At the last writing group meeting, I was thinking about using voice to create character, and what sort of style goes with what voice. It’s just a little twenty minute writing exercise I took to the group – I’m not sure where to go with it – but here it is.

Have a read and let me know what you think. It’s another slightly spooky piece…

The Girl on the Step.

I have been able to see dead people for as long as I can remember.

I was three years old when I asked my mother who the old man was who sat in the corner of our living room while we were watching TV.  She had no idea, but much later she told me that I said he wore a cap and a dirty grey jacket and that he smelled of tobacco. And he didn’t smile much.

As a teenager once, I was walking home with a group of friends late at night, being noisy and messing around, when I noticed a woman watching me from the graveyard. I stopped to talk to her. She was called Alice. Her hair was grey and long; she had bony hands and her eye sockets were so deep all I could see was a glimmer of light. My friends said that no one was there.

Since then, I’ve seen the man who rides the late train from North Acton, sitting in the corner seat. He doesn’t say much but I can sense that his heart is full, that there’s so much left unsaid.

There’s the kid who sits in the bus shelter, facing the busy road where cars whizz by. He’s about thirteen; he wears thick glasses. Every Friday evening when I come back from the pub he’s there, staring out into the distance.

I know they are there, the dead ones, but most of the time I ignore them. They are sad and there’s nothing I can do. Each one has a story, a reason for depression or loss or addiction or a sudden full stop. But I usually walk on. It’s best to keep your mind in the world of the living.

Until I met a young woman. She was sitting on a step outside an old house in Golder’s Green one Friday morning when I was on my way to work. I couldn’t help but notice her. She was small with dark hair that spilled over one shoulder, and she was leaning her chin on her hand, watching the world go by as if nothing mattered. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen years old. I just nodded to her, a kind of good morning, and she said, ‘Today is not one to waste, brother.’

I turned back and she had gone, as if I had blinked. Something in my heart made me want to stop and ask her what she meant. All day, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I couldn’t work out why she had shaken me this way.  It might have been the strangeness of her words. It might have been the way her dark eyes seemed to hold the secrets of another world. But I couldn’t concentrate on my work in the shop. Three times, customers had to repeat what they wanted.

On my way home, I hurried along Finchley Street, hoping I’d see her again. There was a lot of noise from the road; the buzz of traffic, the rush of commuters, the groan of buses stopping, but I didn’t pay any attention to it. Then I saw her, sitting on the step again, as if she was waiting for me. When I got to the house, number seventy-seven, I stopped and asked her the question that had been buzzing in my mind all day.

‘Why did you say that thing to me this morning? Today is not one to waste?’

She didn’t smile. Her face was placid, like a painting. ‘Time is not a quiet friend, Benjamin.’

‘How do you know my name?’

‘My brother was called Benjamin.’

‘Where is he now?’

The young woman indicated the house, with its white front and old bay window. ‘He is in here. With me.’

‘With you?’

‘Beneath the stones…’ There was a shadow of a smile around her mouth that made me shiver. ‘Come.’

‘I don’t know your name…’ I said, as if it was important.

‘Shoshana,’ she said. ‘Come with me.’

I stood next to her on the step and she pushed the door wide. My heart was beating like a hammer. Beyond there was darkness, nothing but shapes and shadows of rubble, heaps of stones, broken pieces of wood, charred rags, blackened furniture. My nose was filled with an acrid stench that was hard to explain, damp plaster, urine, burning wet wood. The smell of death.

I took a step inside and felt suddenly dizzy, as if the world was swallowing me. My mouth was dry and I thought I would be sick. Someone whispered my name, a voice that rustled like dead leaves and made me shudder.

I turned round and Shoshana had gone.