Many people tell ghost stories. Some say that they are people who died without carrying out their mission, that they are souls in pain or that they end up in that state all those who had a tragic life. In films, they are often presented as spirits thirsty for revenge or souls who become melancholic or even wise after passing away. In some places, it’s said that ghosts are simply waiting for a minute of attention in the form of a merciful prayer. Most of those stories are false. Mine, however, is real. I am the ghost of a building in Mexico City. I found out some years ago. This is what happened.
I was seven years old. I was in my second year of school. I lived with my family in the Roma neighborhood, very near the city center. We lived on the fourth floor of a building without an elevator. The staircase is not precisely a spiral one, but there is a space between the stairs and the corridor that leads to the apartments, leaving a gap. One big enough for a seven-year-old kid to fall into.
Even though Mexicans like to say that 5 de Mayo is an invention of the gringos, and we emphasize that it is not our national day, most people have the day off. So with that excuse, my cousins from Guanajuato spent the weekend visiting the capital for the first time. The day before their return was exhausting. We walked a lot, ate dinner, and went to sleep early. The plan was to take them to the bus station during the morning and then rest at home.
After waking up, without any suspicion about what was about to happen, I dressed and had breakfast before we went out to drop off my cousins at the station. I remember that I saw them and my brother ran through the stairs in competition to the ground floor. I didn’t follow them. Instead, I waited a bit for my dad and, while he closed the door, I began to go down the stairs slowly and quietly. My memory stops there.
After my third step, I have been told that I put my foot on a poorly placed tile, which caused me to slip. My head hit the edge of the staircase, and somehow I slipped through the space below the railing. I was upsidedown on a free fall to the ground. However, after three floors, I hit the rail again, and my belt got stuck. That stopped me and turned me upside up, preventing me from hitting the ground with my head. I survived.
Some fuzzy memories start to reappear. I get a mix of what I remember and what I have heard: the terror that my father felt by watching me falling and the impression that my cousins had with the sound of the impact. But I remember no pain, only the blow. I was confused, barely watching my blood dripping. Then my 9 year-old-brother ran to me decisively; he carried me and intuitively took off his shirt and put it with care on my head. Today he is a doctor.
I don’t know how I got to the hospital, but I remember that when the emergency room door opened, I heard the kind of gasp people make when they see something painful. After it, a female voice shouted in the waiting room, “Move on! This kid just had a serious accident”. But, again, my memory disappears there.
The next scene that comes to my mind is being in a hospital bed with my dad’s hand on my shoulder. The doctor asked me my name, the date, the school I was going to, the name of my best friend, and many other things to see if I had cognitive or memory damage. They did all kinds of examinations. They said to be surprised that I had no broken bones, no serious injuries or problems derived from the accident. I waited there for a bit, and they sent me back home.
Time passed as it always does. We moved to another building, and I recovered as any child does at that age. Since then, my family celebrates my birthday twice: once on my actual date of birth and another on the 5th of May. I fell from the fourth floor and survived. When someone asks if I believe in miracles, I often tell this story.
Although, of course, some years later, I learned that I became a ghost that same day.
During high school, a friend invited me to her house for lunch. Her family had just moved to an apartment in the same building where my accident happened. Her mother makes a delicious dish of rice with pomegranate, and every time the fruit is in its season, she used to call me to join them. While we were eating, her siblings came from school. The youngest had come up sprinting through the stairs. His mother scolded him. She told him that if he keeps playing like that, the ghost of the boy who died when he fell from the fourth floor would appear to him.
When I heard that, I froze. I didn’t know how to react. I seemed to be more impressed than the child by the warning. And I wanted to add that the scolding was so true that, in fact, the ghost was already there. In any case, I needed to know more, so I asked about the story of the spirit.
My friend’s mother said that the neighbors told her that a boy playing on the stairs died after falling from the fourth floor and now appeared as a ghost. The legend was confirmed by various anecdotes of doors that opened by themselves, a shadow moving in the parking lot, and the sound of small steps (mine) in other common areas. She even claimed to feel a presence every time she walked through the fourth floor at night. With that story, the neighbors instructed kids not to run down the stairs and, at the same time, had a good anecdote to tell.
It was then that I realized that I was a ghost. My old neighbors knew that I fell and also that I survived. Still, when my family moved from the building, they made up a story that later began to be told as true by people who never knew me. The details changed along the way. First, I was not playing when I fell, and second, just a minor difference, I was alive. Either way, it seemed reasonable to me to make an effort to avoid further accidents. However, I would have preferred to have the rail replaced.
Maybe some ghost stories are true, but with the spirits still attached to a living body. This is mine. According to the entire building, I am a ghost, and I appear at night. My presence is strengthened when someone is careless or disobeys his mother. I like to imagine the kids telling about my apparitions to their friends during sleepovers or those who, full of superstition, think to see me walking down the stairs. Perhaps they believe that I am a lost soul who cannot get into heaven because I played too much and that now I visit the place in the hope of correcting the damage. They don’t know that the only thing that can make me visit that building is a friend and a good dish with pomegranate and rice.
What I wrote here really happened. I fell, and I survived. On my body, the only thing I carry from the accident is a scar on my head. However, it would be a lie to say that it had no further consequences. To begin with, some people say that I appear as a ghost, which is a great anecdote to tell. But also, the accident is, without a doubt, one of the events that have defined my personality the most.
At a very early age, I realized the inevitability and easiness of death. That gave me a strong sense of responsibility. The thought that I had to act in a way to seize my time on earth stuck in my heart. That constant carpe diem had mixed consequences. First, it has defined much of my personal way of living faith, and my initial interest in Philosophy. It would be very hard to tell how much the accident shaped my values, opinions, and career choices. But, on the other hand, that same existential anxiety developed in obsessions and fears that tend to reappear in one form or another from time to time. It has taken a process to understand that it’s true that we can die at any moment, but it is pointless to obsess about it. In reality, I don’t know if that event was really the closest I’ve ever been to death. It doesn’t matter. I’m alive right now.
With time, I have come to understand that we were not forced to justify our existence. To seize our life cannot mean to try to make sure that all our actions have an intrinsic and transcendental value. That is impossible. From our perspective, our life is what theologians call grace: a pure and unmerited gift. To spend life trying to deserve it is pursuing air. So the result of a memento mori should not be fear, but the conviction that we ought to decide what to do with the time that is given to us, commit to our choices and put effort into what we do, be charitable to others and enjoy the fruits of an honest life as longs as it lasts, because “It’s later than you think.” That is one of the oldest pieces of advice ever written: the one that Siduri, the mythical ale-maker, gave to Gilgamesh, and that later was echoed in the biblical book of Ecclesiastes. It is also one of my favorite texts and, by far, the most important thing I have learned as a ghost:
Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always clean and white; let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with your wife whom you love all the days of your vain life which God has given you under the sun. Because that is your portion in life and in the labor you do under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going. (Ecclesiastes 9, 7–10)
