Mind of Maya

         "You know, if... for example, a handsome young man-"

         "Would you hush?" Belatedly, I realized I had said that aloud. A classroom full of eyes turned to look at me inquisitively, and my face turned scarlet. I tried to shrink into my seat and behind my desk, but I remained visible, and full-sized.

         "Is everything okay back there, Maya?" the professor asked, raising an eyebrow at me. He paused in his lecture just to embarrass me, I decided.

         "Everything's fine." I squeaked, humiliated. The professor gave me a confused look, then continued his lecture. Once I was sure no attention was on me, I leaned over my notes and scribbled, "You twit."

         In reply, I heard snickering.

         I scribbled in my notes again, this time writing, "Shut up. Not while I'm in class." The snickering kept on. I rolled my eyes.

         When class was finally over, I hurried to a quiet place between two campus buildings before facing her and giving her a good glare. She just laughed.

         Jezzijez. The ghostly creature floating a few inches off the ground in front of me was quite literally a figment of my imagination, but there was nothing I could do about her. She just wouldn't go away. She was slender and pretty with black hair and shocking red eyes, and wore exotic, otherworldly clothes I had once imagined a girl in my fictional land would have worn. They were bright and crazy, hanging off her at all angles. I had thought I had grown out of her... her clothes were silly, her eyes were silly, the land I had created for her was silly, and yet here she was, always nagging me.

         I sighed. "Jezzi, if you want to hang around, fine, but please don't distract me... and embarrass me while I'm in class."

         "That class was boring. You weren't paying attention anyway. I was just giving you an idea for a story for me." Jezzi sighed and rolled her eyes up to the sky. "I always wish you'd put me in a romantic story... he better be hot. And funny... and smart..."

         I pulled my coat closer to me and began marching to my dorm, studiously ignoring my ghost. The cold, autumn wind whipped my hair around and dried my lips. I hated cold weather.

         Jezzi floated past me, riding the wind with a wistful smile on her face. "Maya, you're my favorite writer, you know that?" she said absently. She reached out a hand to poke at a falling leaf, but her semitransparent digits went right on through without affecting the leaf at all.

         "I'm flattered, Jezzijez." I answered dryly. "I'm the only writer you know."

         "Why don't you write about me anymore? I'm your favorite character. Or... I used to be."

         "I like you plenty. But I write about other things now. Everyone writes fantasy. It's boring and commonplace."

         "But you live in a fantasy! You know it best, you could write it best! I'm not boring." Jezzi's eyes lit up and she floated right before me, two inches away, keeping pace with me exactly as I walked forward.

         I put a hand out in vain to wave her away. "I live in a fantasy? Or with schizophrenia? The world may never know. Now move it; I'm gonna run into something."

         Jezzi moved to my side. "It's not schizophrenia. That's not nice." Her young, girlish face twisted into a pout.

         I finally reached my dorm and went inside. There were too many people around on my way to my room, so I ignored Jezzi, exasperating her more. She continued nagging me about writing. Finally alone in my room, I settled down at my laptop to write. Before butt touched chair, at least ten other of my ghosts appeared. I sighed. It was going to be a long day.

~~~~~~~~~~

         Jezzijez never shut up. She had appeared before me when I was twelve years old, one of many of my fantasy characters I had created. Now, the characters I had invented had shown up as ghosts ever since I was eight, so it was nothing new. But most disappeared after a few days, or a few weeks. Jezzijez never went away. She had followed me all the way to college, and showed no signs of leaving anytime soon. I hadn't even written about her since I was sixteen, and yet she remained. I liked her company sometimes, but sometimes... I just wished I was normal.

          All she ever said was that I should write a story about her and get it published. A lesser writer who'd rely on cliches might call her a broken record. I just called her a twit.

         It was an early Saturday morning when I woke up to Jezzijez calling cheerfully in my ear, "Wake up! Wake up! Good morning, good morning!"

         "I've got the day off, Jezz." I mumbled, pulling the covers over my head. "Lemme sleep."

         "It's a beautiful day! You're going to waste it?" Jezzijez asked, grinning cheerfully as she leaned through my blanket to look at me.

         I groaned. "Zip it, or I'll write a story wherein you meet a horrible end."

         "What was that?" My roommate called across the room. She sat at her computer, working on a paper.

         "Nothing, just talking to myself."

         "Again." Casey laughed.

         "Sorry about that." I rolled out of bed, grumbling to myself about loudmouthed characters.

         "No big deal."

         It was a good thing Casey was the most easygoing person on the planet.

         I got dressed and sat at my laptop again, pulling up a blank document. I stared at it a moment, pondering different ideas running around in my brain. Jezzi floated over my right shoulder, intently looking at my screen.

         I began typing. Then I erased, then I typed again. Finally I typed, "Jezzi, why don't you ever leave me alone? Why do you always hang around?"

         Jezzijez said nothing for a moment, then I watched as she went over and sat on my bed, delicately crossing her legs. I smiled. She wasn't really sitting on my bed, but she practiced floating just so; it looked like she was really sitting there. "I suppose," she began uncertainly, "it's because you like me so much."

         I erased what I typed, and typed again. "But I like all my characters. What makes you so special?"

         Jezzi came over to read what I had typed. She crossed her legs Indian style just above my left shoulder this time. "Well... I'm funny... and I'm... different."

         I typed again. "How are you different?"

         "Well, I have lots of different interests. And there are things that annoy you about me. And there are things that you love about me. And sometimes I'm angry, sometimes I'm happy, sometimes I'm sad..."

         I thought a minute before I typed again. "You're the most real of the characters I've come up with, you mean."

         "I'd say so. And besides, don't you like me?"

         I always had liked her. There had always been something about that annoying, boy-crazy girl that had made that character different. I typed again, with a look at my roommate to make sure Casey hadn't noticed that I had been having a conversation with something not real. She hadn't. "You've always hung around because you're my most real character, and the one I've liked the best."

         "Sounds good to me."

         "I should write something about you, shouldn't I?" I typed again, smiling in amusement.

         "Yes!" her utter delight turned her voice into a near-shriek. "Yes, absolutely!" Jezzijez began bouncing around the room, and I couldn't help but laugh.

         I typed again. "But what? Every time I wrote about you, I got stuck. I never liked the stories, and just threw them out."

         Jezzi finally stopped her bouncing to come back to see what I had typed. "You never asked me before."

         I had never thought of asking her before. I liked the idea now. I grinned.

         Jezzijez grinned back. Then started talking. And kept talking. I erased everything I had said to her, and started typing again, but this time it was a story. A very different fantasy story about a strange girl with red eyes and outlandish clothing. And for the first time, I really liked this story.

         Jezzijez still hasn't left and still hasn't stopped talking. But these days, I'll more readily admit I like having her around. I never realized it before, but she's quite the storyteller. Maybe that's what I liked about her all along. She's like me.

Word count: 1,421

Inspired by: An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself. ~Charles Dickens

Written for: "Quotation Inspiration: Official Contest"