of the Opera, do you think you could give Jennifer Garland a really bad case of laryngitis? Not permanent! But just long enough so that maybe I could convince my acting teacher to let me be her understudy in The Skin of Our Teeth?"

Nonsense! I don't waste my time on trifles and neither should you! You have a higher calling now!

She shook her head in disbelief before speaking out loud.

"I just don't believe this! I must be going nuts like Joan of Arc! What kind of a higher calling?"

Write for me. Let your mind fill with my story and let it all flow out in words…

"Um, didn't Gaston Leroux do that already?"

LEROUX WAS A HACK!

The booming violence of my voice caused her to tremble and give out a small scream. I tried to calm myself. There was no reason to scare the poor child out of her wits. She had nothing to do with Gaston Leroux's tripe.

"Okay…okay…sorry…Leroux was a hack. Sure, if you say so…" she babbled fearfully.

I attempted to calm her.

You may write whatever you wish about me…whatever is in your heart. After all, you called out to me.

"I did?" She blinked in confusion. "When?"

During the night of that play. Your imagination was running wild with ideas.

"Oh, well..." she stammered. "Phantom or...um...what do you want me to call you?"

"You may call me Erik."

"Erik, I had thought to write something about you, maybe a short story or a romance, but then things happened…and I just never really got around to it."

Your grandmother died.

For a moment, she was stunned that I knew about Elizabeth, and then remembered that I was a ghost and simply nodded.

You should write, Veronica. If you want to get your mind off of your grandmother and your peers' rejection, that would be the best thing for you.

"I would love to write," she admitted. "But the ideas just aren't there anymore. I think I've got a bad case of 'writer's block'".

Writer's…what?

She giggled a little at my confusion.

"Writer's block. That's when a writer just of can't come up with anything to say. Kind of like being paralyzed."

Sounds like sheer laziness to me. But that is why I am here! I shall be your inspiration. Since you have no clear ideas, might I make a suggestion?

"Well, sure, why not?"

You could write the true story of my life.

"I really don't understand," she said as she shook her head. "Aren't you supposed to be fiction?"

No, my dear. I was a real man. A wretched deformed man who lived underneath the Paris Opera House. And Gaston Leroux was a lying scoundrel! In order to sell books, he made me the most horrid sort of monster.

"You mean you really didn't scare and kill people all of the time?"

Oh, I most assuredly did, and in ingenious ways, if I may say so myself, although most of my murders were in self-defense. But I was not some sort of living skeleton with rotting flesh who was in love with death and slept in a coffin! Believe me, when one lives underground, one learns to relish any creature comforts possible. My bed was firm and large with silk and satin coverlets. I would never sleep in a coffin as if I were some sort of a vampire! And while my flesh was assuredly malformed and ugly, it was not rotten! I cannot argue that I was a man who had sinned too much, who had perhaps loved too much, who had played mind games with his prey in the most sadistic sort of way…but the way Gaston Leroux made me sound as crazy as a bedbug! That is what I resent highly!

"Yes, that does suck!"

I confess I became so fond of the Lon Chaney movie and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical of Leroux's story that I have turned a blind eye to it over the years. But as my popularity has grown, so has my irritation with all of the fallacies. You shall write the truth about me!

"Like...like a biography?"

If you wish it… although that sounds horribly dull to me with all sorts of documentation and dates and references and such. You would also have to fend off scholars left and right who would insist that I never existed. A fictional account of my life as I really lived it would suffice. And you will use your writer's skill to tell my story in such a compelling way that all other versions shall be cast aside!

"Do you really think that will work? I mean, I suspect the public will prefer a good story about a monster over a sad story about a deformed man hated and abused and abandoned and left to die underground forever unloved. The ghastly murders you committed made your fate bearable. But take those away, and people just get depressed and wouldn't care to read the story. Understand?"

You shall make them care! You shall make them care about me and the truth!

"But why me? Why have you picked me out to write your story?"

When I observed you that night, I loved your style. You have wit and clear descriptive vision as well as sensitivity. Just the sort of voice I want.

My words made her blush charmingly.

Together, we shall create a new work about my life which will put all of the others to shame. My true story!

"Wow, Erik, that really does sound awesome! I'm getting kind of jazzed to do it when you put it that way!"

But I must insist on one condition if we are to work together…

"What's that?"

You must cease with this modern day gibberish. I cannot concentrate if I must constantly try to decipher every word you say.

She laughed out loud.

"It's a deal!"

Such a radiant smile appeared on her face that I would have reached out to embrace her if I could.

First, however, some research may be necessary. Have you ever read the Leroux book?

"I did, but I don't remember much about it. I think I'm going to need to reread it."

Do so; then I shall return to you and we shall get to work.

"Erik, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship!"

I would be honored to be your friend, my dear, for I have known so few.

"Oh," she sighed in irritation. "I forgot that you've probably never seen the movie 'Casablanca' so you you don't get the reference!"

No, but the name sounds vaguely familiar. I wonder if I came upon such a place in my travels in the East.

"Anyway, I guess I can download the Leroux version right now. You see, there's a version on a website that anyone can print out for free now."

Blast it! So even more people can read his lies! We must hurry to set things right, Veronica. Otherwise, there shall be no chance for me ever to set the record straight!

She agreed; and our partnership had begun.