Jim Doran and Lisa Eldridge

Ted, the Meat Fork Bathroom Ghost
By Jim Doran
Painted using Lisa Eldridge’s story (below) as inspiration

I Call Him Teddy and He is Really Nice, I Think
By Lisa Eldridge

Dear Ghost Whisperer:

Hi, how are you? I am fine but my life is totally messed up and I am hoping you can help me out because I am getting frustrated. My name is Kayleigh Brianne Weinberger-Wroblewski, and I am 10 years old in the fifth grade. I have a huge favor to ask you, which would be so cool if you could do it, which is please please PLEASE could you come over to my house and prove to my mom and my dickwad brother Colton that our downstairs bathroom is haunted? I have seen an actual ghost in this bathroom a major amount of times, but my family doesn’t believe me because they can’t actually see it because they are not psychic, even though I think my mom maybe believes me a little bit, but she always says she is sick of working all day and then having to deal with my hallucinations the second she walks in the door.

Colton is hella obnoxious when I even mention the ghost! He says I’m just saying it to get attention, but that is a total lie. Colton is a turd burglar and also he is a botard. He makes fun of me so bad I almost explode, but nobody ever tells him to shut his pie hole. He doesn’t just make fun of me about this; he is mean to me all the time but he never gets in the eensiest bit of trouble. When I told my mom that Colton called me Mayor McCheese, she got utterly expasperated and hollered and said, “If you two don’t cut this shit out I’ll put you on the next slow boat to China.”

Probably you get a lot of requests like this, and maybe some of them are lying and you don’t want to waste time on lies. Well, my case is different because I have proof already. The proof is that I have seen the ghost with my own eyes. Last year I had bad depth preception so I had to do vision training exercises every day all summer, but sometimes I skipped a day. Well, now I don’t even have to wear glasses at all except for sometimes. That was the original proof I tried to tell Colton, that I myself saw the ghost in our bathroom a bunch of times. Plus I talked to it! But that does not cut the mustard in this family. No matter how much I try to convince him the ghost is real, Colton does not believe me. He just laughs at me about it.

Last night I was setting the table when Colton came out of the bathroom going “Booooooo! Booooooo!” He was totally flipping me off and walking away all shaking his butt at me and laughing. I think maybe I was possessed by the ghost for a second because I picked up a meat fork and hucked it at him as hard as I could. I was sorry as soon as I did it but I did not have the power to stop it with my mind, and the meat fork stuck him right in his ass. Colton started screaming and ran to our mom, which he did because he is a total baby because I don’t believe he was hardly even hurt since there were just two teeny tiny holes in his jeans. Now I can’t watch TV or use the computer or call my friends for a whole month! It is so unfair. My mom was so mad! She kept saying I could have stabbed my brother in the back of the head and I need to learn some self-control for God’s sake. That made me wonder if maybe the ghost in our bathroom got killed by a meat fork to the back of the head because he mouthed off one too many times to his sister. Actually, I am pretty sure that would not have happened. I call him Teddy and he is really nice, I think.

So the main reason that I’m writing you is that I’m hoping that you’ll believe me that this is definitely unfair that I am the one who got grounded, because there is an actual ghost and Colton sucks ass and is mean to me all the time and never gets in trouble. I know my mom would finally truly believe in me and unground me if you could talk to the ghost yourself and maybe also let me be a guest star on your show. So, please can you come to my house soon to meet Teddy the ghost and talk to him and prove that he exists? Then Colton will have to admit that I am psychic and bow down to me. He will be so scared and embarrassed that I bet he’ll start crying and wetting his pants and everybody will bust a gut laughing and I will have to call a WAHmbulance for him. If you put the story of my ghost Teddy on your show, you could also have a long talk with him and ask him if he likes me. I think he does, actually.

Well, I guess I should let you go. Please write me back when you get a chance and we can figure out a good time for you to come over.

Your friend,
Kayleigh

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Hope is in the Ocean
By Jim Doran
Inspiration Piece provided to Lisa Eldridge

Possibilities
By Lisa Eldridge
Response to Jim Doran’s painting (above)

You could stay up late sitting on the couch in the dark waiting for this guy to finally come home so you can demand to know where he sees the relationship heading.

