My Ghost
When I was 17, I killed a man. He was very old, and he was walking by the side of the road in the twilight. I was driving my mother’s Chrysler on the way to the movies, with my brother in the passenger seat, my mother in back. The man stepped into the road and bounced off the fender of the car. I didn't see him until I heard the thud, and for a moment I saw a light brown blur through the windshield. My mother shouted, “Pull into that driveway!”
I parked in front of a house across the street, and we ran back, looking frantically for the man. The owners of the house had heard the impact and called the police, who arrived promptly. A cop walked up to me in the tall weeds by the side of the road and said, “We found him. You should go into the house.”
It seemed like we were there for hours, with the lights of the ambulance and the cop cars flashing through the living room window. I was numb and disoriented, wondering what would happen to me. Probably it was lucky my mother was in the car, so she could vouch for me, but then I worried they'd suspect her of lying to protect me. She kept irritating me by stroking my hair. My father arrived, and we went on waiting. There seemed to be nothing to say.
Finally, a policeman with a pad and pen asked us to describe what had happened. After we gave our statements, he said, “The man died instantly. He didn't suffer. There were no tire tracks on the shoulder, and we found his prints, where he walked into the road. It wasn't your fault.”
I already knew it wasn't my fault—there was nothing I could have done. But I felt guilty for a different reason. The instant I had seen the brown blur, I knew who the man was. He'd been walking along the roads for months, and I drove past him once or twice a week. I hated him. He shambled along in his brown coat, wearing shoes with no shoelaces. He was a pathetic old person, and he repelled me. Maybe I was scared of becoming like him some day. I felt guilty for being glad I wouldn't have to see the old man any more. The cops traced him to a family who said he was unhappy in the house, that he wanted to walk all the time, and they couldn't keep him inside.
The next morning, my pediatrician, who had heard about the accident on the radio, called to check on me. I felt angry. Why should I be upset when it wasn’t my fault?
I didn’t talk to my parents about what had happened. Only one friend mentioned it. I reassured him I was fine, and I truly thought I was. There seemed to be no words to discuss my experience and no reason to talk about it—simply an accident, not my fault. It was sad about the old man, but it was not my fault. I never thought of telling anyone how I felt relieved I didn’t have to see him on the road any more.
There was a slight trauma. For a week, I didn't feel like driving a car, and whenever we passed a pedestrian on the right side of the road, I shrank away. Those problems faded, and I didn't think about the old man.
My mother secretly worried about me.
Decades went by. After my father died, I started visiting my mother more often. She still lived in the house I had grown up in. One day, on the way to see her, I was driving down the road where I had hit the old man, and I found myself trying to figure out exactly where it had happened, and which was the house we had gone into when the police arrived. The place is only a mile from my mother’s house, and I had driven past it hundreds of times over the years without thinking of the old man. There are two ways to get to her house, and from then on, I found myself always wanting to go the other way, so I wouldn't have to pass that spot. It made me uneasy to think there was some pain I hadn't dealt with, but I didn't know what to do about it.
Then I went to spend a weekend with my friend Sara in New Jersey. As I was getting ready for bed, sitting on the toilet, I picked up a book from a stack on the floor and read a few pages. It was about a group of teenagers who got stoned and were driving down a road in the dark, when a girl came running out of the woods, smacked into their car, and died. I thought, I don't want to read this book.
The next morning, after breakfast, I opened another book that was lying on the kitchen table. It was memoir by a man who was driving down a highway when he was seventeen, and a kid on a bike rode in front of his car and was killed. I was spooked. Two books with the same plot, and now I finally remembered that this plot had also happened in my life. I told Sara about the books and about the old man. She hadn't read either of the books and seemed unsure how they had gotten into her house.
Sara had been a physical therapist and had worked in a nursing home. She said to me, “When people get Alzheimer's, it makes them wander. In the nursing home, it was a big problem. People would open the emergency exit doors and make the alarms go off, or they'd walk into other people's bedrooms and get into big fights. They seemed really unhappy, and even though they were compelled to walk all the time, it didn't seem to make them feel any better. We didn’t know how to help them. I bet the old man was grateful to you for giving him a way out of his miserable life.”
My collision with the old man, which had seemed so random, now became meaningful. I may have fulfilled a purpose in his life and death. I thought about the coincidence of the two books in my friend’s house and wondered if the man was trying to get my attention from the Other World. When I went home, I put a candle on my ancestor shrine for him. Every day, I would light it for a few minutes and think about him. Ever since then, when I drive down the road where he died, I get a warm feeling towards the old man. We're allies now, after all these years.
