Fiction | Short Story

Solitude Is a Human Presumption

Why can’t we imagine, just for the sake of argument, that a joyful spirit leaves some of themselves behind—an echo of joy in a place they once loved?

When someone would ask Why Chicago? Miho would answer that it was because she had felt comfortable there. She lived in a studio apartment and the stark rental whitewashed walls would glow under the waning sun as she sat in a small armchair, a book in hand. Miho had briefly left Chicago for Missouri, following a job that promised her the jump-start in career and salary those around her believed she needed. But what truly enticed her was the promise of quiet. As the recruiter had said, “Kirksville is, if nothing else, certainly quieter than where you are now.” She had known little about Missouri outside of the images the name itself conjured. In her mind’s eye she pictured prairie grass swaying as the wind rippled through, the soft thrush of plants as they brushed one another while trying to move in tandem. She accepted the offer.

But she knew something wasn’t right as soon as she stepped foot in her new apartment. It was a one bedroom with large windows overlooking a pleasant courtyard, the silence occasionally cut by the yip of a lapdog or the faint murmuring of other tenants on the weekends. She set up the few bits of furniture that came with her, struggling to fill out the space in a way that made it feel homey. No matter how many times she reconfigured the armchair, the desk, the dining room table, the lamps, the bookshelf, nothing flowed quite right. She eventually gave up, leaving the furniture awkwardly grouped towards one end of the apartment, near the walk-out balcony windows.

When colleagues would ask her how she liked Kirksville, Miho gave a noncommittal reply before hurrying back to her office.

It was the wrong type of quiet, she wanted to say, this isn’t what I bargained for at all.

Instead, Miho kept her head down and fulfilled the rest of her two-year contract with the university before she rushed back to her old neighborhood, renting a slightly larger studio in a brick building surrounded by aging wrought iron fencing. The fence left sooty black residue and flecks of rust on her hands that she would later find smudged on her coat, her keys, her workbag, or as a fingerprint smeared on a doorframe.

The convenience store up the street had a self-checkout lane and she fell into the habit of having most of her food delivered to her, justifying the expense as a means of getting better, locally-sourced produce. When absolutely necessary she would go to the co-op, grabbing necessities and fidgeting as she stood in line, anxiously rehearsing small talk in her head as she neared the cashier. What do I say? It took all her sense of decorum to keep from bolting back to her apartment as soon as the cashier held out the receipt.

The new third floor studio was not as bright as her original apartment, but there was a large window that overlooked the street and, when she sunk into her armchair at the end of the day, all she could see was the line of the roof across from her and the topmost branches of the trees spaced evenly down the sidewalk. For the first time in years, she felt like she had returned to equilibrium.

*

Miho easily fell into a solitary self-sustaining rhythm of days, weeks, and months. She only vaguely registered the passage of time by the chill creeping in through invisible cracks in the old apartment walls, her walk home after work becoming increasingly darker. The weather shifted suddenly one night and Miho awoke to a haze of snow brushing against her window. She turned up the radiator as she waited for her kettle to boil, pulling a blanket tightly around her shoulders. Miho hummed quietly to herself and reached under her bed, tugging a large vacuum-sealed bag out, rifling through it for her warmest coats. She brought them over to her closet to hang, ready for her commute. As she pushed her rain coat aside to make room, she noticed a long vertical mark along the inside wall of the closet. She frowned. Maybe she scuffed the wall months ago in her haste to move in. Worrying about the deposit, she reached out to rub the mark away, when something made her stop.

She squinted.

Looking closer, she noticed the mark actually broke apart into separate chunks, rather than a single continuous scuff along the wall. Like characters in a vertical line. Without thinking, Miho grabbed a scrap of paper, copying down the trail of characters as best she could. She looked at the paper uncomprehendingly, then back at the markings on the wall.

The kettle suddenly screamed.

Miho jumped, unconsciously crushing the paper in her hand. She quickly turned off the stove and caught sight of the time. She was already running late. In a panicked flurry she gathered her things for work and ran out the door, leaving the crumpled paper on the counter.

