Charles, Who?

“Wake up!” A sharp hiss in my ear. 

I roll over, “Go away. It’s not time for school yet.”

A displeased harrumph, “Child, why on Earth would you think I am waking you up for school?”

“I don’t know, Dad,” I groan.

A startled chuckle, “You know, if I was not who - rather, what - I am, this would be a very peculiar situation, no? A stranger in your room, and you think it is your father.”

I crack my eyes open to glare at my dad … and see absolutely no one in my room. I sit up faster than my mom driving on the interstate. I frantically scan my room for anything out of place or just wrong. I’m scanning so quickly that I miss it on the first pass, but it manages to catch my eye on the second.

The gossamer outline of a frail man in nineteenth-century style clothes. He’s perched at the foot of my bed as though he isn’t some uninvited guest. 

“I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Unbelievable!” He exclaims. “You know not who I am?” 

I shake my head and notice something odd. 

Something missing.

Fear.

I have no fear at the moment. 

Not of this strange man I’ve never seen before. 

Not of the fact that he was somehow able to get into my room in the middle of the night.

And not of the way I can see the contents of my overflowing closet through his torso.

I am as calm as the surface of a frozen lake. 

How strange that I should feel comfortable in the presence of a stranger in my room. 

He sighs with a sorrow so profound I am almost swept away by his exhale, “Charles Dickens.”

I tilt my head in confusion, “As in the famous author? The dead guy who wrote A Christmas Carol?”

“You should watch the way you speak of your elders … and the dead,” he chuckles quietly to himself, as if the concept of death could ever be humorous.

I hold up my hands as if to say, My bad. “Well, what are you doing here?”

“In all honesty, I know not why I am here, only that I blinked and was suddenly transported to this strange residence.”

“Okay … well since you’re here, do you have any writing tips?”

“Do I have what?” He asks incredulously. 

“Yeah. I’d like to be an author after I finish high school and then college. I just figured since you obviously had major success, you might have some insightful knowledge into the world of literature for a beginner,” I pause as I realize he’s gone as white as … well a ghost. “Are you okay?”

“You dare insult me?” He exclaims. I flinch backwards, startled by his raised voice. “You ask if I have tips,” he spits venomously, “to aid your blossoming interest? You dare insult me by asking to borrow my knowledge rather than using and expanding upon your own?”

But I asked you in order to expand my knowledge by learning from you, I think to myself.

I roll my eyes.

“Look, I’m sorry that I insulted you, but I thought I was paying you a sort of compliment. You know?”

“No, I do not know.” He promptly glides up from the foot of my bed and waltzes through my wall without warning. 

“Whatever new ingredient they put in those ADHD meds must be a hallucinogen because I definitely just hallucinated,” I mutter. 

I scoff at myself, flop back down on my pillow and drift off to sleep.