Arguments

Written for:

"The Writer's Cramp - Poetry Week"  13+: Write the best POEM in 24 hours or less and win 10K GPs!

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Fiona woke with a start, she could have sworn she heard voices right outside her bedroom door. This was definitely an unusual feat as she lived by herself, that was if you didn’t count Fluffy and Snuggles, who were her cats; but Fiona could hear them both softly snoring at the foot of her bed, the blankets pulled across her feet as each one slept on either side of her.

Slowly climbing out of bed Fiona found her baseball bat down between her bed and side table, she grasped it firmly in her hands and crept slowly towards the door, her ears straining to hear any noise, particularly the voices that had stirred her from her sleep.

Stopping dead in her tracks she raised the bat higher as she heard faint mumbles from the other side of her door. Her head whipped towards her two cats still asleep on the bed. She wished that she were still over, lying asleep peacefully in her bed.

An involuntary shiver ran up her spine as she placed a hand on the doorknob and felt the cool metal beneath her palm. She squeezed it to stop her hand from shaking. A second voice answered the first; Fiona cocked her head, puzzled as she listened, trying to hear what the voices were saying.

Cracking open the door she peeked out, all she could see were shadows, moving slightly she tried to make out the physical bodies to the shadows she was seeing. Fiona frowned; it looked as though the shadows were the physical bodies.

“No Charlie, I will not do it.” Fiona heard a female voice say softly, with authority.

“We have to Beth, if we don’t then we can’t go on, it’s in our contract…” the male voice answered softly, trying to persuade her to see his point of view. She heard the female let out a heavy sigh as she seemed to agree with him.

Fiona readied her bat and kicked open the door. Lunging out into the hallway with her bat in swing she hit the wall instead of colliding with bodies. Turning quickly she looked up at the two shadows; which were actual shadows, in fact they looked like spirits.

“She can see us Charlie. I don’t think its going to work.” The male dropped his head, faltering on his next words, instead he just nodded. “I’m Beth.” She said smiling down at Fiona. “We’re ghosts, come to try and scare the inhabitants of our old home, which looks like it you we’ve come to scare.”

“Beth, stop it, you shouldn’t be telling the living our secrets.” He grabbed at her wrist but she twisted out of it.

“I don’t see any problems with it anymore Charlie, she can see us and doesn’t seem to be scared, maybe it won’t be so bad to stay here. I don’t think I’m ready to move on anyway.” She looked at him, almost with pleading eyes. His defeated sigh met their ears and Beth clapped excitedly. “So then, what’s your name then?”

Fiona looked stunned, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, she convinced herself that she was still dreaming, still fast asleep in her nice warm bed and not talking to a couple of spirits. “My name is Fiona. I love here now, I’ve lived here for almost two months now, why have you only just come back to scare me? Why not when I first got here?”

“Time, I think, moved differently in the spirit world, what we perceived as two days must have been two months.” Beth shrugged and started towards the kitchen at the end of the hallway. Fiona slowly followed her and Charlie moved silently behind them.

“What happens when you scare me? What was this contract you were talking about? I thought you were here to kill me or something like that.” Beth giggled at Fiona's questions.

“Goodness no. we are supposed to scare the new inhabitants in our old residence before we can move on to the afterlife, but like I said before I really don’t think I’m ready to move on just yet. And if you don’t mind I would like to stay here, it’s not like we can hurt you.”

Fiona looked at Beth, smiling, “Sure, I don’t mind, besides you never actually left here did you, it was just an unfortunate accident that did force you to leave all this behind.”

“I guess we could give a go for a while.” Charlie piped up; Fiona almost forgot he was there.

“Well it’s not like we can scare here Charlie.” He nodded. “Fine, it’s settled, but first we shall let you rest, sorry to have woken you.” Fiona nodded, stifling a yawn. “Goodnight to you Fiona.”

Climbing back into bed Fiona had a smile on her face. Resident ghosts, just wait till her friends found out about this one. Chuckling to herself she drifted off to sleep.