Epilogue
About an hour after I decided to submit this story to The Strange Recital, I watched Episode 8 of the BBC series Father Brown. The show began with a woman driving a car and accidentally striking and killing an old man by the side of the road.
I have to surmise that my ghost was giving his approval to my submission. Like me, he wants to be published.
© Violet Snow 2018
When I was 17, I killed a man. He was very old, and he was walking by the side of the road in the twilight. I was driving my mother’s Chrysler on the way to the movies, with my brother in the passenger seat, my mother in back. The man stepped into the road and bounced off the fender of the car. I didn't see him until I heard the thud, and for a moment I saw a light brown blur through the windshield. My mother shouted, “Pull into that driveway!”
I parked in front of a house across the street, and we ran back, looking frantically for the man. The owners of the house had heard the impact and called the police, who arrived promptly. A cop walked up to me in the tall weeds by the side of the road and said, “We found him. You should go into the house.”
It seemed like we were there for hours, with the lights of the ambulance and the cop cars flashing through the living room window. I was numb and disoriented, wondering what would happen to me. Probably it was lucky my mother was in the car, so she could vouch for me, but then I worried they'd suspect her of lying to protect me. She kept irritating me by stroking my hair. My father arrived, and we went on waiting. There seemed to be nothing to say.
Finally, a policeman with a pad and pen asked us to describe what had happened. After we gave our statements, he said, “The man died instantly. He didn't suffer. There were no tire tracks on the shoulder, and we found his prints, where he walked into the road. It wasn't your fault.”
I already knew it wasn't my fault—there was nothing I could have done. But I felt guilty for a different reason. The instant I had seen the brown blur, I knew who the man was. He'd been walking along the roads for months, and I drove past him once or twice a week. I hated him. He shambled along in his brown coat, wearing shoes with no shoelaces. He was a pathetic old person, and he repelled me. Maybe I was scared of becoming like him some day. I felt guilty for being glad I wouldn't have to see the old man any more. The cops traced him to a family who said he was unhappy in the house, that he wanted to walk all the time, and they couldn't keep him inside.
The next morning, my pediatrician, who had heard about the accident on the radio, called to check on me. I felt angry. Why should I be upset when it wasn’t my fault?
I didn’t talk to my parents about what had happened. Only one friend mentioned it. I reassured him I was fine, and I truly thought I was. There seemed to be no words to discuss my experience and no reason to talk about it—simply an accident, not my fault. It was sad about the old man, but it was not my fault. I never thought of telling anyone how I felt relieved I didn’t have to see him on the road any more.
There was a slight trauma. For a week, I didn't feel like driving a car, and whenever we passed a pedestrian on the right side of the road, I shrank away. Those problems faded, and I didn't think about the old man.
My mother secretly worried about me.
Decades went by. After my father died, I started visiting my mother more often. She still lived in the house I had grown up in. One day, on the way to see her, I was driving down the road where I had hit the old man, and I found myself trying to figure out exactly where it had happened, and which was the house we had gone into when the police arrived. The place is only a mile from my mother’s house, and I had driven past it hundreds of times over the years without thinking of the old man. There are two ways to get to her house, and from then on, I found myself always wanting to go the other way, so I wouldn't have to pass that spot. It made me uneasy to think there was some pain I hadn't dealt with, but I didn't know what to do about it.
Then I went to spend a weekend with my friend Sara in New Jersey. As I was getting ready for bed, sitting on the toilet, I picked up a book from a stack on the floor and read a few pages. It was about a group of teenagers who got stoned and were driving down a road in the dark, when a girl came running out of the woods, smacked into their car, and died. I thought, I don't want to read this book.
The next morning, after breakfast, I opened another book that was lying on the kitchen table. It was memoir by a man who was driving down a highway when he was seventeen, and a kid on a bike rode in front of his car and was killed. I was spooked. Two books with the same plot, and now I finally remembered that this plot had also happened in my life. I told Sara about the books and about the old man. She hadn't read either of the books and seemed unsure how they had gotten into her house.
Sara had been a physical therapist and had worked in a nursing home. She said to me, “When people get Alzheimer's, it makes them wander. In the nursing home, it was a big problem. People would open the emergency exit doors and make the alarms go off, or they'd walk into other people's bedrooms and get into big fights. They seemed really unhappy, and even though they were compelled to walk all the time, it didn't seem to make them feel any better. We didn’t know how to help them. I bet the old man was grateful to you for giving him a way out of his miserable life.”
