His hair didn’t look quite as good as it had the day before. But when I asked for the yogurt sauce bottle and he passed it to me, I found myself thinking of the vast distances between nuclei and electrons, the tremendous nothingness of matter, the dizzying transformation of energy, and how magnificent a feat this was, my father passing the yogurt bottle. Weren’t ghosts supposed to be immaterial? He was amazing. An amazing man. But then, as opposed to ghosts, there was also the undead, they probably had different moving abilities. Truth is, no one knows, I guess.

The third day, I found my father again, same table. Somehow we got to talking about gin rummy, and I guess I invited him over to play for a bit. We played cards for hours and hours, until late in the night. And what was weird was that it was very normal. And what was also weird was that the whole building that night seemed to be teeming with life: laughter in the stairwell, cloppity footsteps, music. Eddy was having a party? It kind of creeped me out, all that life. My undead father didn’t scare me, but life in general — the living — I find kind of terrifying.

You know, an old friend of mine, Becky, once told me a story of having roomed in a haunted house. She’d heard that everyone who’d stayed there had been haunted. There’d once been a suicide. Anyhow, Becky was dreading the haunting. Then one night it came. A doorknob rattling, a low moaning sound…the whole works. But then that was it. Just that one visit, that one night. Never again. And she thought, Ghost, why did you leave me?

Anyway, that next morning, the one clock in my place stopped. It wasn’t a fancy grandfather clock, or a charming old windup, or a pocket watch on an old brass chain. Just this little LED thing of mine, which has worked for years and years, survived many a power surge, many a move.

I felt a little sad. But having no idea what time it was gave me a valid excuse to seek out Eddy. I could ask Eddy about the time. Just about that. I wasn’t thinking that I’d tell him about my father, definitely not, because it wasn’t as if Eddy and I knew each other well. I guess I don’t know anyone that well.

I heard footsteps on the other side of Eddy’s door on the fourth floor, and I knocked. The footsteps abruptly stopped. There was no answer. “Eddy?” Was he worried I would complain about the noise from the party? “Eddy? It’s just that my clock stopped working.” Nothing. Maybe he thought I was going to try to kiss him. Maybe that was his version of a nightmare. Or, I don’t know, maybe a dream. Maybe something he really wanted and therefore was afraid to take. I knocked one more time. More nothing.

Well, people have moods, that’s certainly something I know first-hand. I try not to judge. I went back down the stairs. For a bit, the quiet was, well, deafening, but eventually — obviously I don’t know after how long — the pacing upstairs resumed. Other odd noises, too. Squeaks. A couple of chirrups. Something that sounded like newspapers being folded.

Eventually — the sun was still high — I walked out to the gyro place. When I entered, those bells jangled in a mediocre way. That soda fountain was there, also the smell of fresh-cut onions. But my father wasn’t there. I still haven’t seen him again. Nor have I seen Eddy. It’s only been twenty-two weeks or so, though. And the other morning I thought there was string cheese in the refrigerator, and then there it was, actually there. Maybe it’s wrong of me, but I do hope that nobody buys this building for a long, long time. I have the sense that ghosts like to return to the same places. I, anyhow, like to do that. And there is something about the bones of this place; it really is easier to dream here.