Ghosts are real. Maybe not in 
the ways you’ve heard, but I assure 
you, they’re very real. I’ve seen 
ghosts nearly everywhere in my 
hometown all my life — in every 
corner of my house, in every school 
I’ve attended, in every nook and 
cranny of my neighborhood. Every 
so often, I take it upon myself to 
collect these ghosts from their 
spots — not with a positron pack 
or vacuums or exorcist tools, per 
se, but to simply visit them and 
ask them to come along with me. 
It’s not so hard when you’ve been 
doing it for as long as I have. You 

just have to know the exact right 
thing to say.
Throughout my time in Ann 
Arbor, I’ve spotted three such 
ghosts. In my hometown, I have my 
car, which makes it easier to get to 
every haunted spot, but it isn’t here. 
I do have a bike. It’s no ECTO-1, but 
it’d have to do. I slipped on my New 
Balances and jogged down the 
apartment stairs while plotting my 
round trip on Google Maps. This 
method of ghost hunting might 
seem mundane, but trust me when 
I say these are the best tools for the 
job. Like I said, I’ve been doing this 
for a while. As the sun sets, I set out 
too. 
The ride didn’t take much exer-
tion. I rolled down Plymouth Road, 

conserving my momentum for 
the changes in slope and switch-
ing to the bike lane when I could. 
The bridge over the Huron River 
was another small challenge in 
elevation, but nothing would stand 
between me and my ghosts that 
night. Navigating through Ker-
rytown until I reached the border 
of downtown Ann Arbor, I saw 
my first spot. The mostly white, 
slightly color-sprinkled tiles of the 
Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum 
shone in the distance. I kept biking. 
I was looking past, checking the 
windows on the brick backing of 
the building. It was after hours, so 
there shouldn’t be anyone in there 
except my target. A wispy motion 
caught my eye as I braked hard, 

gazing at what I found.
This one was just a kid, bare-
ly older than a toddler. Neatly 
combed, straight hair fell across 
his forehead as he stood still, star-
ing at me in his tiny overalls. He 
looked like he was on the edge of 
crying as his eyes darted, taking 
in his surroundings and me. I also 
looked around, debating whether 
I cared enough to be seen in pub-
lic talking to air. Placing my hand 
on the glass, I prepared myself to 
speak, practicing the words in my 
head very carefully as to get this 
right.
“Hey, everything’s going to be 
alright — I think you’re ready to go 
home. Could you come with me?”
Slowly but surely, the kid’s 
quivering lip steadied. His eyes 
focused on me and then wrinkled 
as he broke out into a wide, toothy 
smile. He phased through the 
closed window and into me. I felt 
the small weight of the spirit settle 
onto mine and figured it was light 
enough to keep biking. Moving 
towards State Street and taking 
a right to continue towards cam-
pus, I felt the inevitability of what 
this ghost would have progressed 
toward if he had continued. That 
smile would lessen over the years 
as he found fewer things to grin 
about, his teeth disappearing into a 
flat curved line. My next stop was 
the Law Quad.
In the very center was what 
looked to be a teenager. Dressed 
in a simple T-shirt and shorts, his 
short hair stood in shock, with 
the very ends curling off. His 
mouth was closed firm, but his 
eyes revealed that he was keeping 
his jaw from dropping. Rotating 
and taking in the sights of the sur-
rounding buildings, he didn’t see 
me until I was right in front of him. 
No longer caring what the students 
relaxing in the grassy fields saw, I 
said my piece, point-blank.
“When you work for it, you’ll 
belong here — but you’ll learn to 
value the time you’re not working, 

as well. I can prove it if you come 
with me.”
Lowering his eyes to meet mine, 
he gave me a nervous half-smile 
and joined me as well. Feeling the 
two souls meet each other on my 
own, I figured I had just enough 
stamina to return home. My apart-
ment was where the third ghost 
was, but I figured I should gather 
these two first. I caught the TheR-
ide bus back to my apartment, 
locked my bike, took the elevator 
and walked back into my home.
Sitting on the couch was the 
last ghost. Their hair fell in shaggy 
curls that I could tell still weren’t 
long enough to tie up. I couldn’t 
make out their face as they leaned 
over on the couch with their head 
in their hands. Oddly enough, 
they were completely still. No 
sobs shaking their shoulders, just 
still hands gripping their face. I 
could only tell that this was some-
one that had lived by the memory 
of breaths ever-so-slightly shift-
ing their body. Taking a second to 
swallow, I gently sat down next to 
them. I picked my words carefully 
— knowing what I had to say would 
be much more intricate than the 
other two ghosts —- to be the exact 
right thing. 
“I know it’s quiet. It’s completely 
silent in what’s supposed to be 
your home, and it will stay that 
way if you want, for the first time 
in your life. And I know a part of 
you loves this quiet, and a part of 
you hates that you love it. You hate 
that you’re so glad to be away for 
a bit, and you love that you finally 
get to be. I’m here to tell you that 
you’ll come to miss the noise. Then, 
you’ll go home and miss the quiet. 
You’re allowed to miss both. You’re 
allowed to love and hate this.”
They slowly removed their head 
from their hands and sat up to meet 
my eyes. I smiled, looking at my 
ghostly reflection from over a year 
ago. Slowly, they broke out into a 
smile, one they’ve been practic-
ing to be as big as they feel, tooth-

