Willard E. Hawkins

“ A thousand years or a single instant—for time is a relative thing—the respite lasted. Then, I sank, as it seemed, to the old level of consciousness, and the torment was renewed.
Endure it now I knew that I must—and why. A strange new purpose filled my being. The light of understanding had dawned upon my soul.
And so I came to resume my vigil in the home of Velma and Louis. ”

“ The irony of it struck me at the moment of realization. I was dead—I was the phantom—who had meant to kill Louis!
I looked at my hands, my uniform—— I touched my body. Apparently, I was as substantial as before the shrapnel buried itself in my head. Yet, when I had tried to grasp Louis, my hand seemed to encompass only space.
Louis lived, and I was dead!
The discovery for a time benumbed my feeling toward him. With impersonal curiosity, I saw him close the eyes of the dead man—the man who, somehow or other, had been me. ”

“ If I sought to peer through the veil as formerly—to witness her pathetic attempts to resume the old life with Louis—again those eyes!
It may perhaps sound strange for a disembodied creature—one whom you would call a ghost—to wail of being haunted. Yet haunting is of the spirit, and we of the spirit world are immeasurably more subject to its conditions than those whose consciousness is centered in the material sphere. ”

“ By exerting myself, I could agitate the surface of her nature into ripples of pleasurable excitement—could even lash her emotions into a tempest. She responded to the stimulation of my mood, yet, in my absence, settled contentedly into the peaceful comfort of Louis' steadfast love.
I felt vaguely then—and am certain now, with a broader perspective toward realities—that Velma intuitively recognized Louis as her mate, yet feared to yield herself to him because of my sway over her emotional nature. ”

“ I have witnessed his panic at the thought of losing her, at the thought that some day she might give him up in disgust at his aberrations, and abandon him to the formless "thing" that haunted him.
Curious—to be of the world and yet not of it—to enjoy a perspective that reveals the hidden side of effects, which seem so mysterious from the material side of the veil. But I would gladly have given all the advantages of my disembodied state for one hour of flesh-and-blood companionship with Velma. ”

“ More than once, I was forced to exert my power over Louis to prevent him from taking violent measures against himself. As I gained the ascendancy, a determination to end it all grew upon him. He feared that unless he took himself out of Velma's life, the insanity would return and force him again to commit a frenzied assault upon the one he held most dear. Nor could he avoid seeing the apprehension in her manner that told him she knew—the shrinking that she bravely tried to conceal. ”

“ That, when the vigorous, full-blooded body I possessed should be bereft of its faculties, I, as a creature apart from it, should go on, was beyond credence. The play of life through the human machine, I reasoned, was like the flow of gasoline into the motor of an automobile. Shut off that flow, and the motor became inert, dead, while the fluid which had given it power was in itself nothing. ”

“ Ihave wondered, since, how I could I remain so long in touch with the objective world—why I did not at once, or very soon, find myself shut off from earthly sights and sounds as those in physical form are shut off from the things beyond.
The matter seems to have been determined by my will. Like weights of lead, envy of Louis and passionate longing for Velma held my feet to the sphere of dense matter. ”

“ Over his shoulder I read the first letter he wrote home to Velma, in which he gave a belated account of my death, dwelling upon the glory of my sacrifice.
"I have often thought that you two were meant for each other [he wrote] "and that if it had not been for fear of hurting me, you would have been his wife long ago. He was the best buddie a man ever had. If only I could have been the one to die!" Had I known it, I could have followed this letter across seas—could, in fact, have passed it and, by an exercise of the will, have been at Velma's side in the twinkling of an eye. ”

“ One of the results of debility from overwork is, apparently, that it deprives the victim of his initiative—makes him fearful of giving up his hold upon the meager means of sustenance that he has, lest he shall be unable to grasp another. Louis was in debt, earning scarcely enough for their living expenses, too proud to let Velma help as she longed to do, his game leg putting him at a disadvantage in the industrial field. ”

“ Never was hold upon earthly treasure more reluctantly relinquished than was my hope of possessing Velma. Surely, death could not erect so absolute a barrier. There must be a way—some loophole of communication―some chance for a disembodied man to contend with his corporal rival for a woman's love. ”

“ While I temporized with the lust to kill—prolonging the exquisite sensation—she was battling for self-control.
"Louis!" The name was gasped through bloodless lips.
Involuntarily, I shrunk, reeling a little under her gaze. A dormant something seemed to rise in feeble protest at what I sought to do. The leveled revolver wavered in my hand.
But the note of panic in her voice revived my purpose. I laughed—mockingly.
"Louis!" her tone was sharp. but edged with terror. "Louis—put down that pistol! You don't know what you are doing." ”

“ I speak of a fiend incarnate, even though I was that fiend, for I did not enter Louis's body in full expression of my faculties. Taking up physical life, my recollection of existence as a spirit entity was always shadowy. ”

“ Cause set in motion must work out their full reaction. The pebble, cast into a quiet pool, makes ripples which in time return to the place of their origin. I had cast more than a pebble of disturbance into the harmony of human life, and through my intense preoccupation in a single aim had delayed longer than usual the reaction. ”

“ It could be maintained, however, that purposely fictitious names were substituted, either by the Doctor or the communicating entity.
They called me—when I walked the earth in a body of dense matter—Richard Devaney. Though my story has little to do with the war, I was killed in the second battle of the Marne, on July 24, 1918.
Many times, as men were wont to do who felt the daily, hourly imminence of death in the trenches, I had pictured that event in my mind and wondered what it would be like. Mainly I had inclined toward a belief in total extinction. ”