The Date | Art of Starving

The driver smoothed his loose bangs down with pomade, checking out the result in his mirror, then licked his thumb and patted down his eyebrows with it. His car smelled of lemon, emanating from a yellow car freshener in the shape of a pine tree on his dashboard. He drove confidently, with one hand on the wheel while the other fiddled with the radio.

He pulled up to a dark house with broken windows and a rusty old wheelbarrow out front, then leaned on his horn. Raindrops tapped-tapped-tapped on his windshield. He checked around his car to make sure it was clean and tidy and honked again, two short, urgent bursts.

A ghost came flying out of the dilapidated house – diaphanous and effacing – dressed in a ratty vintage skirt, floating over the dead lawn, with a wilted pinklady positioned behind her ear.

She melted through the wall of the car and hovered silently next to  the driver, a waifish smile on her pale face. The driver leaned over to kiss her, his lips disappeared through her fleshless cheek. A look of disappointment fell on his face.  He quickly replaced it with one more upbeat.

"You look beautiful tonight, Maribel," he told her. "Almost alive."

She didn't answer. She waited. Used to waiting. She stared ahead.

He then shifted into gear and peeled out – screeching tires on wet cement — leaving Maribel behind, alone, hovering over the empty street. Rain penetrating her wandering soul.

That's the problem with dating a ghost. They can't ride in cars.

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