How the Lockdown Helped Me Bond With the Ghost That Lives In My Apartment

When I first moved into my apartment on Dorchester, seeing the apparition of a Victorian girl in the middle of the night was an unwelcome and gut-wrenching experience. However, in the wake of the stand-in-place implemented by Governor Pritzker, I’m learning to bond with the ghost that haunts my apartment. Eleanor and I have grown quite close and she’s only tried to suck out my life force through my eyeballs twice. Here’s how I took this time to bond with the ghost in my apartment. 

Eleanor and I have had our disagreements in our time together as housemates. She likes things on the cold, clammy, and dark side, while I like our apartment to be warm and full of light. She likes playing games like “possess the cat”  and “appear as a disembodied head while I’m sleeping,” whereas I’m more into Animal Crossing. I actually thought that a 20-year-old college student and a victorian child could never overcome our differences, but when a priest unsuccessfully tried to banish her to the netherworld, I realized we were going to have to coexist at least until my lease was up.

I bought a little rocking horse for Eleanor and she seems to like it. She also likes balloons and rag dolls, which aren’t menacing at all. Additionally, we have found pretty effective ways to communicate across mortal realms. Eleanor and I aren’t big fans of Ouija boards, but she has been able to talk to me through writing in blood on mirrors. For example, when my roommate put up a crucifix in the dining room, Eleanor wrote REDRUM all over the walls until she took it down. Now Eleanor mostly just asks us to buy fruit roll-ups and goldfish from Target.

I thought that Eleanor may be able to give me some knowledge from the great beyond, but I’m finding her to be pretty unhelpful for my Biology PSET because, as I’m learning, Rosalind Franklin discovered DNA well after Eleanor died. When I ask her about historical events like Cholera and Smallpox, she just looks bewildered and whispers “t’was the governess who killed me, good sir.”