Cast of Char­ac­ters:

 

LUKE RAMIREZ               a haggard yet mild-man­nered man in cheap clothes.

JOANNE ROWLETTE     a psy­chol­o­gist with too many unread books in her office; has evi­dent­ly only ever read her own work.

HELENE MYERS              a self-pro­claimed empath and para­nor­mal expert.

THE GHOST                       the past; her long hair covers her face.

 

 

(Lights up. LUKE sits on a stool across from two chairs. HELENE occu­pies one while JOANNE adjusts the camera to face him. He’s ner­vous­ly fid­get­ing with his shirt sleeve. Behind LUKE, THE GHOST has a hand firmly on his right shoul­der. JOANNE takes the avail­able seat.)

 

HELENE

Is she with us now?

 

LUKE

That’s kind of the whole point. Yeah. She’s always here. Just … lurking out of sight. Throw­ing shit around when no one’s paying attention.

 

HELENE

Throw­ing stuff around. Your email said objects were moving in your apart­ment, some­times van­ish­ing and reap­pear­ing in places you wouldn’t expect.

 

LUKE

That’s correct.

 

HELENE

And you have no memory of moving said objects.

 

LUKE

Just last Wednes­day I was going to meet up with some friends and I couldn’t find my keys.

 

JOANNE

For­get­ful­ness is a common side effect of emo­tion­al dis­tress, with depres­sion and anxiety dis­or­ders induced by body dys­pho­ria often being the leading cause. Was there a pos­si­bil­i­ty you simply didn’t want to socialize?

 

LUKE

Morgan didn’t hes­i­tate to come pick me up when I texted them, so, no.

 

HELENE

No, you didn’t want to socialize?

 

LUKE

No, yes, I did want to, and I did. What freaked me out is that I found my keys three days later. On top of the ceiling fan. They were just … there. I keep that thing going every day, max speed, and by every known law of physics they should have fallen off, but they didn’t.

 

HELENE

How’d you find them?

 

LUKE

By clean­ing my apartment.

 

JOANNE

Do you find your­self com­pul­sive­ly clean­ing the spaces that sur­round you?

 

LUKE

No, I clean a normal amount. I have a cat my roommate’s aller­gic to, so I like to be a decent human being and dust as often as I can. I knocked the keys off with a duster.

 

JOANNE

Do you have tall ceil­ings? Regard­less, some­thing must have aided you con­sid­er­ing your short stature.

(LUKE is visibly affront­ed by the state­ment. HELENE clears her throat.)

 

HELENE

Okay. You don’t like the spirit being playful, which I can under­stand. Is there any­thing she favors? Closet doors, kitchen drawers, silverware?

 

LUKE

Do light switch­es count? Morgan sug­gest­ed busted wiring, but I don’t think that’s the case. My cat gets fed break­fast before I leave for work, and it’s dark as balls in here that early during

winter. I’ll hit the hallway light, the switch is right outside my door, and by the time I’m halfway to the kitchen it turns off. And, like, I’ll feel my way back, but then it turns on before I reach it.

 

HELENE

And you’re sure it’s not the wiring.

 

LUKE

I replaced the breaker, the light­bulb, the plate, and it still does it, but only when I have to leave for work. And I know, I know what that sounds like after the whole thing with the keys, but I still got my ass to work. I got good maneu­ver­ing in the dark without step­ping on the cat, but then one day I ended up trip­ping over a phone cord. We don’t even have a landline.

 

HELENE

No chance your room­mate just forgot to put it away?

 

LUKE

(Sar­cas­ti­cal­ly)

Yeah, I’m sure they forgot to put away their toys after playing “’80s sitcom,” and that’s how I almost biffed it right into the glass table at the end of the hallway. Totally on them. No, that wasn’t it.

 

HELENE

I’m just trying to help you make sense of this. We know that some types of spirits can attach to things that maybe … How do I put this? Hold some sort of rel­e­vance? To you or them.

 

JOANNE

I believe that what she’s trying to ask is if there is any sort of guilt you might be attached to.

 

LUKE

I haven’t done any­thing bad if that’s what you’re getting at.

 

JOANNE

A sub­con­scious admit­tance of guilt.

