Lingering

The man who was no longer a man sat on a bench by a cycle path, watching the cyclists slice their way through a veil of grey rain.

He hated this bench. He only sat on it because sitting on it was one of two options. The other was not to sit on it.

This bench next to the cycle path was his life.

No, not his life. His death. Because Robin Smart was a ghost.

The drizzle fell through his body and splashed languidly onto the warped wooden seat of the bench. Robin didn’t understand the physics of the afterlife. The rain went right through him. He could walk a few steps onto the cycle path and the cyclists would ride straight through him. They never swerved. They never saw him. They never gave any indication they felt anything as they passed through him. He certainly felt nothing, except a sense of existential futility.

But… he could sit on this bench. His otherwise substanceless backside would make contact with the seat and he didn’t sink through it. Go figure.

So here he had sat for countless days, weeks, months, often on top of a bunch of wilting flowers. His wife placed a fresh bunch there every week. Well, every week at the beginning. It was less often now. Each time he wished he could crush the wretched things under his buttocks, but each time they remained obstinately unharmed.

All he could really do was people-watch. He’d soon got to know the regulars.

There was the spitter – a cyclist who gobbed up huge, sticky globs of phlegm that hit the grass verge like milky napalm.

There was the weaver. Head down, arse in the air, he threaded his expensive racer through the other riders at breakneck speed, missing them by millimetres. Martin had no idea what his real name was, but mostly other path-users just called him “Twat!”

There was the short woman with bright red hair and two excitable spaniels that zig-zagged across the path, tying their leads in knots. They were not popular with the cyclists.

There was the ancient jogger whose heart was obviously a lot healthier than Robin’s had been, even if his knees weren’t.

The bench was a memorial commissioned by his wife. It marked the place of his passing. What she no doubt regarded as a touching tribute he has grown to regard as a macabre death trap. It has literally trapped him in death.

Back when he still had a pulse, he used to run along the cycle path every Sunday and any other chance he had in-between. The last thing he remembered in his old life was running this section, then a feeling like someone had swung a large slab of concrete at his chest, then watching the asphalt hurtling towards his face.

Then nothing.

Then he “woke up” (he could never come up with a better way of putting it) beside this bench. It was a weird sensation. He could never quite recall the moment he’d regained full consciousness in the afterlife; it was like trying to remember your earliest thoughts as a child. But at some point he became fully aware, and realised that some days, perhaps weeks, had gone by since his fatal heart attack.

Because during that time his wife had had this bench installed, with its memorial plaque: “To Robin. 1978-2013. Never Forget”. And he was somehow bonded to it. Bonded so tightly that he couldn’t walk more than a few steps from it in any direction before he could go no further, as if bound to it by invisible chains.

Which meant that the relief of discovering there was an afterlife rapidly gave way to a crippling ennui of endless tedium, seeing out eternity in a Day-Glo running vest over a Coldplay T-shirt and his least-favourite running shoes on his feet. Why hadn’t he worn his cool Terrexes that day?

There were occasional respites from the monotony. Free spirits would sometimes stop for a chat. The first who’d wandered by was Elizabeth, a formidable woman in a frilly Victorian bathing costume, who’d drowned when her bathing hut had sunk in the quicksands at Morecambe Bay and her 19th-century modesty had overcome her survival instincts. But 140 years spent wandering the Earth – unseen and untouched – had cured her of inconvenient social mores and broadened her vocabulary.

“So how come I’m stuck to this bench and you’re able to wander about?” Robin had asked her.

“Fucked if I know,” she’d replied. “That’s just the way this afterlife is. No bleedin’ logic to it.”

From her, Robin learned that only a tiny number of deaths resulted in ghosts. Of them, some became bound to people, others were bound to places or things, and some became free spirits like her, able to go where they liked.

“Why did you get lucky?” asked Martin.

She’d shrugged.

“Were you ever bound?”

“Shit, no. Sometimes bound ghosts do become free spirits when the people they’re bound to die. Others just fade. No rhyme, no reason. Just happens. Or not. God, this is a dull conversation. Wanna hear about what it was really like at the ’66 World Cup?”

He hadn’t really wanted to, no, because it reminded him he would never get to see a football match or a film, or a TV show ever again. But he let her natter on. It was better than boredom.

Other free spirits who wandered through were similarly vague on details about the nature of the afterlife. He soon realised that was because none of them actually knew much. Any quaint idea that the afterlife had something to do with “unfinished business” was soon quashed by the fact that few ghosts appeared to be in a position to do anything about any business they’d left unfinished.

Aside from the free spirits, there were two other ghosts Robin would see regularly, though it was impossible to have a chat with them. They were both bound to cyclists and he’d see them being dragged along behind the bikes ridden by the people they were bound to. There was no physical exertion for them; they didn’t have to run behind the bikes or anything like that. They were simply pulled along by an invisible force. Both generally looked mildly pissed off or bored. He knew the feeling. But at least they had a changing view.