She made it to her desk half an hour later than usual, though none of the other researchers seemed to notice. Miho slumped in her chair, taking a moment to catch her breath. The frantic sprint to work had cleared her head. Or maybe the shriek of the kettle had broken whatever bleary spell she had been under. Now she only felt a vague embarrassment at how willingly her mind seemed to go down an impossible path. Why would there have been anything written in my closet? She thought, impatiently tapping her keyboard to boot up her computer. The screen reflected her frowning face for a moment before blinking to the default blue-sky-green-grass starting screen.

Maybe this was the pareidolia of someone who avoids human interaction, she mused as she logged in, instead of seeing faces in toast, you see words on a wall.

*

A few days later, Miho was frying up a pan of ground beef for mabo dofu, her mind absently drifting to the stack of journals that still needed indexing back in her office. As the beef cooked she cleared one corner of the dining room table, carving out space between her work bag and the tote bags she lugged her groceries back with, receipts haphazardly accumulating each time she shoved her groceries inside. She sighed. I really need to clean . . .

Beneath the sizzling of the pan and the thundering of the old range hood, Miho heard a sound from the front door. Frowning, she turned down the heat and listened. Something like muffled laughter came from the other side. She stepped over to the front door, cautiously peeking out the peephole.

A young woman’s face appeared in the fish-eyed lens of the peephole, a single pale hand held up to her mouth, as if she were fighting to hold back a laugh. Miho jerked back from the door in surprise, a familiar anxiety creeping up her stomach. What do I say? Before she could think to open the door, she heard the woman’s voice, a fluid rise and fall of tones—it was Mandarin. Overcome with curiosity, Miho tentatively opened the door and poked her head into the hallway. But the woman was gone.

It was the wrong type of quiet, she wanted to say, this isn’t what I bargained for at all.

Miho looked around the narrow hallway before shutting the door once again. The woman must have made a mistake, she thought as she returned to her stove and finished preparing her meal. As Miho sat down to eat, she kept picturing the woman at her door, the uninhibited joy emanating from her face. When Miho closed her eyes, she could hear the friendly musicality of the woman’s voice.

A soft click came from the door. And the young woman’s face peeked in. Miho froze. The woman spoke quietly, seeming to be apologetic. From her gestures, Miho guessed that she was asking permission to come in. Before Miho could answer, the woman stepped over the threshold and continued her steady stream of language.

“I’m sorry,” Miho stammered in Japanese, unsure about whether to stand or offer the woman the other seat at her small table, “I don’t understand.” She repeated herself, this time in English. The woman sighed. The two looked at one another. The woman smiled again and gave a small shrug, apparently laughing at the absurdity of the situation. She reached out towards Miho, her hand palm up.

Miho started awake in the dark, her hand knocking her bowl and sending her chopsticks clattering across the table.

“Oh!” She gasped, catching the bowl before it rolled off the table. She looked around the apartment, hurrying over to the door to see if she could catch sight of the young woman again. She looked through the peephole. Nothing. She jostled the door a bit and, to her surprise, it opened. After bolting the door shut she sat back down at the table, holding her head in her hands. After a moment, she let her hands fall to the table. She jumped when her hand brushed against something in the dim light.

It was a scrap of paper. She smoothed it out and saw a faint string of characters.

She tried to quiet her breathing as she listened to the chilly silence of her apartment. Something needed to give, she finally decided.

*

Liao was surprised to see Miho hovering outside her office when she returned from lunch. Liao had been working in the office a few doors down from Miho for the past several months, but never had the chance to speak to her, as Miho tended to keep to herself. She seemed painfully quiet, and Liao never wanted to frighten her.

Liao waved at Miho, who tentatively waved back.

“I’m sorry,” Miho said, “I can come back if you are busy—”

“No, no, please come in!” Liao unlocked her office and the two stepped in, carefully picking their way through the books and notes Liao had precariously stacked. Liao cleared some papers off the seat across from her desk, shoving them into the corner of a bookcase, and sat at her desk.

“How can I help?” Liao asked after a slightly awkward silence.

Miho was at a loss. She had spent the better part of the morning frantically writing and rewriting an email to Liao, before finally giving up and attempting to talk face-to-face. But even with her failed email drafts, she couldn’t pin down what to ask. Finally, Miho pulled out the two scraps of paper and laid them on the desk.

