The melancholy tale of Jeffery knight

       During his time alive Jeffery Knight had been a rather faulty man though this wasn’t unlike many others, Jeffery seemed to be a rather sad example of a faulty man. He had met and married the woman of his dreams; the love of his life when he had been just 23 years old and for this he had felt blessed and he had realised just how lucky he was. He was grateful for her and realised that some people spent their whole lives searching for the partner of their dreams and that some never found them at all. However because of his faults Jeffery was a man who all too easily forgot about the important things in life, they would slip his mind for a few seconds, hours or even the whole day and then this would inevitably lead to conflict and anger. They had managed a few blissful years together before they moved into their very first, very own home and Jeffery had begun his ‘dream’ job. When he had first started out he had so wanted to mould the mind of the young, disillusioned youth though he soon found that it was he who was disillusioned. It soon became that Jeffery spent all of his free time in his local pub which would become his final downfall. Most people had some form of an addiction whether it be their children, their job, shoes, books, a passion or the more destructive of addictions; Gambling, Sex, drugs and alcohol and it was the latter that Jeffery was suffering from. He was an alcoholic and though it did not interfere with his ability to teach those who did not actually want to be taught it began to shred his personal life.

     It became that he spent more of his time drinking at the pub than he did with his wife and on more than one occasion she would march the short distance from their home to the pub with his cold dinner in her hands. She would walk in locate him and launch the plate of lovingly made dinner at his head and on more than one occasion he had followed her home covered in mash potato, gravy and some form of vegetable. They began to fight every night, she screamed at him, he listened and then he would drink and eventually they left what had been the home of their dreams though it was too late to help Jeffery he had already fallen so far down the spiral of self destruction that there was no way back for him, he was circling the drain. Just a few years after they had moved house Jeffery knight finally washed himself down that drain, he slipped from life, Alcohol had finally pulled the plug and washed him down the black hole in a tidal wave of vodka and whiskey. He left his wife alone and even after death he was not able to stay with her.

     Jeffery had truly loved his wife more than anything in the whole world however he was too ashamed of himself for what he had done, for the pain he had caused her and so he could not stay with her but he could not move on to whatever awaited him in the next world, if anything and so he moved to the next thing that he had loved with all of his heart; the first house that he and his beloved had owned, had live in together, they house that they had started in, that they had been so happy in, the last place they had been happy. He became a ghost who haunted. Since they had moved out there had been two owner of his home, another teacher though not one who ruined his own life and the second had been a family who were still living there. When he returned he found that they had added to the house though they had only made it more beautiful and now the mother, father and their two daughters were living happily. He did not disturb them, he did not want the house to himself and so he was not malevolent or angry he did not move furniture or shatter windows he only watched as they grew and made new memories and for the most part they did not know that he was there. However one day when his sadness over came him he materialised as he walked past the large kitchen widow, he had been to visit his old haunt at the pub and as he walked past his none existent tears rolling down over his translucent cheeks the father saw him. Though the family now knew that he was back and they knew that the spirit who had been leaving wisps of scent in the air had once owned their home they were not afraid. Jeffery felt at home once more though he missed his wife, he settled in and watched the family grow and he very rarely made himself known to them barring the odd open window, blast of cool air and occasionally a whistled melody in the dead of night.