ily affirming their journey. I took 
their hand, and we went to my bed-
room, where I released the other 
two ghosts. They all stared at each 
other in recognition and looked 
all over my bedroom, filled with 
every trinket, poster and picture to 
affirm my identity. The kid looked 
around in awe, gasping in delight 
at the children’s novels I keep on 
my bookshelf and my Spider-Man 
posters. The teenager looked out 
the window, out towards the cam-
pus and the city, his smile slowly 
becoming whole. The oldest took 
in every part of the room they had 
first seen bare. The three began 
to wind down, and then they all 
faced me before rejoining my soul, 
restoring it.
Ghosts are real. Before in-per-
son classes started, I’d been in 
Ann Arbor at three points in my 
life: moving in during the sum-
mer before, my campus tour and 
a visit to the Hands-On Museum 
I’d forgotten about. They’re all 
places where I made the deci-
sion to become a different person 
three different times: the young 
adult who had to leave behind their 
past immaturity to live alone and 
establish his identity, the teenager 
who knew where he needed to go 
to college and had to leave behind 
his past childishness and the kid 
who went to a children’s museum 
with his family but was never 
remembered by his older selves, 
only recognized. My soul split as I 
forced these different versions out 
of me. I see ghosts nearly every-
where in my hometown, in every 
place I’ve become a different per-
son. Every so often, I take it upon 
myself to collect these ghosts from 
these spots, driving around to the 
places I used to haunt to restore my 
soul, to move forward with every 
version of myself. It used to be so 
difficult to return to them, but I’ve 
been doing it for a long time. You 
just have to know the exact right 
thing to say — what I wish someone 
would have told me at those times.

Michigan in Color
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Ghost stories

Content warning: This article con-
tains mention of sexual assault.
October clambers in without 
warning, its ostentatious display 
sweetened by crisp autumn air, bois-
terous jack-o-lanterns flashing toothy 
grins and ghost stories. 
I’ve never experienced the super-
natural: I have no sinister encounters 
to furtively whisper around a bonfire, 
no tales of messages from beyond or 
Ouija boards gone awry. I’ve never 
touched the other side, but I think I 
believe in ghosts. Not the kind you’re 
thinking of, I’m sure, but ghosts all 
the same.
The ghosts I’m acquainted with 
don’t look like the ones written in 
folklore. They are not disembodied 
figures with lifeless skin, pinned 
up curls and shadowy nightdresses 
clinging to their skeletal, evanescent 
frames. They lack the eeriness of 
empty eye sockets and mouths fro-
zen in a permanent scream of agony, 
moaning in torment as they float 
down ornate spiral staircases. Mine 
take the form of moments frozen in 
time, so vivid I think they’re still here, 
but long-since dead. 
They are people, places, memories, 
relentless in their haunting and antag-
onizing in their absence. They lurk 
patiently in every corner, begging to 
be remembered: in old photo albums 
and my childhood bedroom, in text 
messages and vacant corner stores, in 
the pages of my high school diary and 
the dusty frames on my nightstand. 
Ghosts may connote death, but it’s the 
living who create them. We conjure 
them in empty corridors and horror 
films. We lure them to speak to us in 
the sanctity of flickering candlesticks, 
with our hushed whispers and elec-
tronic spirit boxes. We want them to 
make themselves known to us, enam-
ored by the untouchable specters we 
force back into existence.
I am no stranger to necromancy, 
to the cruel and fruitless pursuit of 
trying to bring things back from the 
dead. I long for lemures: I crack the 
door open for them, I leave the lights 
on. I am encompassed by eulogies, 
akin to apparitions. 
I am a mosaic of ghost stories. To 
tell them is to keep them alive.
———
The Graveyard
I drive back to the town I’m from 
and think I’ve never seen a graveyard 
look so much like home. 
The roads are familiar but uncan-
ny, reeking with the putridness of a 

