Sally’s Day and Night in the Bush of Ghosts

More about Sally’s Day and Night in the Bush of Ghosts

On that day when the sun refused to remember its own brightness, Sally walked into the Bush of Ghosts as if she was only entering a neighbor’s compound. Her shoes were weak, her heart was strong, and her eyes were carrying too much curiosity for any ordinary child. The path was wet with forgotten tears, and the trees were whispering like old women gossiping in the market of the dead.

Soon the ghosts began to appear, slow and polite like tired uncles, wearing skull faces with manners of respectable elders. They were talking with voices that sounded like broken calabashes. One tall ghost woman lifted her thin hand and greeted Sally as if greeting a queen, but her smile was stretched too wide. Another ghost child laughed with bones shaking like cowries in a calabash, offering Sally flowers that bloomed without life.

“Why did you come here, living child?” they asked her.

Sally only shrugged. Even she did not know whether she came by mistake or destiny. Maybe the wind pushed her. Maybe her spirit wanted to learn a secret.

The ghosts led her deeper, where the clouds were hiding inside the bushes and mushrooms glowed like patient lanterns. There she met the Sitting Ghost Mother, with long arms and an empty face that still felt full of sorrow. The Ghost Mother bent low to Sally, studying her as if she was reading a book written in flesh.

“Your world is noisy,” the Ghost Mother said, “ours is quiet. Your world forgets, ours remembers too much. What do you want from us?”

Sally felt her heart become small like a bird in a hunter’s hand. She did not want riches. She did not want power. She wanted only to understand why fear always walks before love and why death always stands behind life, like a shadow that never sleeps.

The ghosts nodded as if she had spoken loudly, though she kept the question inside her heart. They whispered among themselves like dry leaves. Then they allowed her to sit between them, as if she belonged there for one day and one night.

So Sally spent the Day of Ghosts, where the sun shone without warmth, and she spent the Night of Ghosts, where darkness had eyes and kindness tasted like smoke. They told her stories older than bones, and she listened until her mind became wide like a river.

When morning finally remembered how to be morning, the Bush of Ghosts released her. Sally walked back to the living world. She did not bring treasure. She did not bring fear. She carried only a strange peace and the quiet knowledge that everything living and everything dead were holding hands, even when nobody could see it.