My body is haunted...

I could write a ghost story. I've been transported back to the time of my childhood where I'd play alone in abandoned allotments and gardens, in a world of my own creation. Yes, I was a rather strange child, but looking back now I do believe I like myself even then. Being a strange child is sometimes the building block for an unusual adult, and I do like being a little unusual. Anyhow I digress.

Back to my ghost story. Josie is haunting my body. My belly is a vast hall, with vaults and arches and high unstained-glass windows. There are no chairs in here and a little dust, but not much of that either. Josie is in here and the hall remembers. There is new life trailing around here as well, not filling up much space yet, a pink glimmer casting off little sparks as it goes, shone through and through by the sunshine which comes into the windows and splashes on the stone ground, trickling into the crevices with tiny fingers outstretched. Josie is also in the sunshine. She's there and has no intention of leaving, but it's alright because this is where she gets to play.

I envision her there just playing in the pools of sunlight which turn into water. She's there in the dress we bought her for this summer, a little white lace dress and she's just crawling about, letting little bits of sunshine fall through her fingers like pearls of thick, luminous liquid. The new life swirls around her, all pink, leaving a trail of glittering dust.

I am so far above and I wish I could go to her, but I can't. She's happy though, oblivious to everything.

My body remembers her. She haunts me with little kicks in my upper belly which aren't really there. My skin is imbued with her life force and my blood runs thick with her and will forever. Actually, scientifically speaking, that is true. We are all haunted by our children, all of us as mothers carry in our blood little bits of our children's DNA - we will forever. Already, Josie's makeup as a human being is traveling past our new baby's makeup as a human being. My heart beats at 75 beats per minute and tiny pieces of my children's DNA are swirling around and around , bumping into each other in this gigantic network of blood vessels like commuters in the morning, day after day after day.

Now that I am feeling little buzzing sensations from inside me, the kicks are more ghostly to me than ever. At first I wondered if Josie was somehow envious of the new one, but now I feel that, no, she isn't - she's just alays going to be there. She's never going to come out. I am the last place she lived, and it's okay. The new one will buzz, and she will nudge me from beyond the veil, and it's alright.

So you go ahead and play, Josie. I'll just watch you. I love you.