The second weirdest thing happened yesterday.

The second weirdest? When did the weirdest happen?

The weirdest thing happened yesterday.

What was it?

I'll tell you in a minute. right now I'm talking about the second weirdest, do you want to hear about it or not? Shall I just tell you about the third weirdest?

Did that happen yesterday too?

No. I don't know. I was being sarcastic. Who keeps track of the third weirdest thing that ever happened to them? When you get down to that rank, there are too many contenders. The third? Maybe it was the time I found a tooth in my steak.

A tooth? A human tooth or a cow tooth?

Why would there be a cow tooth? Do you think one cow might eat another cow? No it was a shark tooth. My best guess is that a cow from a seaside ranch went for a swim and was attacked by a shark, but somehow made it back to shore alive.

Some aspects of that explanation seem unusual.

Well, on the other hand maybe the third weirdest was the time I thought a fence lizard was talking to me, until I figured out it wasn't a lizard but a strangely-shaped leaf.

A leaf was talking to you?

Yeah. Or there might have been someone on the other side of the fence. In any case, the second weirdest thing that ever happened to me occurred yesterday, when I was getting dressed for work and realized I couldn't find the mirror. I was putting on my clothes and I went to check if I had succeeded, but there was no mirror.

Had you broken it?

Maybe. I have been feeling unlucky. But i didn't find a bunch of small mirrors either.

That is it, you lost a mirror? Is that weirder than a talking leaf? What was the weirdest?

I saw a ghost. When I was looking for the mirror I found a ghost under the bed.

Why would you think the mirror would be under the bed?

I figured that if I couldn't see the mirror it must be someplace dark. But under my bed, instead of the shine of my reflection, I saw the shadow of the dead. He was curled up and facing away, but he spoke, "I wasn't always a ghost" is what he said.

Do you think it was talking to you?

Well, that's the thing, I wasn't sure. Although I could see this particular ghost, not all ghosts are visible, so I couldn't know how many invisible ghosts were also under the bed. The ghost could have been speaking to me or to another less-visible spirit. But I answered anyways, just in case it was talking to me.

To be polite?

Of course not. Who knows what a ghost thinks is polite? I answered because I didn't want him saying the same thing over and over again, you know what I mean? Ghosts are always repeating themselves, moaning the same thing endlessly.

Of course. That's just because the last thing that is in the physical brain at the moment of death is what gets left in the mind of the dead, on account of the fact that without brains the dead can't learn anything new. So they moan "Help me help me" or "no no noooo" or stuff like that. I once heard of a ghost that howled the exact same thing every night, and you know what it was? It shrieked the words "I've done this before."

A ghost wails night after night, and what it wails over and over is "I have done this before"? Was it also cackling ironically?

No, no the point is the ghost, or rather the person who was about to become a ghost, was doing something dangerous right before dying, got cocky, and that is what led to their death. Like maybe a guy was assembling a model ship while driving a speedboat, and ran into a dock because he was paying attention to the wrong boat, all this just as he was reassuring his passengers "I have done this before". Or maybe he was using dynamite to fish for venomous sharks, got over confident and sloppy, and died thinking "I got this. I'm a dynamite shark blaster master. I've done this before."

Sure. That makes sense. Doesn't make the ghost sound very scary though. "I've done this before".

As if "I wasn't always a ghost" sounds the least bit spooky.

Well, in any case it blows your theory out of the water like a venomous shark. Surely the last thing the person thought before they died was "I wasn't always a ghost".

Why not?

Obviously someone who is about to die isn't a ghost yet.

Why not? Maybe it was a ghost that died. The ghost you heard could have been a ghost of a ghost. A higher order ghost. Have you noticed that sometimes you think, and then sometimes you think about how you are thinking - what is it they call that?

Metacognition?

Think that is it. So there's the self that thinks, and then the self that thinks about the self thinking. They call that higher order thought, so I am calling this a higher order ghost. The ghost of the ghost was once the thinker who thought about the thinking. You witnessed the super supernatural.

Possibly, as he was plurally full of the fearful.

I bet. Like the thought of being eaten by a shark that is being eaten by a larger shark.

Or the thought of being eaten by a venomous shark.

Or of the explosion of a venomous shark.

Yeah. So maybe it was a ghost of a ghost. But how can a ghost die?

Good question. It would be useful to know if you ever get in a disagreement with a ghost.

A disagreement? You would kill a ghost over a mere disagreement?

Everyone knows it is impossible to persuade a ghost to change its mind. And since a ghost is only mind, the only way to convince it is to kill it.

Is that ethical?

A ghost is already dead.

But the spirit remains, since only the body has died. Isn't the spirit more important than the physical body?

Yes but the ghost of the ghost would still remain. So it would be legal, at least here. The laws may be different in other countries.

Well, one way to kill a ghost might be with a big fan, to blow, you know, it to bits. Not the way explosives blow sharks apart, but like the way the wind blows a pile of leaves to pieces.

As easy as a breeze? Where did you get that brilliant idea? Ghosts have no mass, so the wind from a fan wouldn't effect them. A vacuum cleaner would similarly fail, though if it was an old vacuum the noise might annoy the ghost to the point that it left.

Then what can you use to kill a ghost?

