valentine

There was a hush that spread across the restaurant as soon as she walked in. She walked straight to the bar, not paying attention to the stares of the people that followed her as if their eyes were glued to her. She ordered a water and sipped it slowly, hoping to ignore the whispers of the other patrons of the establishment. She was beautiful, so she was used to the occasional stare, but not like this.

However, this wasn’t why the people in the restaurant were staring at her.

It was because she looked like a pasty ghost.

It all started when she was on her way to work that day. She was running late, and she needed to rush to work. She was in the building, on her way to the office, when her phone rang.

“Nikki, I forgot to tell you something before you left yesterday.” It was her boss, Angela. “You don’t have to go to the physical office; we’re all taking off today!” Her boss was incredibly excited to not be in the office, apparently. Nikki sighed, annoyed that she had already gotten into the office and found out that she didn’t have to.

“So where do I go?’
“Go home. It’s not worth it to stay in there until tomorrow,” Angela chuckled. Nikki left the office, heading to the train station. She got onto the platform, and took out her phone to check to see when the next train would come. She lived roughly seven stops from her job, which was about 70 streets away from her house, as her job was on 54th street. The train would arrive in around five minutes. Fifteen minutes pass by, and the train wasn’t there yet. Suddenly, a muffled announcement rang through the station.

“Uh, due to an incident on (muffle muffle) street, all trains will be running—er, not be running from (muffle muffle) to (muffle muffle) on the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, A, C, D, B, F, Q, and R trains. M trains (muffle muffle) are fine. Wait, they’re backed up too.”

Nikki pinched the bridge of her nose. She got out of the station and ran to the nearest bus stop. She sat down and then stood up again when she realized how much traffic there was. She ran from avenue to avenue, street to street, hoping to find a non-busy street. Darn New York mornings. She sat down on a bench, thinking about what to do until everything stopped being backed up. She decided to go to her favorite place: the library.

Oh, the library, a heaven and haven for Nikki. She went inside, and she immediately heard angels’ songs. That was until five books from the nearest bookshelf hit her in the face and she blacked out. Suddenly, she woke up and it was 3pm.

“How long was I out for?”

“A long time. Now get out, we have to close the library early.”

She was pushed out of the library and onto the sidewalk, and she decided to try to walk home because nothing really seemed different in terms of traffic. She was 1/7 of the way there when she tripped over a wire. She fell into a kiddie pool filled with flour. She was already wearing white, so it really just made her arms and face seem pasty and ghost-like. She got up and limped away from the apparent prank video that they were filming to prank their friend. They didn’t even try to help her. She kept walking, and now she was 2/7 of the way there. By now, it was 4:30 because she walked slowly. Nikki decided to get something to eat and rest for a little while. She decided to actually try and get a cab before she started walking again. That is what led her to the restaurant, where everyone stared at her. She drank some more water and ordered a glass of red wine to go with her burger and fries. The guy who sat next to her had had quite a few more glasses than she had, and he suddenly exclaimed as he turned around and saw her, “Ghost! There’s a ghost in here!” He then tried to poke her shoulder to see if his hand would go right through.

“I’m not dead,” Nikki said, sighing.

“Are you sure?” the man whispered.

“Inside, I am, but not I’m not actually dead.”
“Whelp, good luck to ya then, ghostie.” The man went off, still looking over his shoulder to double check that she was still there and hadn’t disappeared like the ghost he thought she was. Nikki finished her food and paid for it, leaving the restaurant. She caught a cab, too tired to look for when the next train or bus was coming. The driver kept looking at her through the rearview mirror, probably worrying about how much flour was going to be on his seat after. Nikki finally got home, grabbed her cat (his name was Bob), and together they watched some sitcoms to relieve the stress from such a weird day. Bob had flour on his black fur, making him look like a ghost cat. He hated it.