Or maybe you could pick up some wine or some weed and wait outside a different guy’s place to surprise him. Then ask him if he feels like hanging out and maybe fooling around a little. (It’s more likely that the guy would do this.)

Or you could call up your friend and complain about a third guy, saying he never calls until the last second, still lives at home with his parents, and is a selfish lover who thinks that having an enormous schlong automatically makes him good in bed.

Or you could arrive home from work one night, exhausted, to find this other guy’s car still parked in your spot even though you told him he needed to leave three days ago and he promised absolutely that he would be gone that afternoon. You could storm into the house and demand to know why he hasn’t left yet because it’s going on a year he’s been staying with you and he has never even once offered to pay part of the rent or buy any goddamn groceries.

Or you could hook up with yet another guy you’ve known since high school. At a party when you are both drunk and grinding against each other he could tell you how good you look and then offer to walk you home but need to stop twice on the way while you stand huddled against the side of a building waiting for him to stop vomiting.

Or you could walk into the co-ed bathroom of your dorm on the first day of college to find this one particular, this specific, guy. He might be brushing his teeth and teasing his roommate by threatening to spit toothpaste on him. The two of you could lock eyes in the mirror and your heart. might. stop. You could run back to your room to tell your friend that you just met your soul mate.

It’s possible that one time later when the two of you are alone in his room he could turn off the lights and sit down really close to you on the bed. Your heart might start pounding and you might suddenly know that he had been wondering all day what it would be like to kiss you. And just then his roommate might walk in and turn on the lights and this particular guy might jump up really fast and act like nothing had been going on.

What could happen another time, though, later, after he had moved into his own place, was that you could be there with him one night just hanging out, and when you get up to leave you could start to put on your jacket and walk to the door but suddenly you might think, oh, what the hell, and walk back over to him, lean in close to brush the hair away from his face, and kiss him lightly on the lips. He might look surprised and a little wary for a second but then maybe he could laugh softly and brush his fingers against your face, then put his arms around you as you tilt your head to the side and give him a look that dares him to kiss you back. And maybe he gently touches his lips to yours, and you let out a little startled gasp because he suddenly flicks his tongue against your teeth. And maybe then you breathe together as he presses his body against you and starts moving his tongue in little circles inside your mouth.

Then maybe you start to wrap your arms around him but he stops you and you feel the hot prickle of humiliation…but then gently he takes hold of the sleeves of your jacket to pull it off and drop it on the floor behind you. Maybe then you begin to breathe harder as he holds you against his chest and grasps the back of your neck to pull your face closer as he continues to kiss you. Somehow then the two of you might find yourselves tangled together on the bed. Maybe he pulls up your skirt as you wrap your legs around his waist and thrust your hips against him—then possibly—

………………………….Sudden hot hunger reaching to unbuckle and unzip and his hands stroking ……..your breath catching ….. fingers, tongues, probing …… your gasps echoing and rasping in the dark room as he…but if you…he looks at you so gently that you almost freak out for a second and start struggling but he eases up and you
……..his lips ………………………………….the weight of him until you feel like you’re
………………………………… if he doesn’t
………………….. covering your body with his
………………………. strong hard hands pull ………………………… you want him to
clutching each other ………………………….. moaning and sweating and kissing. He’s
………….. hot mouths muscles straining sweating gentle ………… rough ………… you ….. pushing him holding you ………….. sweet and sweaty

Years later you could still sometimes think about him and wonder why he used to bump his shoulder against yours when you walked places together and liked it when people mistook you for a couple but then introduce you to his girlfriend. It’s possible he once told you that he did have a huge crush on you for a while but the idea of having a relationship with you was scary and besides he was bad news because if you ever made him really mad his temper would destroy you. He might have added that it would be cool if you could hang out with him and have a beer together once in a while.

Or, if none of that could ever have happened, couldn’t the two of you at least have sat on the bed side by side and kissed sweetly in the dark?