I'm a bona fide toilet ghost… Is this a career in Britain?

I'm not ignorant to the ideas others have surrounding my expiration date.

Switzerland thinks I'm a ghost. England believes I'm too tough to die. Austria is convinced I'm nothing but an annoying memory manifested to annoy him. Canada theorizes I'm a symbiont, sipping Germany's earth power like a nation's animal companion might. Russia told me I'm not smart enough to follow the light… before he said the light repels me. That night I altered his genetic makeup so all his body hair was pink for a while, and that seemed to shut him up.

Then there's Italy, who says I haven't kicked any buckets yet because Germany loves me soooooooo much, and hearing that kind of thing makes mein Herz go niyo niyo~

We can't be certain no one knows about my real deaths. The EP flux each time I did kick a bucket was no small shift in the balance. Nations are driven by instinct to conquer power vacancies, so a flux is worth investigating. I'm sure Germany got phone calls whenever I pooped out. I'm sure he tried picking up the receiver and crushed it in his full-power fist. I'm sure he got emails, and I'm sure he tore a few keys off those old clunky keyboards with just his fingernails.

I'm sure the surrounding nations felt it when my droopy face lifted back to its prime and Germany lost a meal all over my duck pajamas. But what does that mean to them? He's using necromancy? Hilarious. No, I'm sure they all think I just moped around and forgot I was Prussia enough to go up in smoke, and then remember at the last second and fight my way back to the land of the living.

But nevertheless, whether I've got one percent of Germany's power or not, I'm still called "ex-nation" and "inactive" and "dead, question mark?"

I don't want people to think I'm dead. I'm clearly alive before all of them! Punch me, and see that it's true! I might not feel the punch, either because I condensed my mass or altered my body composition or I partially don't exist today, but I can make it look like you hit me!

At the same time, I'm Prussia, and what Prussia does best is screwing with people. So sometimes I give in to the rumors and get my haunting on.

Remember when I was doing my makeup and inverted France's croissants? Well, he's been sending plenty of mean messages to England about it on all forms of media. Now, England is not responsible for the great haunting of the croissants, and even I know it's not fair for him to receive all these burns, so today I'm doing a little Prussian damage control, ghost style. If I'm the ghost who haunted the croissants, I might as well make it even and haunt the scones, too.

It took me ages to find Big Brows' place in Oxford with all this tea-sipping going on. Reaching out for him with my earth power could alert him to my presence, so I moseyed around all these castle-like buildings and giggly exchange students at the university (they remind me of my dream-huggers,) until I found the building that's so blatantly English that it radiates his EP signature without me even trying to sense it. He's definitely home, too. Spot-on.

"Going ghostly," I whisper with a smirk. I tell gravity to screw itself and start floating, then focus on my mass and volume. I take up space by existing in this 3-D plane, but if I can start phasing myself out of this plane and into the Anticanon, just a bit, like lowering the opacity of a digital drawing, yes, I can feel it. I'm getting a headrush. My body feels tingly and dreamlike. Space-time starts warping around me. Where it once had to conform around my body, it's now loosening and flowing into where I'm supposed to be, taking up the space I'm supposed to take up.

It's like I don't even exist.

Of course, I don't phase completely out of reality. I keep my body and consciousness intact, so the only sign of nonexistence is a shimmer on my form. I'm translucent, and when I lean forward, I can push my face right past the wall and into Big Brows' house.

Trash, right?

I float right on through the wall, taking in my surroundings. He's been getting crafty. A half-done quilt is in pieces all over the kitchen table, and a large square of fabric is taut in an embroidery ring — obviously the center of the quilt. I descend to check it out. It's incredibly intricate. A dozen threads of floss weave and criss-cross to form ocean waves supporting a massive old ship. Getting to be a sentimental old man, is he? A smirk crosses my glowing face.

"I can assure you the insurance is up-to-date. What? Date of birth? You say the one on the insurance card doesn't match up with your record? Oh, that does happen from time to time. No, I didn't mean… I am not a scammer! All I need is a follow-up appointment! I forgot to schedule another one directly after the filling. Do you have any open times next week? This Thursday would also work. Oh… oh yes, I can do that. My what now? Oh yes, of course, I had them taken out quite a while ago, actually. Let's see, nineteen — twenty, I meant twenty, right? Very funny, miss Emma, I'm not looking to get my fangs checked out."

Ah, so this is his excuse for those horrid bottom teeth. He can't schedule appointments because of all the paperwork. I poke my head into the kitchen. Big Brows has one hand on a corded phone and the other on his laundry basket. He sniffs a pair of socks before tossing them right in the washer. I fade out even thinner, so most light is able to pass through my body, and float up behind him.

"Thursday at ten? Yes, I should be able to make it. What will I be wearing? Now, what sort of question is that? Oh dear, miss, I'm afraid I'm a taken man. Yes, I've got a wife and two corgis, Montagu and Cholmondeley. Really, I won't go into detail. Yes, I'll bring the insurance card. I must say good day, miss! The washing is too loud!"

