THE HAUNTING
- 7 days ago
- 1 min read
By Wing Yau
The ghost of my deceased workplace still haunts
my new uniform as an unspeakable sweat stain.
It haunts my work shoes that squeak like my tightened
windpipe as I walk into the pale daylight. I mean,
through daylight into a relentless odour bounded
by empty spaces in my life indenture. At night
the ghost always returns to the clock and strikes
the most feminine pose to beguile time. She presses
her many faces, mushy and scarred like a fatty liver,
on the photocopier. Sheet after sheet, a crimson
papercut replicates itself on A4 paper. A high
pitch breathlessness at full speed, a dry sound that none
of my father’s command, or my shoes’ thick sloshing
can pacify. Do not look at the clock. She’s crucified its
hands and spit on its face. Her body chained to the old
file cabinet, chaste and spreadeagle. That papercut grin
a deep slit across each crossed date on the calendar,
soon to be sewn up in the paper jungle between her legs.