Summary

The author describes a haunting morning commute through a neighborhood plagued by the ghostly presence of individuals suffering from addiction and societal neglect.

Abstract

The narrative unfolds as the author recounts a drive to work, witnessing the spectral figures of people affected by substance abuse. These individuals, once vibrant humans, are depicted as forgotten souls, aimlessly wandering in a state of disconnection from their past and present realities. The author paints a vivid picture of the despair and disorientation etched in their faces, their existence marginalized to the fringes of society. Despite the instinct to help, fear and a sense of helplessness prevent the author from intervening. The piece reflects on the lack of societal and political will to address the crisis, highlighting the absence of genuine efforts to rehabilitate these individuals. The author grapples with feelings of guilt and powerlessness, recognizing the inadequacy of their own actions in the face of such pervasive suffering.

Opinions

The author conveys a deep sense of empathy towards the individuals affected by substance abuse, viewing them as lost souls rather than societal outcasts.
There is a palpable critique of the political establishment for neglecting the plight of these individuals, with the author noting the lack of genuine action or concern from either political party.
The piece suggests that the opioid crisis is selectively acknowledged by politicians and the media, ignoring the human aspect and the stories of those most severely affected.
The author expresses a personal struggle with the desire to help versus the instinctual fear and uncertainty that prevents them from engaging with the affected individuals.
The narrative underscores the author's belief that society has endorsed the suffering of these individuals by failing to provide the necessary support and resources for recovery.
The author reveals a sense of complicity and guilt for being part of a society that allows such human tragedies to persist and for the ease with which one can forget the existence of these "ghosts" once removed from their immediate presence.

On My Way to Work I See Ghosts …

…phantoms who once were human beings moving diagonally, their feet not touching the asphalt, as they sense the coming dawn and move haphazardly toward shelter, darkness, refuge.

Their eyes, red, swollen, empty, they know not who or what they are, or were. Their memories have been wiped clean, washed in frequent chemical baths. They would not recognize themselves in a photo from the past or in a mirror of the present.

One woman grasps at air as if plucking apples from a tree that isn’t there.

Another is slumped over in an office chair on the bridge above the highway, belly bulging out, tongue protruding.

I want to stop, pull over and check for a pulse. But I am afraid, so I keep driving.

A man, yelling to god, his brother, the mayor and the heavens, suddenly laughs at something hysterical only he has heard, bends over and loses his balance — catches himself — dusty and red, he looks up, surprised, he shakes it off, and again begins to shout.

A couple in a doorway of a boarded up daycare are about to shoot up, chipped and peeling Sesame Street characters to the right and left of them, window dripping yellow egg or dried piss runs through Elmo’s face like a vein.

Young men stand on the corner and share a vape and sips from a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. The men give off an edgy, pins and needles vibe, and they wear expressions of disorientation, like someone woke them with a gun from a dream they were loving and now they can’t shake that feeling of being so close to death, of having their brains shot out of the backs of their skulls.

But here they are anyway, on the sidewalk, closer than they have ever been to that end, the gun facing them not a Glock or Smith and Wesson, but a hypodermic needle crusted over in someone else’s blood.

I turn my eyes away, to the road ahead, like I am being pulled by a conveyor belt through some cheap carnival trailer car haunted house, where grotesque mannequins pop out at you from unexpected and abrupt turns.

Embarrassingly relieved, I am now coming out the other end, passing at last through the screen of rubber flaps, escaping by the grace of some god, onto the other side, into the light.

The streets here are lined with shops that are open for business, porches swept clean, decorated with potted plants and cheery flags, not gutters littered with forgotten people, lost souls, zombies, apparitions that we all drive past on our way to somewhere else.

As I glance back in my rear-view, I see that the ghosts have vanished. For now. Powdery remnants hover on the air where they were, like the wisps of chalk that remain once something has been erased.

My eye catches a glimpse of the Republican campaign office, where no ghost dares to ever cross. The candidates’ signs peeling at the edges, cover the windows, a dim light always lit. No representative ever there, inside.

The abandoned office was a mere prop for the last presidential campaign to show the news media that this blighted patch of the city had not been overlooked by the Right. But of course, the living residents of this area, who have become numb to the reality of the walking dead among them, knew they had never been remembered, let alone acknowledged, by either party.

There is no societal or political outrage for the ghosts that haunt the streets here. There are no plans in the works to collect them, to place them in beds of soft cotton, a place where they can rest and heal and return to the land of the living. There are no funds to lovingly drain the poison from their systems and revitalize their bodies from the shells that remain.

The outrage from politicians and political pundits over the opioid crisis does not include these specters. Their existence has been omitted. The idea that they were once someone’s children, mother, father, sister, brother, lover, nephew or niece, does not enter the minds of those supposedly outraged by the illness that is drug abuse.

I hear mournful cries in the distance as I leave this ghost town behind me. I try to brush off the feeling of sorrow in my bones as I imagine the lonely spirits lying down in cold concrete corners, or in the musty backs of broken buildings, covering themselves with newspapers or old blankets brought by corporate missionaries who came for a day once a few years ago to appease their guilt of having: having a home, a family, insurance to pay for recovery.

I try and appease my own guilt by writing about them, remembering them, praying for them to a god I do not believe in to save these souls from their self imposed, society endorsed damnation.

Maybe one morning I will stop and offer them something. A sandwich? A bottle of water? A coffee? A warm coat? A: hello, how are you, why are you here?

And they will reach out, their hands covering mine like a mist, their breath hot and rank with the decay of their internal organs and they will ask me for the one thing I cannot give, the thing that they should not have, but need like air and when I deny that, their screams will shake the earth like all the creatures from the nether regions and as I flee, my tires leaving black marks on the pavement, their lamentations will take root in my marrow and I will weep well into the night for my own sense of wretched powerlessness and my own keen ability to forget, once my day gets going, that they were ever even there.