Written in Creative Writing class
In the fall morning of October, a rather tall and lanky ghost emerges from the forest to play. The Yardmaster, as he has been called, has been a story passed down through generations, and now he has decided to venture out to see if his story is still being told.
The Yardmaster arrived at the city at 8:00 am. No one can truly see him. Every person he came across eventually walked right through his transparent body like fish in water. He searched from house to house, but the people living in them only talked about their jobs and how stressed they were. He flew up to the sky to listen if the birds carried his song like the wind. But they did not sing about him. He plunged into the water of the river near the city to swim with the fish. He examined each water bubble that escaped them to see if his story lingered in it. But he could not find it, it was only air.
He went up to the boats that lined the river and seeked out the fisherman. He heard them tell tales of sea monsters that lurked beneath the surface of the river, nothing about a man beheaded by a train. He returned to the city, his feet now reaching the gray, grimey, dirty sidewalk. People blew right through him like the wind, still not noticeable. How could his story be passed down if he couldn’t even be seen? There were sightings of him in the past, why not now? As he further sank into his sea of loneliness, the Yardmaster could’ve sworn that the bloody skin of he was getting more translucent by the speed of his thoughts. The colder change in temperature no longer followed him as his sorrow grew like a fire. He had to hurry or else he might fade.
He strolled by shops and apartments that rested on top of them, he sauntered past offices that were clad in glass that they almost resembled mirrors and reached for the stars, higher than he can ever go or dream of.
As he walked down the hidden alleys of his city, he saw a man slouched against the cold brick wall of a small warehouse. The man was in a hood and appeared to be asleep, an old tattered blanket draped over him. The Yardmaster looked around to see if the men and women who strolled by the alley would help the man. But they only passed as if the man was invisible like Yardmaster himself. There was a sense of pity in the Yardmaster’s chest, even if his heart wasn’t physically there anymore. He sat down next to the man and began to tell his tale.
The man never responded, in fact his breathing seemed to be weakening, but the Yardmaster never noticed. When he finished, the Yardmaster decided to give the man good luck for a year. A pile of money suddenly appeared before the man, though he did not react. Even if the Yardmaster didn’t know who the man was, his chest still ached and his eyes watered. He stood up, thanked the man, and departed.
The Yardmaster continued to venture through the city, the buildings slowly became smaller as he walked further from the center. The tall skyscrapers gradually transformed into houses in neighborhoods. No light spewed from the windows of the homes at this time, blending into the night sky. Not even the stars dared to appear. The Yardmaster could feel his limbs fading, becoming weaker. His forest should be close to here, maybe he should go back and fade with his animal friends. Before he could turn to face his forest, the Yardmaster suddenly felt a surge of strength. He looked down at his arms and could see the opacity return to him like blood returning to a cold hand. He looked around urgently, and saw a red light coming from a window of a house.
The Yardmaster snuck up to the window and peered in. Within the house he can see teenagers around 17 having a halloween party. A gory scene was on the thin black box that all new houses seemed to have. The longer he looked through the window, the stronger he felt. A tall young man stood up and dramatically, he called out:
“They say that the Yardmaster was a young man a hundred years ago in the 1920s. He was said to be working at the trainyard when an oncoming train being robbed struck him. They say he was beheaded, and to this day he is still searching for his head.”
The Yardmaster’s eyes suddenly lit up. Literally. His eyes suddenly burned a bright red like a torch. These puny little teenagers were talking about him? They were telling his story? The Yardmaster grinned widely in joy. One of the teenager’s eyes suddenly darted over to the window and screamed. Standing in the window was the Yardmaster, and this time he wasn’t transparent. The teenagers pointed and ran. The Yardmaster laughed and tossed candy from his sleeve into the room for his appreciation, but they couldn’t see because they had run away. He pushed away from the window and skipped through the neighborhood and back into the forest where his abandoned trainyard lies, glad his story will now be passed through the teenagers.