past life. I was born and raised here: 
I’ve kissed every corner, caressed 
every crack in the concrete, so why do 
I feel like a tourist? I don’t recognize 
the new shop by my high school. The 
city has cut down the towering oak 
tree in front of my house and nobody 
cared to invite me to the wake. I am 
sick with unrest, like an anguished 
Victorian spirit discovering that the 
sanctuary wherein he lived and loved 
had been bulldozed and replaced, 
that nobody remembered him at all. 
I drive the same car but it feels like a 
casket now, a cold metal vessel trans-
porting me through a world that’s 
since moved on without me. I’m pale 
with the bone-chilling premonition 
that things have died here. 
I realize I’ve died here too, a hun-
dred times over. So many little ver-
sions of me have faded away, leaving 
sepia-toned remnants in their wake. 
Old flames, friends, feelings and 
fleeting memories, all faceless ghosts 
now marking this place as a land of no 
return. I wonder if my presence sends 
a chill down the locals’ spines, if they 
know someone that no longer belongs 
here has tried to communicate from 
the other side. 
I try to rouse these things back to 
life. I perform seances in the park-
ing structure I used to frequent with 
people who dare not speak of my 
existence. I watch in solitude as the 
sunset, red as inferno, sets the town 
ablaze. I think about how so much 
has changed here, that I’ve changed 
too. But I find solace in knowing that 
one November evening, we drove up 
to the top of the parking structure and 
used our car keys to carve our names 
into the wall. I’m grateful for the 
etchings that outlived us, the irrevo-
cable proof that once, I was here.

Kyra tells me to hold my breath 
when we drive past a cemetery. Super-
stition warns that the restless spirits 
will enter your soul and nestle into 
your bones. With no home to return 
to, they anxiously await a gust of air 
from unassuming lungs that they can 
get swept up in, longing to take the life 
that courses through your veins and 
make it their own. I don’t blame them, 
but we selfishly puff up our cheeks 
and sit in silence anyways. Kyra steps 
on the gas so we don’t suffocate. We 
turn the corner and breathe out a sigh 
of relief in unison. 
I pull out of the driveway of my 
home and make the trip back to 
school. I hold my breath. I’m blue in 
the face the entire way there. 
___
Pretty Dead Things
My body feels like a graveyard, too. 
Because my body, it’s a mess of 
limbs and appendages, of flesh and 
regret. Sometimes it feels like a thing 
I haunt, a land that is no longer mine. 
To be so disjointed in the skin that 
was painstakingly designed for you 
feels blasphemous, but each move-
ment is exorcised out of me, like I’m 
rattling my putrefying bones from 
the inside trying to coax out some evil 
sickness. 
I remember the graverobbers that 
visited my body, their greedy hands 
digging and clutching and taking, 
always taking. They were insatiable 
in their taking, and their hunger 
raised a mind-splitting ring in their 
ears that stopped them from hearing 
me protest and plead and persist that 
this body is mine, not theirs. Not that 
it matters: dead girls can’t say no. 
It feels like watching from the 
other side, suspended in the leaden 
grey of compulsory silence. Like a 

spirit that doesn’t know it’s passed 
on, screaming until her throat is raw, 
wondering why nobody can hear her. 
But I watched as they made a grave 
of me, something so alive, with teeth 
and hair and blood and fight left in 
me, still. 
I mourn the girl that I was before 
you touched me. I bring her flowers 
on Sundays. I make her headstone 
beautiful, wondering if dead things 
can be pretty, too. 
I scrub and shine until my knuck-
les bleed.
Can dead things be pretty, too? 
__ 
Are you a ghost, too?
Last year, I asked a boy if he’d ever 
felt like a ghost. 
He wanted me to elaborate and I 
was rendered speechless, that inex-
plicable shame boiling inside of me 
and clawing its way up my throat 
like bile. How do I say that I feel like 
a stranger in my own body, watching 
my life unfold from some hazy neth-
erworld? Like a tortured soul con-
demned from their house of bones 
and forced to observe in paralyzed 
purgatory? I tried to articulate the 
placelessness, the drifting, the amor-
phousness of it all, but the words are 
all clatter and chaos and confusion. 
My abstruse existential question ulti-
mately falls flat, and he says he hasn’t. 
The boy relayed my question to 
his roommate later that night. His 
roommate responded with expected 
indifference, rolling his eyes and ask-
ing what the hell that even means. He 
called me pretentious, said it’s ‘not 
that serious’ and I nodded my head 
so hard that my papier-mâché bones 
clattered against each other in fren-
zied discordance.
“It’s not that serious,” I echoed. I 

