SHADOWS OF KAYLA

HELP IN TIME OF NEED

Festus.

“Did you join a drama club or som'?” Gina asked, curiously resting her chin in her palms as she stared at me from the customer table she was sitting at.

I halted my cleaning duty and raised one of my brows in her direction. I wondered why everyone seemed to be asking me the weirdest questions that day.

“Huh? Drama club…why would I join a drama club?”

“Just asking,” she sang dramatically and huffed tiredly as she slouched on the table.

“Liar,” I smiled, resuming my work.

“Tell me. Did any of the guys say something?”

“Should they be saying something?” Gina questioned.

“I don't know. I just wondered why you'd ask me that out of the blue. Or do I look like I'd make a successful actor?” I stood straight and turned to Gina, stroking my non-existent beards teasingly.

She scoffed with a smirk.

“I know I have the looks,” I added, smiling.

“Tsk tsk tsk. If looks are all there is to acting then we'd be having hyperbolized beauty contests for movies. It's good riddance to blockbusters. Don't you know it's the talent that matters? The skills to be a completely different person on screen,” Gina hipped, now drumming her manicured fingers on the table.

“Who says I don't have the talent?” I asked, playfully dusting the chairs I had already cleaned.

Gina chuckled.

“I wouldn't argue against that either after seeing your performance this morning.”

I stood straight to face her, wondering what she was talking about.

“Performance? What's up, Gin?”

“Earlier—outside. You don't remember?”

She laughed and continued, sitting upright and doing some demonstrations using her hands.

“You were talking to yourself and you were staring into the shop and…I don't know. It looked like you were practicing a script or something.”

I felt my brows near eachother in a knit as I ransacked my brain quietly for answers.

“I even waved at you, remember? It was that time,” she hinted casually.

I remembered the strange girl from earlier, she was the one I was talking with. So I didn't understand why Gina would think I was talking to myself.

“It's okay if you don't remember. It happens all the time. I hold meetings with myself too…in the bathroom…in front of the mirror, even in the streets when I'm walking home from the stores,” she laughed at her own words as she collapsed back in the chair tiredly, neatening her short red fuzzy hair which was in a half parting with her fingers.

The sound of the door opening made the two of us turn our heads in the direction, as two girls walked in. One of the co-workers, Billy stood to attend to them before Gina made a move. She nodded at him with a smile and leaned back in her chair, staring ahead at nothing. She then raises her eyes to my face.

“What? Are you shy or what?” She blurted straightforwardly.

I smirked, raising my hands to my waist for half a second before pulling out the chair in front of hers to sit.

“Shy? For what reason exactly?”

“I don't know? Shying away from the fact that the great Gina Dayne caught in on your early morning soliloquy, ha!” She chuckled and slammed her palms lightly on the table.

“C'mon, it wasn't even a soliloquy. I was talking to someone.”

“Ooh…Festus the Great now sees ghosts…Eeerrieee,” Gina sang funnily, wiggling her fingers dramatically in the air. When she noticed that I wasn't having any of her jokes anymore, she switched back to normal.

“Okay okay, you were talking to someone.”

“Yes, Miss Gina Dayne. Can we switch to something else now? Like pretty Gina Dayne's boyfriend?” I beamed, winking at her. Gina rolled her eyes.

“You're aware you're not even halfway done with those tables, right?”

“Ah! On it, madam.” I said, standing to resume work.

Somewhere in the back of my head, I had a weird feeling something was not right.

***

Kayla.

“He's not a ghost.”

“He's not a ghost.”

I hummed anxiously to myself as I ran as fast as my ghostly feet could carry me. I felt a pounding in my head and chest, mixed feelings were nearly tearing me into two. Should I be happy or sad? I didn't know.

It was a lot for me to take in. That he could be the help I really needed, that he was human and not like me, that I had no right to approach him just because he could see me. Him seeing me, being one of the biggest puzzles I was faced with infact.

One word that could summarize how I felt in his presence was embarrassment. The reason for which I couldn't fathom. My feet were doing the work, pulling my right out of his sight everytime.

Can he help me?

Can he really help me?

I wasn't sure how I was going to ask him for the favour, to start with. Or how he was going to take in any information I spilled to him. How would I have felt if I were a human and a ghost kept approaching me to ask for a favour? Totally creeped out. That would call for a regular visit to the church for deliverance.

I shut my eyes for a few seconds to think.

What to do?

He was still the nearest solution I could think of, but there were emotions jumbled up inside me that I couldn't figure out where to start from. The thought of walking up to him and asking for help was belittling to me in a way. I guess they forgot to strip me off my pride alongside my life.

“You will just have to do it, Kayla. For dad, mum and Tom,” I consoled myself as I neared the house. For a short while I pictured everything falling back into place, with me in the family picture, and all the villains without.

Deep down, I knew it was too much of a dream to have, I held on to it nonetheless.

I held up in my tracks, wide-eyed, on seeing familiar men in black again. This time, I was sure it was our house.