He hangs up the phone while I open the fridge door and start rifling through things. Surprisingly, it's a good spread. He must be planning a meal for his wife and two corgis, Montagu and Cholmondeley. Anyway, he doesn't notice me because he's so focused on the washing, so I take the carton of eggs out and wonder where I should start chucking.

"The blasted insurance card. I must have given them the old one that says I was born in '86. I can't keep track of dates anymore." He swipes his hands over his cheeks and sighs. "I'll meditate tonight. Make myself feel old despite the young face."

I chuck an egg at the back of his head and fight back a laugh. He jolts, then slowly turns around to see the floating carton. But instead of shivering, he merely scowls and bares his recently-cleaned teeth.

"And now I've got a poltergeist in the kitchen. Brilliant. What is it you want?"

I take out a few more eggs and chuck them, hearing three perfect splats right between the eyebrows. Now I can't hold back my laughter, so I suck in my breath and swell my neck a bit so my voice sounds all deep and creepy.

"I finished the task. But France sent me back with another."

"Oh, for the love of — I did not send a poltergeist to unroll his croissants! Where did he get that idea, and where did you get that idea!?"

"Doesn't matter. I was told to haunt you."

"I didn't send you to France in the first place."

The remaining eggs get dropped on his head. I phase through the top of the fridge to grab the other and begin pelting everything in sight with egg goop. I pull Big Brows' ears and kick his shins and pull down his trousers so he trips when trying to chase me. My distorted laughter echoes throughout the house.

Then I eye his scones — because of course he's made them, and extend my power over them. Effortlessly, they invert themselves so the fluffy part is on the outside. I take one and bite into it. Absolutely tasteless.

"This is tasteless," I tell him.

"Well, obviously. You're supposed to have it with tea."

"MAKE ME TEA!" I roar. A whirlwind whips up in the house, scattering the fabric pieces and knocking over plenty of picture frames. Then I summon three more egg cartons from other fridges in the neighborhood and begin dropping eggs closer and closer to the embroidery ring.

"Don't you dare, foul spirit."

"No more curses on France."

"I didn't curse him! Why, I was planning on cursing him, but really? Inverting the croissants? I'm much more creative than that."

"NO MORE CURSES ON FRANCE!"

I chuck an egg at his forehead. He wipes off the smear of goop and tries to straighten himself into a respectable gentleman. "All right, I'll make you tea and put away my curses for now. Are you satisfied? That quilt is a gift for a sick child."

I consider this. I wasn't going to egg the quilt anyway, but I chuck the remaining eggs at his forehead and chuckle to myself.

"Consider it done."

But I don't consider it done because there's something I've always wanted to try as a "ghost," and this is the perfect opportunity. I float through the walls until I get to the first bathroom (Washroom?) I see. There's the toilet, all shiny and disinfected, it looks like. I scrub the lid with my fist and blast a billion bacteria into nonexistence just to make sure.

Then I regain some of my visibility, just so I can see how this works, and step into the toilet. It creaks under my weight. I brace myself. This is going to feel super weird. I loosen up on my physical existence again, then clench all my muscles tight. I squeeze my legs together until I hear a squish. My body is slimming and compressing, and as I lose more nasty mass that holds its shape, it's easier to just… slide down the drain.

There's a splash, and I'm sucked clean into the toilet. My toes are somewhere deep in the pipe behind the wall, and the rest of me is like a long noodle traveling up the pipe until my shoulders and head pop out the bowl. I let myself become more solid, now, so I don't float out of my new situation. My chest is the right size, but everything below is compressed and shrunken into the pipe. I cough, then puke a bit on the carpet. My guts are not liking this one bit.

Just as I suspected would happen, I hear Big Brows tromping down the hallway to wash himself free of egg. I slide down into the bowl, squeezing my chest and shoulders down into the pipe and waiting with bubbling breath. He's grumbling to himself again. Closer, closer.

He steps into the room, then kneels by the tub. Going to start with his hair, eh? Perfect.

I rise like a snake uncoiling. Water splashes and splorts all over the floor as I emerge. I command it to rise up in bubbles around me, and then, then, I reach up into the Anticanon and pull out the biggest egg I can imagine carrying, which is about the size of a chubby child.

England, or should I say, Eggland, braces himself against the tub. My form flickers before I turn completely visible and tangible, morphing my face (a bit painfully) into a puffy fanged muzzle. My eyes go yellow, and my ears stretch into devilish points. A reddish cloud of smoke puffs up around me so even that image is hard to see.

My laugh would make America go hide under a bed. It's hollow and obnoxious, like it normally is, but so much deeper. I compress the air around me to create walls for reverb. My laughter grows louder, louder, thunderous!

CRACK.

SPLAT.

OOZE.

With love from me, the poltergEIst! Kesesese…

~N~

Ei = egg in German.

Updated by Syntax-N Fanfiction . Net June 8, 2020. Reposters don't get to ride in the flying chair.