want nothing more than to believe it.
When I was eight, I read about 
the girl with the green ribbon. Jenny 
kept the enigmatic bow laced around 
her neck, unrelenting as a promise. 
In her final moments, she allows her 
lover to untie it, and her head discon-
nects from her neck, rolling onto the 
floor in a discarded heap of skull and 
hair, long and black like my own. I 
think she looks like me. I am a mess 
of knots, more green ribbon than girl. 
I’ve spent years begging people not to 
touch the tangles. 
I think I’ve always felt that way — 
like if someone tugs at me just right, 
I’ll fall apart entirely. 
__
Birds & Banshees
I visit home again despite my 
apprehension. 
Because when the unspeakable 
becomes reality, when you’re ghost-
like and translucent and begging to be 
grounded by some sort of familiarity, 
you go home.
I drive to my favorite park and 
settle down at the top of the hill alone, 
brushing shoulders with my grief, 
thinking about the house with one 
less heart beating between its walls. 
I want nothing more than to be left 
alone, to remain ensnared by the 
frothing, sharp fangs of hurt. 
But a man named Nick walks up 
to me, oblivious to my staccato of 
sniffles and sobs, and tells me he’s 
an ornithologist: he studies birds, 
memorizes their flight patterns and 
mating calls and physical character-
istics. He possesses an unplaceable 
warmth, and I’m almost annoyed by 
the way my sluggishness subsides as 
he lets me sift through his leather-
bound notebook. It’s overflowing 
with hand-drawn Midwestern fowl, 
and I sit in silence while he clumsily 
explains how to distinguish between 
their feather tracts and beak curva-
tures. 
He shares his favorite type of bird, 
rattling off some complicated name I 
don’t quite remember. They’re diffi-
cult to find in the Midwest these days, 
already on their migration away from 
the bitter winter. He’s never seen one, 
but he found one of their vacant nests 
during his hike through the park, still 
miraculously intact and perched in 
the crook of a tree branch overhead. 
He flashes me a lottery-winning grin, 
telling me how lucky he is to have 
found it, how beautiful it is that they 
were ever here at all. 
I find a video in my camera roll, 
and it takes me weeks to watch. When 
I finally succumb, music blares from 
my speakers so loud it launches my 
heartbeat out of sync. You’re swaying 

your hips and bellowing a triumphant 
zalghout in our family’s living room. 
I remember that day, how you tied a 
scarf around my waist and forced me to 
dance. My body is rigid and obstinate 
and not built for dancing. But you make 
it look as easy as breathing, and we 
share the same blood, so I do. I zalghout 
the way you taught me to when I was 
younger, when you and I roared fero-
ciously in the kitchen until I got it just 
right, two unknowing banshees. You’re 
weightless, smiling and iridescent and 
so alive, waving your arms like wings 
outstretched in flight. 
How beautiful is it that you were 
ever here at all?
__
It’s an undeniably human feat to 
believe in ghosts. Our illusory stories 
are fostered by the faith we have in 
things now vanished, in our inexo-
rable trust that they are still with us. 
That our loved ones will visit with 
outstretched hands, that they’re sit-
ting on the L-shaped couch that still 
bears the indents their bodies forged 
after years of use. That things like 
love and friendship and memory 
persist beyond the grave, beyond the 
metaphysical constraints of life and 
death, past and present. We welcome 
the visitations, leaving a seat open at 
the Thanksgiving table, letting the 
photos stay encased in the frames. We 
love the things that haunt us, and that 
love keeps them alive.
I love the things that haunt me, 
even when their visits spur night ter-
rors and fever chills and body aches. I 
love them enough to retire the ghost 
hunting. I decide to stop driving aim-
lessly through my hometown search-
ing for some semblance of what it 
used to be, of who I was when it was 
mine. To stop yearning for the ver-
sions of me that were once untouched 
and untarnished, to stop believing 
that I deserve to be here any less than 
they did. The things we’ve lost are not 
always ghosts or graveyards. Some-
times, they’re glorious reminders that 
we loved something enough to miss 
it, to keep it alive forever, to continue 
basking in growth and newness even 
in its absence. 
I visit the unmarked grave of the 
things I’ve loved that are no longer 
here, and I leave yellow sunflowers. I 
mourn and I grieve, but I do not claw 
at the dirt, do not interrupt the bloom-
ing that is emerging in the wake of the 
loss. Instead, I thank them for their 
time and let them rest. Just as we 
must remember to hold onto these 
things, we must know when to let 
them go. 

YASMINE SLIMANI
MiC Senior Editor

Design by Janice Lin
Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Ghost hunting in Ann Arbor

SAARTHAK JOHRI
MiC Columnist

Wednesday, October 26, 2022 — 7

