— Fiction —

My Continued Conversation with the Ghost of John Lennon

—It still makes me so sad, here, what, almost thirty years later.

—Let it go, my friend. I have.

—Sure, it’s easy for you, being, you know, pure spirit and all.

—Sure.

—Still, isn’t there a hankering, a yearning for continuance, for, at the very least, more songs?

—No, not even that.

—Not one song since the shooting?

—Not one.

—Huh.

—Yeah, imagine.

—I can’t. Of course, I can’t imagine writing a song at all.

—Of course you can. You’ve got words in you. Let them sing.

—They don’t sing. They plod. They trip, stumble and fall. They are words that remain earthbound.

—All words are earthbound. Here, we have no need of words.

—No words!

—None.

—Yet, you continue to talk to me.

—I do, that’s true.

—Why is that?

—You seem to need it so. You seem to fairly burn for connection.

—And you were always the empath, the one willing to take on your fellow man, the planet’s ills.

—Kind of you to say.

—Did it do any good, John? Your passion, your engagement?

—I think so.

—From your perspective now, did it change anything?

—All the changes, my friend, were in me. Where changes should linger and resonate.

—And that is a brief, good thing?

—Yes it is.

—O.K.

—You still blue?

—Sure, sure. Would you sing for me? Just this once, just a snippet?

— …

—It’s O.K.

— ~ Blackbird singing in the dead of night … ~

—That’s Paul’s.

—Is it? I could have sworn it was mine. It was so long ago.

—It’s O.K. Thank you. It’s a beautiful song.

—It is.

—A brief good thing.

—Better than brief.

—Yes.

—Lighter than air, it is an air, lighter than all human hope, a tinkling harmony in the human heart, a silvery, chiming balm.

—Is that a song?

—More soon, my friend. Let it rest.

—I will.

—Let it be.

—Paul’s again.

—Huh.