“I was wondering if you could help me read this.” She said in a rush, “I don’t even know if this is even written Chinese or not, but I can’t make sense of it myself and it looks like kanji but I’m not sure.” Liao took the scraps of paper, squinting slightly as she ran her finger along the text on the larger piece.

“I’m sorry, the bigger one is a copy I tried to make of something I saw.” Miho blurted out, “My handwriting is horrible. I was never good at stroke order.”

Liao laughed, “Don’t worry, most of us rarely write by hand now, anyway. You should see my handwriting, my secondary school teachers would be appalled.” Miho relaxed a bit, a faint smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.

“Where did you say this copy was taken from?” Liao asked after a moment. Miho fidgeted with the cuff of her sweater.

“It was something written on a wall.” She said finally.

“A wall? Hmm.” Liao tapped her fingers thoughtfully on the desk briefly before suddenly swiveling away from Miho to look over at one of her bookshelves. “Would you mind if I checked a few things before I give you an answer?”

“Oh, no, of course not. Thank you!” Miho was taken aback by Liao’s willingness to help. Maybe I am not seeing things after all. She thought as she excused herself and made her way back to her own office.

Miho had only been working for a few hours when Liao suddenly appeared in her doorway, a triumphant look on her face. She held a large book in one hand and waved the small scrap of paper in the other.

“This is so interesting,” She said, sitting across from Miho and setting the book down on the desk with a loud thump that made Miho jump. Liao quickly flicked to a few tabbed pages, “At first I was going to say that what you had written down was a lot of nonsense—” She glanced up apologetically, “—not necessarily because of your handwriting, but because it was hard to make out any clear meaning between what I’m assuming were your guesses with characters or any minor transcription mistakes that naturally happen in these types of situations. But when you said it was originally written on a wall I had an idea.” Liao pointed to a page with the characters 題壁詩 highlighted. Miho looked at the trio of characters quizzically.

“Title . . . wall . . . verse?” She read slowly.

Liao frowned at her for a moment, before a look of realization crossed her face.

“Oh! Sorry. You are close, in a way. It’s tibishi—a type of traditional Chinese poetry that was written on walls.” She flipped to another page in the book with a large photograph showing a cluster of writing on an old wall in varying sizes. “It has a fairly long history as a subgenre, but it seems like it really became popular during the Tang dynasty. The poems also seem to be predominantly quatrains, or at least that is what we have in anthologies, which would fit the snippet you brought in.” She tapped a finger on an illustrated album leaf reproduction of a man reaching out to a cliff face, brush and ink at the ready. Miho studied the image, trying to picture the strange young woman’s face with a similar intensity of expression. It didn’t feel the same.

“Were they poems written by famous poets, then?” Miho asked. Liao shook her head.

“You would think so, right? But no, most were obscure or even anonymous poets and, from what I can tell in the literature, there is a huge number of tibishi writers who were actually women!” Liao paused, her fingers drumming thoughtfully over the book, “The only thing that bothers me about the text you showed me is the tone. Because of the nature of tibishi as writing that is usually destined to fade away with time, there is a sense of melancholy, a sense that humanity itself is so ephemeral in the grand scheme of things. But from what I can make out,” she pointed to a few characters on Miho’s scrap of paper, “there is no lament here. If anything, this seems celebratory. The writer seems happy.”

Liao looked up at Miho, who was mulling over everything Liao had shared.

“Where did you say you found this?” Liao asked.

Without thinking, Miho replied, “In my closet.”

As the words left her mouth, Miho felt panic claw its way through her body. Her mind scrambled to think of some way to cover up how ridiculous she sounded. Oh no, oh no. But Liao only cocked her head thoughtfully, considering this new information.

“Well, that’s even stranger, then. Because tibishi were often on public surfaces—like courier stations or temples or garden walls. They were meant to be read, to give the reader a sense of re-experiencing something in a specific place from a specific time. But if it was in a closed, private space. Unless . . . ” Liao trailed off and she studied Miho closely, “The other thing that keeps coming up in these texts on tibishi is that they are often tied to ghost stories.” Miho froze.

“Ghosts?” She asked weakly.