 

LUKE

What the fuck do missing keys and a Final Des­ti­na­tion-ass phone have to do with guilt?

 

JOANNE

Avoid­ance. Hes­i­tant self-assured­ness. It almost seems like you’re with­hold­ing some­thing, and unless you tell us the entire­ty of the truth, I’m afraid we won’t be of much use to you.

 

LUKE

You’re pretty shit for a psy­chol­o­gist. She’s pretty shit for a psy­chol­o­gist, right? I’m not the only one who’s seeing this?

 

HELENE

She’s a psy­chol­o­gist, not a psy­chother­a­pist. I keep Joanne around to keep me and our patients ground­ed when things start getting a little scary.

 

LUKE

Client. I’m a client, not a patient. I called you guys to exor­cize this thing, not lock me up because y’all think I’m loco or something.

(JOANNE pro­cures a notepad from inside her jacket and begins to take notes.)

 

LUKE (CONT’D)

The hell are you writing down? The hell’s she writing down?

 

HELENE

Trust the process, Luke. How long ago did the haunt­ing begin?

 

LUKE

Could you be a little more con­de­scend­ing? I ain’t saying shit until you tell me what she’s writing down. I didn’t hire you to psy­cho­an­a­lyze me.

 

JOANNE

Helene and I spe­cial­ize in cases that may be non-para­nor­mal. Kind of how the church checks that the afflict­ed party isn’t just going through a mental break before con­duct­ing exor­cism rites, we follow the same logic. This isn’t an attack on you, we’re just trying to help.

 

LUKE

I know how the church does shit, lady. That was my first stop before the shrink knocked me around in my teen years.

 

HELENE

And does this match up with the ghost first showing up?

 

JOANNE

A history of mental insta­bil­i­ty would have been a ben­e­fi­cial fact to be aware of.

 

LUKE

Are you …? Did you just …? My ass really wasted three days on Reddit looking for rep­utable ghost hunters and this is what I get? A pushover and a trans­pho­be? I thought you people were sup­posed to be professionals.

 

JOANNE

You admit it, then?

 

LUKE

I ain’t talking to you anymore.

 

HELENE

You signed the con­tract, Luke. You could also always just leave if you wanted to.

 

(LUKE tries to get up and leave, but THE GHOST yanks him back down onto the chair, both her hands now on his shoulders.)

 

LUKE

Jesus, fuck. I can’t.

 

HELENE

You can’t?

 

LUKE

I can’t FUCKING leave, man! Every goddamn time I try I feel her nails digging into me like a fucking starved dog on a piece of meat. And when she does let go, I can still feel like—like she left a nail buried into my shoul­der. Always there, that wound. It doesn’t bleed but fuck if it doesn’t hurt. It never goes the fuck away. She never. Goes. Away.

(JOANNE approach­es LUKE. It looks like she is about to offer comfort but decides against it.)

 

JOANNE

The first step of exor­ciz­ing any unwant­ed spirit is to call it by its name. Names hold incred­i­ble power. Not just for the dead.

(LUKE does not want to be touched.)

 

LUKE

I know that. I know that more than you can even begin to imagine. The damn thing has a name and I’m unfor­tu­nate­ly well acquaint­ed with it.

 

JOANNE

Then give us your real name.

 

LUKE

My name is Luke Ramirez, and I’m not the one that has to be exor­cized here. I fought tooth and nail for my right to inhabit this place, to name myself. I called you here because I want that thing gone for good.

 

HELENE

I under­stand how upset­ting this is, and I’m so sorry for the dis­com­fort but please try to under­stand that we’re only trying to help. Help us help you. Now, other trigger objects aside from light switches?

(Pause.)

 

LUKE

I…Mirrors, I guess. It’s always break­ing mirrors. And clothes. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and all my clothes will be thrown around the floor, pants covered in blood stains. Lost a whole suit to that. A fancy one, too.

 

HELENE

Do they break while you’re using them? Like, in the moment?

 

LUKE

Not really. Only when I let my guard down. One time it hap­pened while I was brush­ing my teeth. The bath­room door had closed behind me and for a split second I could’ve sworn I saw her. I heard it before I saw it. Started off as a small nick dead center, and then the ringing as it split like a spi­der­web … It isn’t always that gentle.

