A Letter to the Dead Sea Captain Haunting My House

No More Sea Shanties.

underneath my perfect eyebrows, my closed eyes can still feel you watching me sleep.

Dear Captain Gregg,

My friends think that having a hot sea captain haunting my cottage is “romantic,” but I’m afraid I’m a more practical sort. Can you please move on to your afterlife? When I signed the lease I was not informed of any other tenants. If I wanted a roommate, I would have looked on Craigslist.

If you refuse to “pass on” or whatever you ghost people call it, I must make the following requests:

1. Stop blowing my windows open. This is not only rude, but very hard on the glass, and you’re scaring my dog.
2. Stop watching me sleep. Yes, I know you’ve been doing this. Sometimes my eyes are closed because I’m trying to avoid the awkwardness.
3. Can ghosts shower? If so, do. You smell like mackerel, and as any sane, non-nautical person could tell you, this is not an attractive scent.
4. Stop requesting I write your memoir for you. I know you think the money from book sales will help me buy the cottage outright, but it isn’t the 19th century anymore and a few things have changed. Firstly, women now earn their own salaries. Shocker! Secondly, the publishing industry is in a shambles. No one will want to buy a ghost’s memoir, so at the very best it would be pirated a few dozen times and then forgotten. Ha! Pirated. You would know all about that.
5. This next one is very important, so please pay close attention. No more sea shanties. No. More. Sea shanties. NO MORE SEA SHANTIES.
6. Stop warning me about gas heaters. I understand you are an idiot and somehow managed to suffocate yourself to death by turning one on in the middle of the night, but the cottage has electricity now.
7. Stop haunting the bathroom. I don’t think I need to elaborate on this one.
8. Stop hanging your portrait on my bedroom wall. I’ve been putting it in the basement for a reason. Even if I wanted to look at you more frequently, it doesn’t fit the minimalist aesthetic I’m going for. If this confuses you, feel free to refer to my home decor Pinterest board.
9. Stop expecting me to be impressed by tales of your swashbuckling days. For heaven’s sake, you’re a sea captain who died of carbon monoxide poisoning. That’s just sad.
10. I understand old sailors loved shouting things like “land ho” or “fish ho” or whatever, but as I keep telling you, “ho” means something different now. Please find some other way to announce the arrival of my friends.
11. Stop looking at me longingly and sighing about how we can never be together. I know we can never be together, because you are a ghost and I am a living person. How would that even work? I don’t know how people “courted” in your time, but I expect my men to be both excellent and corporeal in bed.
12. If you insist on continuing to haunt the house, please pay attention to the chore chart in the kitchen. Tuesday is trash day.

I understand this is an uncomfortable letter to receive, but things simply cannot continue on like this. With the above behavioral changes, I am willing to tolerate your presence until I can find an exorcist.

Sincerely,

Ms. Muir (And yes, it’s Ms., not Mrs. or Miss. Please stop mixing that up.)

Sarah Hawley is a Los Angeles-based writer and former archaeologist who is currently working on several novels. She enjoys swing dancing, colorful socks, and sympathetic villains and is the co-host of The Wicked Wallflowers Club podcast. You can find her on Twitter at @mssarahhawley.