Gotham Oddities
File 004: Charlie Ward

Godlessness, they say that alone is a sin. To not believe in anything after life – what happens when the afterlife is just not that, but more life? We call it purgatory. What an awful name that fits too well in this listless state.

While alive I had a boring life; it was much like textbook purgatory. The idea of toiling away at an office job day in and day out just to meet my bills for the month and then do it all again seems so insane now. I recall the exact moment of my death very clearly too. Some Joker blew up a bus I was on going to work, my brains went all over one of the seats and my body was reduced to a bloody mess of fleshy bits and bone shards they confused at the morgue for someone else's. My ashes were not even buried whole. Maybe that's why I never moved on; like I'd been waiting for the rest of me to be there.

I was not always around from the moment of my death – even if I recall it. This state of being came later, I simply… Woke up like this. There was no white light, a bit of darkness like I had been sleeping. And then a noise. Some assholes had been digging up my grave. Truth be told there were many graves, a whole wall of cremated individuals. My neighbors.

A nervous voice uttered, "Bro, hurry the fuck up."
"Come on you sissy. Scared of ghosts?"
"N-no. But it's fucking cold. Dropped a goddamn degree or somethin'."

The voices of the two men ripped through the darkness I'd been slumbering in and another thwack to the wall was made. They were trying to bore through the cement with a spade – and I had thought I was not all that intelligent while alive. I felt… nothing. Physically. I think my shoes were slightly passing through the floor as I watched them, there had been no before. It was not like I walked up behind them, I'd simply just been able to see again. I was there. I existed.

'Leave.' I could hear myself, I sounded tired and wholly upset even as I did not feel either of those things. Exactly as any individual annoyed they'd been woken up sounded.

They, however, had not heard me. The sissy's shoulders shook as if I'd just breathed a chill down his neck instead, "Man come on… this place gives me the fuckin' creeps." I could see the gooseflesh on his neck making the hairs stand on end.

"Look," The man with the spade spoke pointedly and turned his head to the other, "if we don't get this drop we are going to be the ones six feet under here."

I'd meant to grab the shoulder of the man holding the spade, yet my hand phased right through his body. They found purchase upon the shovel itself though. Ghost sure, a poltergeist… very much so it seemed. Tearing the shovel from his hands I could see my reflection in their eyes flash for a moment – a pale visage of right before I exploded. I looked like a damn zombie in life too most days, so not much of a difference. Just transparent now. They ran and the shovel went flying after them as I threw it.

Then I simply never went back to sleep. I existed. I was here. Time was something I could keep track of but did not, something along the line of weeks went by of myself hovering around the graveyard in some unfelt breeze before I realized I could just… walk if I wanted to. And that I was not bound to the graveyard like stories from my life may have suggested. It did feel strange to leave the hallowed grounds, but, I was not stopped.

During the day I felt sluggish as if the sun itself drained me. I would stay indoors and people watch. Turned out it was rare that I could be seen by the living – animals were another story. Especially cats.

The gossip I knew from just lingering around others after just a few days. Gotham truly was a rotten place. At night I felt energized – especially when the moon was not out. Total darkness felt the best and as a bonus, I could see in it just fine. That's when I witnessed my first mugging (as a ghost). A little old lady coming home from the store had her purse snatched and her groceries knocked to the ground. I forget what had rolled to my feet but I picked it up and threw it with incredible force at the mugger. While I'd hit him in the head it was not what stopped him, I'd just distracted him and he ran into a lamppost knocking himself down. Stunned and dazed, where one Boy Wonder in a red suit had no trouble landing next to him and cuffing him to the lamppost after that.

That's when I knew what I wanted to do with my afterlife. Instead of being a sad floating sap that spied on people I was going to become a hero. Or at least a ghostly vigilante. What could anyone do to stop me? I was already dead.

"A hero huh… you just stole," she stressed the word: stole, "from the museum for a woman in a catsuit."

I never said I'd be a hero of justice, just one for the living people. You're going to sell that jewel off and give the money to a charity right?

The woman in the catsuit smiled holding up the apple-sized glittering blue gem admitting her intentions, "Most of it." Her eyes reflected my visage when she looked back and I was never sure if she was reading my lips or could hear me tell my tale.

Good enough for me.

A/N: I wanted to play around with an existential, first-person writing style which I do not do often.
Do you like music? Me too. Want to know what I listened to for this?
The Other Side by Nightlane, Kitty Antix.