My collision with the old man, which had seemed so random, now became meaningful. I may have fulfilled a purpose in his life and death. I thought about the coincidence of the two books in my friend’s house and wondered if the man was trying to get my attention from the Other World. When I went home, I put a candle on my ancestor shrine for him. Every day, I would light it for a few minutes and think about him. Ever since then, when I drive down the road where he died, I get a warm feeling towards the old man. We're allies now, after all these years.
Epilogue
About an hour after I decided to submit this story to The Strange Recital, I watched Episode 8 of the BBC series Father Brown. The show began with a woman driving a car and accidentally striking and killing an old man by the side of the road.
I have to surmise that my ghost was giving his approval to my submission. Like me, he wants to be published.
© Violet Snow 2018
Narrated by Violet Snow.
Narrated by Violet Snow.
POST RECITAL
TALK
BR: Violet, welcome once again to The Strange Recital.
VS: Thank you. I'm delighted to be back.
TN: We’ve released 36 episodes since you appeared here the first time, which is rather amazing in my opinion!
VS: I think that's quite impressive and I'm honored to be a part of it, yet again.
BR: Cool. So, a very big part of your story, My Ghost, is the idea of coincidence. There's the two books at the friend’s house, and then the epilogue… all about people being hit and killed by a car. Do you see a lot of such so-called “coincidence” in your life?
VS: Well in factI'm very involved with my ancestors. I've been studying them for about ten years and, you know indigenous people believe the ancestors communicate with us through intuition, dreams and synchronicities, or coincidences. And I do find that these synchronicities really make you sit up and take notice of what's going on.
TN: Well the events in the story definitely fit the definition of “synchronicity,” which Carl Jung said was “meaningful coincidence” -- in other words, events that are linked in time without a causal relationship, but with the added dimension of being related meaningfully. Though I should say that I’m not an ardent advocate of Jung. He had flaws... primarily, I think, that his thought never completely escaped his religious background. He had others too. We all do, but we are not all revered as great and influential thinkers.
BR: That’s why… don’t follow leaders. Watch your parking meters.
TN: Synchronicity is an interesting idea though -- coincidence that’s “meaningful.” So Violet, what are your thoughts about how we humans create meaning for ourselves?
VS: Well I think, at least in our particular stratum of society we have a tendency to kind of skate on the surface of life, or maybe get depressed and sink a little below the surface but when something grabs us with a really strong feeling, I think that gives us a sense of direction and meaning because if it's a positive feeling we really want to recreate that and in the case of synchronicity it's like a sense of wonder and astonishment, and you know it's very compelling and that does give a meaning and purpose to our lives.
BR: Yeah so what you're saying is meaning created by emotional resonance in a sense.
VS: Right. I just think that's what often motivates us.
BR: Yeah, well another thing I’m interested in about this story is that psychological dimension: the ways we avoid pain. You mentioned wanting to drive a different route to your mother’s house, and that revealed that you must have some unprocessed pain or guilt. By avoidance, denial, or manufacturing elaborate explanations, you know we humans are very clever at finding ways to make ourselves feel better. Do you think we’re hard-wired by evolution to do this?
VS: Well in fact, speaking of religion, I'm a Christian Scientist and we believe that nothing is hard-wired except our connection to God. On the other hand I do think that... well referring back to the last question, I think that negative emotions can also give meaning to our lives. If, you know, a mother loses her child to a drunk driver and then goes out and creates Mothers Against Drunk Driving it gives her a purpose and in my case I felt like the synchronicity revealed a direction for me, like a new way to think about the subject but a lot of times those insights don't come right away and so it's kind of adaptive to sort of shut down for a while and not deal with the feelings. In my case... in fact I went out and talked to my mother and my brother about the accident because I was hoping that would give me some kind of insight that would help. But when that didn't happen – I mean I didn't mention this in the story that I had done that but after that happened it didn't really help so I went back to just avoiding it until this synchronicity popped up.
TN: Wait a minute. You mean this is a true story? It’s not fiction? I thought this was a fiction podcast.
VS: Well maybe you weren't there when Brent said to me: “Oh, maybe you want to submit that piece of memoir I heard you read recently.”
TN: Ah.
BR: You know really, any confusion here on that subject must be my fault. I’ve announced my possibly unpopular opinion here before: that fiction is memoir and memoir is fiction. It’s just the marketplace that creates a differentiation. But I could be wrong. So Violet, you’ve written both. What would you say is the difference, from a writer’s process point of view?
TN: Before you answer, can I interrupt? I think it all comes down to the act of writing. When you write about something real, that’s not the actual reality itself, it is just a recording of it. Perhaps it’s an artistic example of the Heisenberg principle - your recording of a reality ceases to be the reality it describes. You can’t have both. The same with music. A recording of music is not the music itself, just a recording of it.
