Every Touch by Nerika Parke Read Free Book Online Page A

balcony must count as part of the building.  At least he could get outside, even if it was only into a seven feet by three feet area.
    A few of the other flats in the building had balconies too and he’d seen seating on a couple of them.  That would be nice, he thought, being able to sit outside.  He’d never done it when he was alive, but he’d have a lot more time to fill now.  He could spend all day sitting in the sun if he wanted to, not having to worry about getting skin cancer and premature wrinkling or having something more useful he should be doing. 
       It didn’t make death feel any better, but it was something.
       He stood outside for a while, looking at the tops of the trees in the park beyond the buildings on the opposite side of the road, then down to the ground three storeys below where the traffic was building towards the morning rush hour and people were on their way to work.  He would have been one of them, if he’d been alive, going to his job at the station.  He wondered who had replaced him, if they missed him there. 
       The striking of the clock on the church tower down the road drew his attention and he counted.  Eight o’clock.  He rolled his eyes.  In life he always hated getting up, always lying in on his days off.  Now he could lie in as long as he wanted and he had woken well before eight.  He leaned forward against the barrier and tried to see along the road to the church, pleased to find that if he pressed his face as far out as possible, he could just see the clock on the tower.  That would be useful. 
       He looked at his watch and smiled as the display changed to match the church clock.  Not for the first time, he wondered what would happen if he took it off, what would happen to any of his clothes if he took them off.  He hadn’t even tried removing his shoes yet, nervous that if anything left contact with his ethereal body it might vanish and be lost to him forever.  He didn’t want to spend the next five years with bare feet.  He decided to ask Oliver the next time he saw him, before risking anything, even his largely useless watch.
       Wandering back into the bedroom, he glared at the chair on his way past and walked through the door, which Trish had left open when she left, to the living room.  He then looked back at it and smiled.  He could have walked through the wall if he wanted to, but instead he had detoured across the room to use the door.  He made a decision to keep using doors on principle.  Just because he wasn’t alive any more, didn’t mean he couldn’t behave like he was. 
       He spent some time working on controlling his ability to touch things, sitting on the sofa, which he steadfastly refused to think about, and wafting his hand through the coffee table in front of him.  But after a couple of hours he still hadn’t got anywhere and was ready to start throwing things, if he had been able to pick them up.  After a bout of frenzied lunging at the table from every conceivable angle, he leapt up and screamed in frustration, kicking at its chunky leg.
       “Damn it!” he yelled in pain as his foot collided with the solid wood.  “Oh, of course, so now I can touch you!” 
       He nudged at it with his foot, thinking.  He could feel the pressure of the table leg against his shoe and he knew his shoe was merely an extension of his ghostly self.  Therefore, he reasoned, he was touching the table.  Reaching out his arm, he bent over slowly and placed a fingertip onto the wooden surface.  The varnished surface felt cold against his skin.  He pressed.  His finger stayed resolutely on top of the table.  He added his other fingertips then flattened his hand onto the surface.  He added his other hand. 
       Closing his eyes, he sank to his knees on the floor, leaned his forehead onto the table and sighed.
       “Thank you.”
       Kneeling up again, he took his hands from the table then put them back down, smiling