The Opera Box: A Ghost Story

I wrote this flash fiction before heading off to a Halloween party years ago.

I took this photo at a theater in Portland, Oregon.

From his box centered in the crowded, bustling opera house, he leaned forward and listened to Haydn’s La Fedelta Premiata, and ignored the whispers, giggles, and bodily odors of those around him. He raised his mother-of-pearl opera glasses to peer at everyone else who had a box that evening. Through the lenses he saw brocades, silks, gold lace, white Mechlin lace, and enormous white wigs.

A familiar box near the proscenium caught his eye. She whom he had betrayed owned that box and regularly frequented it, but now it was empty. He kept his opera glasses trained on the box longer than what anyone would consider seemly… and thought he saw a shadow move.

But wait — is it entirely empty? No. He gasped. His hands shook, as he held the opera glasses tighter and stared at the box.

A translucent figure, wearing a white silk Watteau gown with panniers and wide lace ruffles, stood in that box. But under the high, powdered curly wig as not her exquisite face. It was a skull.

While he watched, he ignored the giggles and whispers around him, no doubt emanating from audience members who noticed he kept spying on that same opera box. He knew the rumors that they’d had an affair — rumors that were incorrect. She would never have an…