[ WP ] You have the ability to see ghosts . One day , one of them decided to tell you about their life .

`` Hey, are you busy today?'' She floats at her usual spot - the intersection of 12th Street and Independence Avenue. Probably a traffic accident, and not too long ago - her clothes look like they're from the 21st century. 
 
 I shake my head. After twenty-three days of the same question, and the same answer, by now I thought she would have learned to stop asking. `` Sorry, I've got to get to work.'' Sure, I feel guilty, but then again, serving as a psychotherapist for the deceased was a pro bono line of work, and as a recent college graduate struggling to keep an apartment in Washington D.C., it's something that I ca n't afford to do. 
 
 She is there again the next day. `` Hey, are you busy today?'' 
 
 Honestly, my supervisor was fairly lenient - he would n't mind if I came in late one day. Simply, the truth of the matter was that I did n't want to listen to her sob story. About how she should have been more careful crossing the road, about her wasted potential, about how she wished the living would take the time to truly *live*. 
 
 I've heard that lecture a million times. It's kind of funny how almost every ghost has the same regrets. 
 
 I open my mouth, and the words come out automatically. `` Sorry, I'm running late to work.'' 
 
 It's kind of become a familiar routine at this point. I'll swipe my metro card, exit the turnstile, and catch a glimpse of her wispy figure. She'll look up with a hopeful half-smile, and I'll shake my head. Before she's even asked the question, she already has her answer, but she asks it anyways, and as always, I give her my perfunctory reply. 
 
 But Monday, May 2nd, is different. I swipe my metro card, exit the turnstile, look up - and she is not there. 
 
 The rest of the week passes by in a confused blur. On Thursday, I go to the Smithsonian metro station thirty minutes early and wait around, searching for her familiar black-and-white skater dress. 
 
 Nothing. 
 
 Ghosts do n't simply disappear. Sure, they're able to travel around, but almost all of the ones that I've met before stick to their favorite haunts. And, now that she is gone, the contrarian in me wants to hear what she had to say. 
 
 Saturday morning. I do n't have work today, but I still make the trip to the Smithsonian. Hopefully she is n't too far - after all, she's had a week. At this point, she could be miles away from the D.C. area. Still, it ca n't hurt to try. 
 
 It's late afternoon when I settle into a bench at Malcolm X Park with nothing to show for my efforts. A scowling businessman scoffs at me as he marches on by, briefcase in hand. Going into work on a Saturday - the poor fellow probably has n't even realized he's dead yet. 
 
 Closing my eyes for a brief moment, I try to think of something, *anything*, that could give me a lead on where she might be. But there was nothing. I'd just always dismissed her, every single time - twenty-four days in a row. 
 
 `` You look like you could use somebody to talk to.'' My eyes snap open. It's not her. The voice had already clued me in on that, but I wo n't deny that a small piece of me hoped that it would be. Instead, a woman around my grandmother's age stood before me. Another member of ghostly society. Sometimes, it seems as though I speak more with spirits than with the living. The woman smiled at me, the lines around the edges of the her eyes crinkling like candy wrappers. 
 
 `` Care to talk?'' 
 
 I shrugged. After all, it was my refusal to talk to a ghost that got me in this quandary in the first place. Perhaps talking to one would be able to fix it. `` Sure, why not?'' 
 
 
 
 