BR: The map is not the territory, as Korzybski said.
TN: Yeah. Well with writing you have the added abstractions of dramatic effect, meter, length and even the way the words look on the page. So obviously there is not a hard line between fiction and non-fiction but I wonder if it really matters that much. What do you think?
VS: Well you know, from a writer's point of view in either case you have to find a plot. I mean, you know, you look at your life and you pick out a certain strand of it and that's your plot. And if it's a memoir you have the advantage of having the material right there. I mean it's already happened so you don't have to make anything up. On the other hand it's a challenge because you can't make anything up. In fiction, well okay, if you want to make the drama a little higher you can come up with something but you can't really do that in memoir.
TN: Well I think you can. I mean I think you can't avoid it in a way because it's... the memoir is not the actual reality of your life, it's the recording of the reality of your life.
VS: Yeah but I'm still trying to be truthful and only report things that actually happen, not just totally make something up.
TN: Yeah, well we could go all Post-Modern about truth... Hey, let’s try a little thought experiment. What if we imagine that this story was fiction. Would we react differently to it?
VS: Well it's funny you should ask that because I was in a writer's group for five years and when I would submit fiction to the group, to read and get feedback, I would sometimes insert little stories that had really happened to me, to you know kind of spice things up. And people would tend to say “Oh no that's ridiculous. That would never happen. No one would respond that way.” But it was true.
BR: Yeah, yeah. I mean this story... I’m certain some people would have the reaction, “Oh, that’s just unbelievable,” and just dismiss the story. It’s exactly what Paul Auster has commented on when he’s been criticized for the synchronicities in his novels. Basically, he just says that real life as he experiences it is full of bizarre coincidences, so to write them into his fiction is being truthful.
VS: No. Well I would never have the nerve to put a bizarre coincidence like this into a novel. I could tell you that.
TN: I have to say that I’m glad the ghost in your story didn't carry any of the trappings that the word “ghost” seems to elicit in our culture. It’s one of those words that brings along such a big burden of cliché with it. Like sheets with eyes, haunted houses...
BR: Or “boo!”
TN: Right. Silly.
VS: Although it did kind of seem like, you know, he was haunting that little stretch of road for a while as I drove down it. He was there.
TN: Well, I think we’ve come to the end of our interview. Thanks, Violet --
VS: Well thank you.
Eerie wailing, cliché ghost sound.
BR: Wait a minute, what’s that sound?
TN: What?
BR: Violet, welcome once again to The Strange Recital.
VS: Thank you. I'm delighted to be back.
TN: We’ve released 36 episodes since you appeared here the first time, which is rather amazing in my opinion!
VS: I think that's quite impressive and I'm honored to be a part of it, yet again.
BR: Cool. So, a very big part of your story, My Ghost, is the idea of coincidence. There's the two books at the friend’s house, and then the epilogue… all about people being hit and killed by a car. Do you see a lot of such so-called “coincidence” in your life?
VS: Well in factI'm very involved with my ancestors. I've been studying them for about ten years and, you know indigenous people believe the ancestors communicate with us through intuition, dreams and synchronicities, or coincidences. And I do find that these synchronicities really make you sit up and take notice of what's going on.
TN: Well the events in the story definitely fit the definition of “synchronicity,” which Carl Jung said was “meaningful coincidence” -- in other words, events that are linked in time without a causal relationship, but with the added dimension of being related meaningfully. Though I should say that I’m not an ardent advocate of Jung. He had flaws... primarily, I think, that his thought never completely escaped his religious background. He had others too. We all do, but we are not all revered as great and influential thinkers.
BR: That’s why… don’t follow leaders. Watch your parking meters.
TN: Synchronicity is an interesting idea though -- coincidence that’s “meaningful.” So Violet, what are your thoughts about how we humans create meaning for ourselves?
VS: Well I think, at least in our particular stratum of society we have a tendency to kind of skate on the surface of life, or maybe get depressed and sink a little below the surface but when something grabs us with a really strong feeling, I think that gives us a sense of direction and meaning because if it's a positive feeling we really want to recreate that and in the case of synchronicity it's like a sense of wonder and astonishment, and you know it's very compelling and that does give a meaning and purpose to our lives.
BR: Yeah so what you're saying is meaning created by emotional resonance in a sense.
VS: Right. I just think that's what often motivates us.
