Eight-een
I am eight years old when my father takes me on a ghost hunting tour and I do not sleep for weeks afterwards. My mind cannot shake the spectres on my dreams - they have embedded themselves into the bricks that built the city and pave the streets I think about how they must have watched over me as I put one foot in front of the other, shiny shoes on crumbling tarmac all the way to Magdalen Bridge, where they tell me people used to jump. I can’t stop thinking about their lungs being drained of air the cool water hitting their skin like a thousand microscopic bullets all fired at the same time the body being found floating on a summer afternoon by a couple punting out on the Thames they drop their Taylor’s deli pickle and cheddar panini into the water from the shock and it sinks. I am eighteen years old and on a first date and he walks me over that bridge, his hands strong but soft in mine as we laugh, feet pounding the concrete pavements of the city that is mine and he is only borrowing – a three-year loan. I don’t realise how important it is that he can walk away, and I can’t not yet so I am naïve enough to be surprised that when he leaves me Oxford becomes haunted once again the dreams return – who knew a single syllable name and two piercing blue eyes could hold so much fear? Every street is a hospital ward treating my heartbreak why did he have to kiss me on St. Aldates? (avoiding it makes my journey to work take fifteen minutes longer) I cannot go to Jericho without remembering the way he looked at me there the ghosts once again hold me prisoner, infected the skirt I wore when you first kissed me so I throw it away and then I move away to a city that I will borrow for three years it is not Oxford but it doesn’t haunt me not yet.by Amy Beecham
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