Dead Man Walking
Spoiler Alert
You know how in The Sixth Sense
The little kid sees dead people
And the joke’s on Bruce Willis?
Made Night Shyamalan a star
Well I just lived the reverse
And let me tell you
It’s equally as spooky
So here’s the tale
I’m with a friend
Having just finished dinner
We wandered over to a local water hole.
Lots of laughs and little dramas
She’s going through a special phase
Where worlds might collide
And the carnage could be epic
But I digress
We’re at the bar
Just chatting it up
When all of a sudden she stops
Not just stops
But I mean stops-
Like she just saw a ghost
All of the color drained from her face
She turns to me and says
“They buried that guy last week”
Now I’m no rocket scientist
But I’m pretty sure the guy across the bar
Is standing up looking pretty healthy
And ordering a drink
But my friend is wrecked
She can’t move
She covers her eyes
And then peeks out
Yep, he’s still there
She turns to me
And excuses herself
“I think I’m going to be ill”
Now she can be a drama queen
But this is over the top
I’m mean she’s about to expire herself
Anyway
She steps off to the ladies lounge
Looking for a little composure
And I just hang back
Sitting on my barstool
Looking at the friendly ghost
Enjoying his tall cocktail
Some time passes
And she returns
A little less frazzled
But clearly still freaked out
I watched as she circled the ghost
Checking him out head to toe
Trying to decide if he’s really the guy
And then she’s sure
She blurts something out
I’m too far away to hear it
But the body language tells all
It’s him
He’s alive
She’s relieved
Seems she was confused
Got the story a little bit wrong
Or a whole lot wrong
Depending on how you look at it
There had been a passing
But it was the other guy
His partner
Part of a trio of partners
She just killed off the wrong guy
So after much misplaced sadness
And a very real meltdown
We toasted our ghost
To his health
And continued time on this earth
He laughed
I laughed
My friend?
Well she just sat there stunned
Because for her it was all too real
And she did see a dead person
But he was very much alive