Residuals

I wonder these days about hauntings.

To be honest, I've never thought about hauntings much -- I grew up knowing they happen. It's only recently that I've been wondering about the details and operation of the act of haunting.

I want to think that Rex is somewhere else, healthy, happy, unworried. For all my loneliness and lostness, I don't want him to be lingering here, taking care of me/us/things. I want him to be at peace.

That said, spirit or not, something of him does linger here,
Every room is infused with his presence.
Especially this front room where he spent all his time the last months of his life.

There's a concept, in paranormal circles, of residual haunting.
The definition is something like a recording that plays, over and over. A lot of legendary ghosts seem to be residuals. They do the same things, say the same things, are in the same places, time after time. All the white ladies gliding down stairways (even, in some cases, when the stairway is no longer in that part of the room). All the Weeping Widows wandering the garden paths. Crying babies and angry men. Sounds of swords clashing and battleaxes slashing on a peaceful sunny day.

Some are video recordings, some are audio only.

There's a presence here, Rex's presence. It is impressed upon the house; imbued into the walls.
Now this may be true only for me or for us. When we go, so may that presence.
(And then we will know a different measure of loss and loneliness, but that's another topic for another day.)

I think I can live with this.
I think his presence can be here, while his spirit is not.
Just as his voice or his image could be on a recording. (If I had any. My little  recluse.)
Playing the recording would not mean he was here, just that he had been.




I just hope I am right about it.