no such things

warning: this is quite long.

this post's title was the title of a short story i started years ago but never finished. it was about ghosts. at that time, i already had a firm belief that ghosts aren't real but i wanted to do a take on it and see what i could come up with. there were some early scares through noises and moving objects but i only got about halfway and got stuck. i couldn't think of a way (different, new, mine) of what the ghosts would be like when my characters encountered them. of course, i could have gone the usual route and made them movie-like but that wouldn't be me. so, like many others before and after it, the document was deleted and the idea, buried.


the reason i suddenly had this itch to blog about the ghost "phenomenon": i work in alabang and im currently staying over at my tita's house until i find a place of my own. i sleep at her son's room; he's in college and has a condo. the room, according to past conversations, is haunted, which to me is bullshit. anyway, it has an aircon, but the flaps are kinda broken and the breeze can't be redirected away from the bed. i hate moving air. i hate blankets. i can sleep in the cold with no shirt on as long as there's no breeze hitting me. so, on the first night, i used a blanket and had a hard time falling asleep. second night, i lied at the very edge of the bed, no blanket, no shirt, and went to dreamland shortly. i woke up some time after midnight and i was in the middle of the bed again. since i only had a few hours of sleep left, i turned the aircon off. as i began to doze off, i heard a faint creaking sound. i paid it no attention until it came again, twice. i stood up and tried to find what was making it. it was the plastic computer table. it creaked exactly the way i heard it when i jerked it a bit. the aircon was off so i checked the windows. both of them were shut. when i went back to bed, it creaked again. what i did was i stared at it and waited for it, i was thinking maybe a passing rat caused it. nothing. when my eyes started to close again, it creaked once more and i got up. no rat. surely, i would have gotten a glimpse of it at least. but anyway, i shrugged it off and tried to go back to sleep. it creaked a couple of times more and then never again. a couple of winks away from slumber, i felt a cold wind gently blow across my back. when it did it again, i stood up and checked the aircon and the windows. nothing. i plopped back on the bed and slept on it. the cold breeze went past several times but i didn't mind it. i was so sleepy and soon, the sandman won.

that was my first first-hand experience of that kind of thing. i wasn't dreaming it, i wasn't on drugs, i was a bit drunk but beer never did that to me. i wasn't even scared one bit. there's probably a scientific explanation to all of what had occurred. whatever it is, i still strongly believe that there's no such things as ghosts. believing in ghosts would mean believing in souls and believing in souls means believing in a god who gave them. now, to keep that argument short, i do not believe in the bible god that the church has forced upon everyone. if there is a god-being, then it is beyond description, beyond understanding and beyond existence (and definitely wouldn't have three personas and wouldn't impregnate a virgin to give birth to the human version of himself). i do however think that we each have a soul, a sort of invisible glue that holds the body together. that "soul", like the god-being we can't ever know, is beyond our comprehension. to avoid making this paragraph as long as the previous one, i'll just enumerate my top three reasons for not believing in ghosts based on the concept i just mentioned.

1. ghosts can't have clothes. why would they wear clothes anyway? you have a soul. your clothes don't. don't say that there are clothes because of what the people remember the dead person by. if so, then one ghost should be wearing different clothes according to each person. don't even say it was the last thing they were wearing before they died. what, the clothes died as well?! an argument against mine would be, all living things have souls. human, animals and plants. clothes are made of stuff that come from plants. so clothes do have souls. crapola. if i put a man in a grinder and make a burger out of him, does the burger have a soul? ooh, here comes the burger ghost! sheesh.
   
2. ghosts can't have feelings. when i told my mom what happened to me, she said that it was probably playing with me and that i should talk to "it". why would a ghost play? to be happy? what for? if i don't play with it, would it get mad at me? of course not. ghosts cannot have emotions. if a ghost is sad, will it cry? no. it doesn't have tear ducts. it doesn't have eardrums or vocal chords either so no use talking to it. a ghost is a soul remember? it has left your dead body and therefore cannot have any human body functions.
3. ghosts can't have "unfinished missions". they always say this one: whether it's a vengeful ghost or a kind ghost, the reason they're still here is because they still have something to do. so when you die, you retain the concept of right or wrong?! a good girl is murdered and her ghost becomes evil to bring her killer to justice?! aren't you supposed to be just a soul awaiting judgment from god whether to take you to heaven or put you in hell? plus, if you believe that a ghost lingers in our world due to unfinished business, then you're debunking the idea that god has preprogrammed everyone's life. he controls your fate and your death, remember?

okay, i probably wasn't able to bring my point across clear enough. to summarize: believing in the bible god means ghost do not exist. believing in ghosts means bible god doesn't exist. i believe neither. yes, i have no solid or scientific evidence to support my arguments. well, do you? no. nobody has. which is why im making such speculations. i could only make theories and ask questions. im not saying im right. i hope i am but i really don't know. nobody knows. and i really hate it when someone insists that they know, that they're right. and all they say is that they just do. they just are. bullshitters.

the best way to counterattack assaults such as mine is to just say: it's faith. you have your faith, faith in god, faith in religion, faith in the bible, and no amount of arguing or concrete factual evidence can shatter that faith. that's a pretty good way of shutting the likes of me up. okay, i'll leave you to your faith. because having it means you don't have to lock the door to your house or your car, you don't have to drink medicine or go to the doctor, you don't even have to work. you have faith, right? so, shut up, jump off a cliff and let your faith do its trick. if you don't die and don't become a ghost, no one's ever gonna hear anything like this from me again.

else, fuck your faith.

p.s. if i'm wrong, i'm wrong. big deal. but, if i'm right, ain't that gonna be something?
p.p.s. this entry was brought to you by the letters z, t and e, and by the number 3.1416 . and also, by this video: