He lowers his pen to paper but pauses, his gaze drawn back to the empty seat beside him. The window is shut but he imagines that a breeze is tugging gently at his hair. The teacher drones on, her voice muted, muddled in the background noise of the summer's heat and faint chirping of the crickets outside.
During lunch, he sits, hands resting on his knees, holding nothing. The girl sits opposite him on a log, chattering on about something. Her voice fades away and he can't stop staring at the vacant spot between her and him. The leaves hum above their heads, the tree trunk a looming presence. The wind whispers to him once more. The silence that had settled in his heart was not right.
The school bell rings and he leaves the school. He pauses at the school gate but there is no one waiting. He sees a memory of a shadow standing by the school walls, tapping its foot impatiently. He keeps walking. The sun shone brightly and the sky was clear.
He stopped outside a lot between two buildings, an empty lot that used to hold a shop. Nothing was there now except for dried grass and clumps of mud. He hesitated and took a reluctant step into the lot. Nothing happened. He exhaled. The clicking of heels sounded behind him and he turned. The woman was standing there, blowing on her pipe, hair cascading smoothly down her shoulders, nearly to her feet. She looked at him and smiled, a sad smile, a pitying smile. And then she was gone.
He knew what that smile said.
His wish has been granted.
Making his way up the hill and past the small creaking fence, he stopped at the two graves that shared the name of the one he was looking for. There was no third grave.
"Not even a body, huh?" he searched the cemetery, squinting, hoping to make out some signs of a flicker of spirits among the grave, a caress from a ghost. Again, nothing.
He had no where else but to go home.