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Ringo woke up with the expected pain. He groped around for the cigarettes, or the bottle of whatever he had been drinking last before he passed out. When he couldn’t find anything, he pried his stubborn eyelids open. Then he saw a figure on the other side of the room. Except he could sort of see part of the room through him.
“You really ought to quit,” the man said softly.
Ringo squinted at the man. There was something familiar about him. But not. He was thinner, his hair had white in it, his face looked... tired, gaunt even.
“George?”
“Sort of,” the man said.
Without moving anything, the man, George, floated toward him.
“What? Are you dead?” Ringo asked. He was beginning to wonder if there had been any bad drugs. But he didn’t remember anyone at the house. Did the cook put something weird in the food.
“Not yet,” George said, softly.
“What? Are you going to die?”
The ghost smiled sadly. This ghost was so thin. George had always been thin, but this was beyond that.
“We all will die one day,” he said.
“Why are you here? What are you coming to me?”
The ghost of George put his hands in his pockets.
“It is hard to explain,” George said. He looked down at the carpet.
Ringo realized George really did not form below his knees.
“You see, you still have things to do. When I died, well, I’m sure I could have done more if I hadn’t died, but I can’t warn myself. I tried.” George looked up from the floor and into Ringo’s eyes, his dark brown eyes were so sad, but suddenly seemed more solid, more alive. “And I can’t warn John.” His voice choked as he said it.
George looked around the room. Ringo hadn’t made it to the bed, again, he was getting too old to sleep on the couch, or the floor.
“But you. Really, you have so much more you could do, but only if you stop trying to kill yourself.”
“K... kill myself?” Ringo stumbled over the words.
“You know what we could tolerate as a young man we can’t now,” George’s ghost said. “The fags and the booze, they will kill you.”
“But...” Ringo was pretty sure this was some kind of hangover bad dream.
“You can tell Paul.” George shook his head. “You can tell me, but I won’t believe you.”
Ringo thought the ghost was getting fainter.
“Where... where are you going?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” George said. “I haven’t been there yet. I’ll give your love to your mother, well, if she’s where I’m going.
“But please, Rich, please stop killing yourself. You survived your childhood, now survive this. Get Barbara to go with you. Doing things together is the way to do it. Then you have your own little support group when you aren’t with a bigger one.
“George...” Ringo rose and tried to reach to his friend.
“Goodbye, Rich, I love you.”
Ringo stood there, staring into George’s eyes until even they faded away.
& & & & &
Barbara found her husband sitting on the coffee table, sobbing. He had swept everything off it. The leftover drinks, the ashtray, everything was strewn around the room.
“Richard?” she asked. The way he was made it seem as if he had some kind of breakdown. It concerned her so much she addressed him more formally.
“We’ve got to stop,” he said.
He looked up at her, his blue eyes were rimmed with red, his cheeks wet with tears.
“Stop?” she asked. It was challenging to try and understand what he was saying, he was taking gulps of air between his sobs.
“I...” he looked around, “I can’t explain. We need help.”
Barbara closed her eyes briefly. She had been feeling like she had been partying, non-stop and she wasn’t about to tell her husband about the weird visit she got from his ex, as a ghost, even though she knew Mo was still alive.