lyla’s spectres

12/9/21 - This was my submission for ASAM173! I’ve always been fascinated by using sci-fi/fantasy/horror as metaphors for things like generational trauma, immigration, the diaspora — so here’s me dipping my toes into that concept! I was also practicing with dialogue here, so interestingly enough, I received feedback on how reading this felt like reading a screenplay

Lyla stared at the faceless silhouette next to her client.

It was a small figure, so thin that both it and her client could fit on the narrow confessional bench. Its bony hand, emerging from a haze of black smoke, gripped the arm of her client—middle aged, three piece suit, face as pale and thick as unrisen dough. The stench of his nervous sweat was sharp against a musky, sandalwood cologne, almost audacious amidst the church’s soft incense. He fidgeted on his side of the confessional, and the small figure swayed with him.

“Okay,” Lyla said. She kept her eyes on the faceless being. “I see the problem.” 

“Can you get it off?” he asked, eyes wide. A coin weaved through his fingers, glinting in the meager light. Fractured colors from the stained glass shifted across his face, turning his eyes, lips, nose into a mosaic. “Just—please. I can’t sleep. I can’t even look in the mirror.” 

She sucked a breath through her teeth, glancing at his soiled silk shirt, the heavy gold watch on his wrist. “It’ll cost ya.”

“I can pay good money to get rid of it.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” Lyla tapped her pen three times against the iron grate between them. “Upfront payment, please. Cash. I don’t take holo-pay.”

The man snorted. “Yeah, I heard you were old fashioned.” Thick fingers dug into a leather wallet and fished out three crisp hundred-dollar bills. Old standard, before the Empire. He folded them, pressing down on the creases as if he were making a paper crane, and fit them through the grate opening. “That's enough, right?”

“For the first session, yes.” Lyla took the cash and carefully tucked it into her coat’s secret pocket. Ma never liked it when the bills were wrinkly. “Now, tell me about your spectre.”

He eyed her warily. “What? I thought you could see it.”

“I can,” she said patiently. God, this work was like dealing with kids half the time. “But it’s faceless to me until you tell me what you see. Clear up the image for me.”

He glanced warily at where she had tucked the money earlier, as if waiting for a sleight of hand, for the moment she’d disappear. “Listen, if you’re conning me—”

Lyla held up her hand. “Please. I have better things to do than be crammed in this confession booth with you for nothing.”

“How old do you think you are to be speaking to me like that?” He puffed up with a sudden self-importance, trying to find balance, a new power dynamic to plumb. Like I haven’t heard that enough times.

“Doesn’t matter. Describe the spectre to me.”

“What’s your name?”

“For the love of—either you tell me what it looks like, or you’re stuck with it forever. No one else is going to do it for you.” 

“It’s…” The man looked to his right. The spectre clung tighter to his arm. “You’re going to think I’m ridiculous.” 

Lyla rolled her eyes. “Try me.”

“Okay, well it’s...me. Like, when I was ten. Before the last Cyberwar.” The man’s eyes wander to the middle distance, glazing over. “I only owned one shirt back then. Kept it clean as best I could because Baba told me no one would hire us if we had stains.”

The spectre was taking shape now. Dark hair emerging from the nothingness. A pale, gaunt face. Its blue shirt was so worn, the fabric was nearly white.

The middle stage of these manifestations was always Lyla’s favorite. Seeing the hazy image beginning to crystalize, that sense of there-yet-not. There was a reason she liked her sessions in the church. Not for sentimentality or faith, but for the idea that something could be entirely absent yet still suffuse you with its presence. That’s what these ghosts were.

The man kept going. “At first, I didn’t even realize who it was, you know. It was so long ago. I don’t remember ever being so small.” 

“Yes, we all were at some point. Great observation.”

“Do I have to find and pay someone else for no attitude?”

She shrugged. “Sorta got a monopoly on this business, three piece.  Again: it’s me or nothing. No one cares about ghosts anymore.”

Ghosts, Lyla mused. Or whatever this whole spectre thing is.

Hauntings. Dimensional pockets. A peer through the looking glass that has lasted the past three years. Lyla didn’t know or care to find out.

“Fine. Fine.” His frustration was palpable, manifesting in more sweat, more fidgeting. Coin flashing in and out of his fingers like a fish wriggling in a stream. A nervous habit, Lyla realized, as the movement gained speed. She wondered if the coin was smooth now, as weathered and worn as the boy’s shirt. 

The man breathed in deeply. His voice was whisper-quiet, fitting for the confessional. He said, “I thought I left him behind a long time ago. Back home.”

The spectre’s eyes—watery, large, the whites consuming a dark iris—took shape. They hungrily followed the thread of the coin, swallowing the sight of its gold glint.

“So why is he haunting me if he’s, you know, me? I’m not dead.” He looked down and grimaced. The coin stopped, and the spectre looked sharply back up at him. It mouthed something. “And he only talks in one of the Lost Languages.”

Lyla perked up. “Which one?”

The man looked at her with a raised eyebrow. He nodded his head to the closest receiver, embedded in one of the church columns. A shiny piece of metal in rotting wood. “I think you know better than to ask that.”

She waved her hand. “It’s not on. Say it.”

“I’d rather not take that risk. And, considering what we both are, I think you would know.” The man gestured between the two of them. The dark hair, shape of their eyes, unsaid last names. Her father’s home was never a monolith, but some things were immediately clear.

“Your loss,” Lyla said. She took a heavy breath. “Okay. I see it. Are you sure you want it gone?”

“Jesus—what did I just pay you three hundred for? Yes, I want it gone.” 

“I was just making sure.” Lyla cracked her knuckles and slid the iron grate aside. She clasped her hands together, the sound thunderous amidst the silent church. There was a rosary in her hands, but it was mostly just for show. The clients liked it when there at least seemed to be some ritual involved.

A moment later, she thrust her arm forward and wrenched the spectre’s arm away from the man. Its jaw loosened into a shriek, still silent to Lyla, and as soon as it lost touch, the spectre was already dissipating. It was crying—mouth still slack and wide as if to swallow the sun, eyes screwed shut, cheeks wet. There was a horrible moment of absolute clarity, where every detail of the spectre practically burned its existence to the eyelids. It felt so real—blue cotton in her hands, a skinny wrist in her grip.  

Lyla looked away before it could turn its eyes to her, before space, or heaven, or hell sucked it back to where it came from. The last to go were always the eyes, and they were always arge, haunted, wanting.

“Well,” the man said, relieved. He stepped out of the confessional and stretched. “Thank you.”

“Just doing my job.”

“Word of advice? Maybe get an office or something.” The man gestures to the ruined church around them. Shattered stained glass, broken pews, bible pages strewn around. “This place gives me the creeps.”

“Kinda the point. Whole exorcism angle, yanno?”

He huffed out a laugh. “Sure. Just keep telling yourself that.” 

As he left, Lyla could already see the other spectres taking shape around him in the shadows. Amorphous and slow, their gaits lurched forward in the dark. Reaching.

He’d be back soon.