Cassette

1. Grave

Again, we journeyed along the coast. We went to graveyards too, since asking people weren't helping much. Any graveyards that faced the sea. Maybe we might find hers in there. With an umbrella in my hand, we walked pass graveyards after graveyards.

There we read epitaphs engraved on gravestones.

'Here lies, loving memories of'

'A shiny star in the night sky'

'Never forgotten'

And many more.

But one caught my eye. It wrote, 'Part to meet again'.

Do we really part to meet again? Without this ability, I would have not meet those that have died but even with this ability. I never saw my own parents even after their death. They do not have grievances, so they never stayed behind.

Do they never cared about me enough to stay?

I will never know the answer because I will never meet them again.

'Part to meet again.'

It feels laughable.

I saw ghosts more than people, just like her. Her transparent body which was penetrated by the sunlight. Is she real?

Just like the tiny particles of dusts which could only be seen with the naked eyes when a specific light shone through. Something that needs something specific to see.

"Why are you staring at me?"

"I am thinking whether ghosts are real or just a fragment of my imagination?

"How rude. Of course. I am real."

She skipped along the path.

"I am real as long as I believe to be so."

"Am I real?"

"You, of course. As long as you believe to be so."

"SO, if I believe that I don't have the ability to see ghosts. I wouldn't be able to see them anymore?"

"Yeah, sure it does."

As the words left and the sentence finished, I saw her. Her figure was starting to disappear. Her outlines began to blur.

"It took you long enough to realize," she told me.

"Don't leave."

"Leave. I have to. I don't want to be a ghost forever. Wandering like this."

"This is too sudden. Too unexpected."

She laughed, "I always thought it will happen soon. Humans and ghosts can't stay together forever."

"But I haven't found your identity yet."

"But we did. 'Parting to meet again'. She smiled.

I turned around, there it wrote, Mikaela Stuart.

When I turned around, facing her, "Are you really leaving?"

"Yeah, I left some words for you in the cassette tape. Listen to it if you can. And remember to live."

Before I could reply, the breeze came and took her away.