One of them (Robin decided to call him Bill), a twenty-something guy in a sharp suit and Doc Martens, would usually be sitting crossed-legged and cross-armed, facing backwards and grimacing, like a grumpy genie on a non-existent magic carpet; the other (Robin decided to call him Ben) was slightly older, in a T-shirt and boxers (maybe he died in bed?) and had perfected a mock-Superman flying stance with arms outstretched.

Bill and his rider (a woman) would usually appear first, early every weekday morning, travelling in one direction. Ben and his rider (a man) would scoot past about 45 minutes later going in the opposite direction. They quickly noticed Robin in his Day-Glo bib (they could hardly miss him) on the bench, and soon he was getting a regular wave off each of them.

Then one day Bill’s rider was late. Finally Robin saw her approaching from the distance, pedals going at a blur. Robin assumed she must have overslept, or had sustained a puncture. As she drew nearer with her ghostly partner in tow, Bill started waving furiously. He wasn’t facing backwards as usual, but was virtually riding pillion instead. At first, Robin assumed he was waving at him, until he saw that Bill was looking excitedly straight ahead of him along the cycle path.

Robin peered in the opposite direction. Ben and his rider were approaching. Ben was looking equally as excited as Bill.

They drew closer and then, as they passed by each other almost right in front of Robin, Bill and Ben reached out for each other and for a brief moment, their fingertips passed through each other’s. As the two bikes drew apart again, both ghosts twisted round to remain facing each other, reaching out to one another until they vanished in their respective distances.

It was oddly uplifting, like something out of a Spielberg film.

The next day Bill and Ben (and their riders) passed by again at their usual times. Both of them looked more fed up than usual. Neither waved. Bill just turned to Robin and shrugged.

Everything went back to boring normality for a few weeks after that. The biggest moment of excitement came when a bunch of charity joggers ran past, all of them dressed as Ewoks.

Then one day, Ben’s rider started to slow and wobble as he approached the bench. A few metres from Robin, he pointed his front wheel towards the dry stone wall and pulled into the side of the path. His front tyre was flat. Ben looked delighted and started walking towards Robin while his cyclist buddy turned the bike upside-down and started repairs. Robin took as many steps towards Ben as he was able to before his phantom chains reached their limit. Ben did the same. They were close enough to have a decent conversation without the need to shout.

“Hi there,” said Ben. “I’m Calum.”

Not Ben, then.

“Robin. Nice to get to talk to you for a change.”

“Yeah,” grinned Calum. “I’ve been loving the way you rock that Day-Glo. Died on the path, I guess?”

“Yeah. Runner. Heart attack. I think.”

“Overdose for me. Unintentional.”

“So,” Robin nodded to the guy in Lycra mending his puncture. “Boyfriend?”

Calum raised his eyebrows in exasperation.

“He likes to think so. I was so over him long before I keeled over and died. But bunny boiler over there just couldn’t handle the fact, so it looks like I’m doomed to spend eternity in the company of his increasingly flabby arse.”

Robin was starting to join the dots.

“So that guy I saw you reaching out for the other week…?”

“Oh, yes, Feargal. Isn’t he lush? It’s rare we actually pass on the path. He usually gets dragged off at the next exit along.”

“But he’s bound to somebody as well.”

“Yeah, his wife.”

Uh oh, thought Robin.

“But if I’d just lived a few more weeks…” Calum went misty eyed. “You know, I was this close to getting him to tell his wife he was a screaming queer. I guess he never did, the way she’s still got her claws in him. Unless she thought it was just a phase. But let me tell you, babe, I am no man’s phase.”

Robin didn’t doubt that. “So how did he die?”

“Don’t know. I like to fantasise that he killed himself in heartbroken grief, but that’s probably a little bit too ‘Me, me, me,’ yeah?”

Robin did think so, but decided to let it lie.

“So basically, you’re bound to an ex-lover who doesn’t know you were having an affair, and your actual boyfriend is bound to his wife, who doesn’t even know he was gay.”

“Tragic, isn’t it?” said Calum. “Double betrayal. I think we’ve both been consigned to Purgatory for being bad boys.”

Calum looked over at Calum’s ex, who was cleaning his hands with an oily rag.

“Oh look,” said Calum, “the grease monkey has finished playing with his rubber. Looks like I’ll be off soon. Just do me a favour, yes?”

“I’d love to, but not sure I’m in much of a position to help.”

“If Feargal’s wife crashes in front of you any time, tell him I still love him.”

“Well, uh, yeah, sure. It’s not very likely, though.”

“But I do still love him.”

“No, I mean it’s not very likely she’ll break down in the exact same place.”

Calum thought for a moment.

“You could always use a poltergeist to help engineer a crash.”

“A what?”

Calum’s rider was back on his bike now and pedalling away. Calum was being dragged along after him.

“You haven’t come across poltergeists yet?” shouted Calum. “You’ve got a lot to learn about the afterlife. Get someone to show you how to use…”

As Calum vanished in the distance, Robin couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. But it sounded something like, “Midnightish…”

© Dave Golder 2025

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