BR: Yeah, well another thing I’m interested in about this story is that psychological dimension: the ways we avoid pain. You mentioned wanting to drive a different route to your mother’s house, and that revealed that you must have some unprocessed pain or guilt. By avoidance, denial, or manufacturing elaborate explanations, you know we humans are very clever at finding ways to make ourselves feel better. Do you think we’re hard-wired by evolution to do this?
VS: Well in fact, speaking of religion, I'm a Christian Scientist and we believe that nothing is hard-wired except our connection to God. On the other hand I do think that... well referring back to the last question, I think that negative emotions can also give meaning to our lives. If, you know, a mother loses her child to a drunk driver and then goes out and creates Mothers Against Drunk Driving it gives her a purpose and in my case I felt like the synchronicity revealed a direction for me, like a new way to think about the subject but a lot of times those insights don't come right away and so it's kind of adaptive to sort of shut down for a while and not deal with the feelings. In my case... in fact I went out and talked to my mother and my brother about the accident because I was hoping that would give me some kind of insight that would help. But when that didn't happen – I mean I didn't mention this in the story that I had done that but after that happened it didn't really help so I went back to just avoiding it until this synchronicity popped up.
TN: Wait a minute. You mean this is a true story? It’s not fiction? I thought this was a fiction podcast.
VS: Well maybe you weren't there when Brent said to me: “Oh, maybe you want to submit that piece of memoir I heard you read recently.”
TN: Ah.
BR: You know really, any confusion here on that subject must be my fault. I’ve announced my possibly unpopular opinion here before: that fiction is memoir and memoir is fiction. It’s just the marketplace that creates a differentiation. But I could be wrong. So Violet, you’ve written both. What would you say is the difference, from a writer’s process point of view?
TN: Before you answer, can I interrupt? I think it all comes down to the act of writing. When you write about something real, that’s not the actual reality itself, it is just a recording of it. Perhaps it’s an artistic example of the Heisenberg principle - your recording of a reality ceases to be the reality it describes. You can’t have both. The same with music. A recording of music is not the music itself, just a recording of it.
BR: The map is not the territory, as Korzybski said.
TN: Yeah. Well with writing you have the added abstractions of dramatic effect, meter, length and even the way the words look on the page. So obviously there is not a hard line between fiction and non-fiction but I wonder if it really matters that much. What do you think?
VS: Well you know, from a writer's point of view in either case you have to find a plot. I mean, you know, you look at your life and you pick out a certain strand of it and that's your plot. And if it's a memoir you have the advantage of having the material right there. I mean it's already happened so you don't have to make anything up. On the other hand it's a challenge because you can't make anything up. In fiction, well okay, if you want to make the drama a little higher you can come up with something but you can't really do that in memoir.
TN: Well I think you can. I mean I think you can't avoid it in a way because it's... the memoir is not the actual reality of your life, it's the recording of the reality of your life.
VS: Yeah but I'm still trying to be truthful and only report things that actually happen, not just totally make something up.
TN: Yeah, well we could go all Post-Modern about truth... Hey, let’s try a little thought experiment. What if we imagine that this story was fiction. Would we react differently to it?
VS: Well it's funny you should ask that because I was in a writer's group for five years and when I would submit fiction to the group, to read and get feedback, I would sometimes insert little stories that had really happened to me, to you know kind of spice things up. And people would tend to say “Oh no that's ridiculous. That would never happen. No one would respond that way.” But it was true.
BR: Yeah, yeah. I mean this story... I’m certain some people would have the reaction, “Oh, that’s just unbelievable,” and just dismiss the story. It’s exactly what Paul Auster has commented on when he’s been criticized for the synchronicities in his novels. Basically, he just says that real life as he experiences it is full of bizarre coincidences, so to write them into his fiction is being truthful.
VS: No. Well I would never have the nerve to put a bizarre coincidence like this into a novel. I could tell you that.
TN: I have to say that I’m glad the ghost in your story didn't carry any of the trappings that the word “ghost” seems to elicit in our culture. It’s one of those words that brings along such a big burden of cliché with it. Like sheets with eyes, haunted houses...
BR: Or “boo!”
TN: Right. Silly.
VS: Although it did kind of seem like, you know, he was haunting that little stretch of road for a while as I drove down it. He was there.
TN: Well, I think we’ve come to the end of our interview. Thanks, Violet --
VS: Well thank you.
Eerie wailing, cliché ghost sound.
BR: Wait a minute, what’s that sound?
TN: What?
Music on this episode:
A Palm On The World by Ryoto Kanasaki.
From the album NNTS 07.4 - Trip by VA - Best of NTNS Radio.
License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