In some cases, the best way to kill a ghost is with mirrors. If the ghost is an invisible one and it comes across a mirror, the ghost will think it is an open door or window and will run smack into it. I'm not saying that ghosts are dumb, they just don't understand that they are invisible, so if they can't see themselves in the mirror they can't accept that there is a mirror. If you catch a ghost in a hallway by using two mirrors to block either end, the ghost will go crazy thinking it is trapped in some kind of invisible box placed in an infinite tunnel. The ghost will lose its mind, and since a mind is all a ghost is, well that's it. Over. No mind so no ghost. But that only works if it is an invisible ghost.

...

Why do you suppose the ghost was talking to you?

Like I said, maybe it wasn't talking to me. Maybe it was talking to other ghosts that I could not see.

Maybe they were talking about you. I bet you wish you could have heard the other half of that conversation. They were probably saying mean things about you, ghosts are surely envious of humans because we have bodies and they don't.

More likely they were acting superior. Ghost actually think they are better than the living because they don't have to do corporeal stuff, like flossing their teeth.

Or clipping toenails.

Or putting on sunblock.

I bet they wish they cold put on sunblock. Then they could go outside during the day without getting a sunburn, instead of haunting dark attics and graveyards at night.

Yeah, or the darker depths of the ocean.

The ocean? There are underwater ghosts?

Of course: the ghosts of sea creatures. There are at least the ghosts of dolphins and other marine mammals, probably even of the less-advances aquatic organisms - sea snails and such. But surely the ghosts of venomous sharks are the most frightening of the sea spirits.

I wonder how one would kill the ghost of a venomous shark?

Well, mirrors don't work. I heard about someone who tried it once: they built a cage out of four giant mirrors and dropped it in the water around the shark ghost, and do you know what happened? The shark started doing tricks.

Tricks?

Tricks, like jumping out of the water to do back flips. And you know why? The shark thought the mirror was just glass, so it assumed it was in a giant tank, like at seaworld. It was doing tricks for snacks.

Do sharks do tricks? I thought it was dolphins that did that.

It was a ghost shark, and who knows what a ghost shark can do.

Then how do you kill a ghost shark?

Maybe with the ghost of a larger shark.

...

So the ghost said, "I wasn't always a ghost". Then what did you say?

I said, "well, stop thinking about the past. That's the problem with you ghosts, you are always worrying about things that already happened, like spilled milk, broken mirrors, and nautical tragedies. You should live in the present."

What did the ghost say to that?

Nothing.

It wasn't always a ghost? Maybe it was bragging. It wasn't born this way, it had to work its way up to it. It was proud that it was a self-made ghost.

Maybe it just wanted to run on about the story of its life. Fortunately it couldn't since it didn't have have a brain anymore so it couldn't remember its life.

Just then the ghost materialized. That isn't a very nice thing to say, the ghost said.

Its the ghost! How long have you been listening in on our conversation?

Ever since you started talking about sharks. I'm fascinated by sharks. In fact I had hoped that once I died I would become reincarnated as a shark. So as you can imagine ending up as a ghost was a big disappointment, and now your insensitive criticism is furthering my misery. You make me sound like a a mindless moron. Of course I remember the story of my life.

Sorry. Then tell us the story of your life.

Why, so you can accuse me of running on about it?

At least tell us how you died.

I died in an explosion. I worked in a mirror factory, until one day one of the machines exploded. The blast shattered dozens of mirrors and filled the air with their shrapnel. The last thing I saw was the cloud of shards, with each frigging flying piece reflecting a fractured bit of me. I was surrounded by these fragments, observing my self spreading out into space. For a moment I was without center, everywhere. The little mirrors even flew right through me. So I was blown to bits. I suppose that once the pieces fell to the ground, each reflected a world without me.

Did you check?

Check what?

Check the mirror pieces after you died. I mean once you were a ghost, did you look at any of the mirrors to see if you could see your reflection?

No. No, once I realized I had died, I went about trying to figure out where to sign up to be reincarnated as a shark. You would think that upon dying you would suddenly find yourself in administrative offices, where the deceased fill forms to fulfill new futures. There should have at least been a heaven sign-up sheet posted on the wall somewhere, but there wasn't even a wall. There was just this same place, nothing had changed except I was dead. Can you imagine how depressing that is? I actually went to the ocean to jump in, I was so determined to be a shark, but you know what happened? I just fell smack onto the surface. I went to dive in and it was like diving onto the pavement. I kept trying to get under the water but couldn't. I gave up, stood up, and started to walk back to the shore.

Like a god!

Or a boat. Then I happened to look around and I saw that the surface of the water was littered with sea creatures. They were everywhere, some flapping and floundering as though tossed on a dock. They were all ghosts, the ghosts of the dead sea creatures, and they had the same problem as me: they couldn't get under water.

I don't understand.

We ghosts have no mass. We don't weigh anything and that makes it impossible to break the surface of the water. Unable to sink, fish ghosts are stuck on the surface. It made me reconsider my desire to be a shark.

I always assumed the ocean is haunted by shark ghosts.

Nope, that's just a myth. The ghosts of exploded venomous sharks? If you stop to think about it, the idea is unrealistic.