Liao nodded and flipped to another section of the book, “See, look at this. Historically, tibishi became a sort of trope for signaling the presence of a ghost. It makes sense, in a way. Any writing on a wall or pillar has a tendency to disappear so quickly when exposed to the elements and, coupled with the fact that they are essentially anonymous, these disembodied words work well to signal a just-missed ghost in stories.” The young woman’s smiling face appeared again in Miho’s mind’s eye.

“She didn’t seem ghostly, though.” She said thoughtfully. Liao perked up,

“It was a woman?”

“Yes, a young woman. But she wasn’t frightening or even sad. She just seemed,” Miho struggled to pin down the right word, “Joyful, in a way, I think.”

“I suppose it’s better to be haunted by a joyful spirit rather than one seeking vengeance.” Liao said with a laugh. Miho met her gaze.

“Do you think I am crazy?” She asked tentatively. Liao laughed again and shook her head,

“Of course not. Who am I to judge what happens to a material body once we die? If, in Daoism, death is a dispersal of qi and in some extreme circumstances—like a violent death, let’s say—the qi might not fully disperse, that means something would remain, right? They say the same thing in American ghost stories, don’t they? Of something unjust or violent causing the spirit to stay at the site of their physical death. I don’t have any beliefs about the afterlife myself.” Liao pointed at the larger scrap of paper in front of Miho, “But why can’t we imagine, just for the sake of argument, that a joyful spirit leaves some of themselves behind—an echo of joy in a place they once loved?”

Miho considered this.

“Though,” Liao continued, “All that being said, did you happen to see this ghost when you were fully awake? There was no way you could have been on the edge of sleep, let’s say, or distracted by something else?”

Miho thought back to the night she first saw the woman and she thought of the smudges left on her keys, her coat, the walls from the wrought-iron fence. Of all the nights she spent alone. Of pareidolia.

“No, I can’t really say she wasn’t a trick of my imagination.” She said finally. Miho’s gaze fell on the two scraps of paper left at her desk that fluttered slightly as Liao stood up to leave, “But what about the writing on this other scrap of paper? Is this another poem?”

Liao looked back at the smaller scrap of paper and let out a laugh,

“Oh, sorry, I should have said something sooner. It looks like it was part of someone’s torn up grocery list. And I doubt it was the ghost’s!” She grinned back at Miho before heading to her own office.

*

Miho recounted her conversation with Liao as she made her way back to her apartment. She had been shocked by Liao’s willingness to help and even more shocked by how invigorating she found their conversation. I hope I can talk to her more. She thought while fumbling with the iron fence leading to her building.

She unlocked her door and was slightly disappointed to be greeted by her empty apartment. Miho had secretly hoped the young, ghostly woman would be there. She deposited her work bag on the dining table when her phone suddenly buzzed in her pocket. The vibration made her jump, and it took her a moment to pull out her phone and answer in a timid voice, “Hello?”

“Hi! Miho? It’s Liao.”

Miho was stunned, “Oh, hello.”

“I’m sorry to surprise you, but Kevin from the admin office gave me the number that was on file. I should have asked for it earlier, but I forgot!” Miho was still speechless, “Anyway, I wanted to call to ask if you wanted to go out for drinks tonight with a few of the other researchers. We never wanted to bother you in the past, but I thought to ask after our little research project.”

“Yes, I would love to, if you don’t mind.” Miho stammered, unable to stifle her sense of excitement.

“Great! If you give me your address, I will come pick you up and we can go together. Can you be ready in an hour? And I promise we don’t need to talk about ghosts if you don’t want to.”

Miho rattled off her address before hanging up, clutching the phone to her chest. She looked around again at the empty apartment and, on a whim, checked the closet once more. The string of characters seemed fainter than before. Though, Miho admitted to herself, it could also simply be because of the fading light filtering in through the windows. Or her own shadow blocking the light from the lone ceiling light in the apartment.

She wondered who the woman was, whether she was an actual echo of someone who lived here before or whether she had been a figment of Miho’s imagination. Miho supposed it didn’t matter in the end, as the ghost—imagined or not—had broken through something inside her she hadn’t noticed before.

Her mind drifted to Liao. After a moment, Miho fished out a pencil from her work bag and, reaching into the closet, carefully added two more tiny characters beside the original tibishi.

感謝. Gratitude.