 

JOANNE

I don’t wish to be antag­o­nis­tic, but is there, perhaps, a prob­a­bil­i­ty of you having taken a hands-on approach to the mirror? Say, if your memory isn’t what it used to be, as pre­vi­ous­ly established.

(JOANNE moves the tripod closer to LUKE, before return­ing to the avail­able seat.)

 

JOANNE (CONT’D)

Not to say all that new testos­terone is to blame or anything.

(LUKE con­sid­ers the camera, flexing his fists, and taking mea­sured breaths.)

 

LUKE

I didn’t break the mirrors, Ms. Joanne. My knuck­les would’ve been bruised.

 

HELENE

How about food? Activ­i­ty this harsh usually pairs up with food rotting in the span of a day. People tend to dis­as­so­ci­ate, and lose track of time. Flies start showing up in droves.

 

JOANNE

Or a notable decrease in appetite. Easier to blame the phantom rat­tling around the house than the demon yowling inside one’s own head.

 

LUKE

Right. Yeah. No, the food’s fine. I actu­al­ly had more trouble keeping food down before this whole haunt­ing started. Those Hawai­ian rolls don’t stand a chance at lasting long enough to spoil. Pop ’em in the microwave for ten seconds, slather some butter on them. Ulti­mate bach­e­lor snack.

(THE GHOST drops a hand away, but her grip is still firm on LUKE’s shoul­der.)

 

JOANNE

Hedo­nis­tic tendencies.

 

LUKE

You’re evil.

 

HELENE

Name-calling isn’t going to get us any­where. But since you’re agi­tat­ed enough to have reached this point, Mr. Ramirez, I think it’s best for us to take a break. We should have enough infor­ma­tion to write up a poten­tial course of action.

 

LUKE

Hold on, that’s it? I paid you a month’s worth of rent for you to give me shit, twirl your hair, and call it a day?

 

HELENE

These types of things take time, my friend. Not all ghosts can be ban­ished by waving around a bundle of sage and sum­mon­ing good vibes, as the kids say. I need you to realize that we really are on your side.

(JOANNE and HELENE gather their equip­ment, ready­ing to leave.)

 

JOANNE

If I may speak freely.

 

LUKE

I’d rather you didn’t.

 

JOANNE

Most ghosts can be ban­ished one way or another, but not many people spare a thought to whether or not they deserve to be. The living are an inva­sive species, coming into their space and claim­ing it as their own when they have no right to. I, too, would fight until my nails fell off against some mis­guid­ed and enti­tled invader who thinks they are correct because their feel­ings in the moment makes them believe they are.

(LUKE laughs.)

 

LUKE

That’s a very nice phi­los­o­phy you got there. Fact of the matter is: she’s dead, I’m not, and this ain’t your fucking house.

(JOANNE exits in a huff.)

 

HELENE

We can only help those who want to be helped, Luke. It’s going to take a huge amount of work to banish an entity you won’t give us author­i­ty over. You under­stand that, right?

 

LUKE

How long? How long do you think it would take?

 

HELENE

I can’t give you an exact time­frame. I can’t even guar­an­tee we’ll be able to. But you seem the hardy type. I’ve seen less certain folks make it through the night. We’ll contact you in three to five busi­ness days if we see this as a job worth taking. And a quick reminder, as per our policy, the deposit for these ser­vices is nonrefundable.

(HELENE exits. LUKE remains seated in con­tem­pla­tive silence.)

 

LUKE

This might as well be how it goes. Reach out and you’re either faking it, don’t deserve it, or worse. Well, fuck them.

 

(LUKE stands up from the chair and stretch­es on the spot, THE GHOST moving with him. He is deject­ed but hopeful, looking down at himself with a deter­mined nod.)

 

LUKE (CONT’D)

I guess there are scarier things than what goes bump in the night, or tugs my toes, or even what I used to look like fifteen years ago.

(LUKE reaches behind to rest his hand over THE GHOST’s still on his shoulder.)

 

We’ll figure it out.

(Lights out.)