I got off the train to go to the snack bar by the gym, when I realized I had forgotten my business papers. I was still carrying my tablet inside of my shoulder bag, and had just enough cash in my wallet to get a Taxi home. Instead, I decided to take a sit at a table near the snack bar, and was about to call a friend to come pick me up.

At the table, I realized that I barely saw anyone at the gym right next door. After finishing my candy bar, two blueberry muffins, and decaf coffee, I walked right over to see who was inside. It had began to storm inside, so I went ahead and walked in, not really being sure if there would be anyone inside of the gym this early in the morning. Inside, I saw a group of friends sitting at a table near the window playing a game of poker, and other carrying instrument cases. Considering it was an activity near to far off the beaten path from Wrestling, you wouldn’t think there would be people here with any other kinds of talent. Soon the storming outside melted with the sound of French and Japanese pop music on the radio. The cold air melting away.

I looked at the news bulletins to see if there was any current events. There was a company newsletter that featured the latest hot manga artists who wrote stories specifically for this local fitness center, and some news collumns. One news column stuck out at me in particular: “we mourn the loss of Frederick Wussershon, one of the great heavy weights of our time. Here is how I remember the last boxing match with him.” I wonder if that was why there was hardly anyone who went here anyone; there was still a few people who came to walk the treadmills, and lift some weights, but nobody engaged in boxing matches. It used to be a men’s only club, but recently began accepting women, every sense they stopped having boxing matches. You might think they would have women’s sport activities, but for some reason they never bothered.

Over at the bench, I saw with a men playing a violincello.

“You play very nicely, however why play an instrument, with modern music playing on the radio in the same building” I asked, not meaning to offend.

“It’s not to entertain the guests” they said, with a faint chuckle. “It’s to drive away evil spirits”.

I struggled not to laugh, out of politeness. “I suppose ghosts also have places they need to go.”

“Indeed, we have one that visits us every evening.”

I couldn’t entirely tell if the man was being seriousness, or if he simply wanted to push past the absurdity of practicing his instrument inside of a fitness center.

Just then, I saw a young woman, whose blond hair was covered in a Russian headscarf, and her face covered in blond hair. She knocked loudly as the storm rained loudly outside the window. I walked to the window, keeping the door cracked. “Hello Mam, don’t you want to come inside from the cold wind?” I said, but there was no response from her.

“Close the door! Don’t let her in” the main with the violincello said.

“Why is that, she must be cold”.

“That’s the ghost I’m talking about. That’s the wife if our dead Champion, who was found hanging in her closet, after her husband would never come home again.”

The day came and went, and I would saw the woman eventually board a different train, leaving behind a letter to the manager. However the letter was dated just a year ago, and not even intended for today:

Dear Manager,

You’ve treated my husband so nicely.

I know he had not been the nicest of men,

Now I go quietly into the after life.

I give you a briefcase of 1,000 dollars.

As it turned out, the spirit of his dead wife continued to pay the rent for her husbands membership, even after they both left this world behind. The management never thought to question it, was it was still keeping them in business. And most of the people that ran their newsletters just assume it was a fitness center that was barely making ends meet.

I board the train, thanking the men for his evening entertainment.

Once the outside air left me behind, I saw the woman sitting in the chair near the door. She left a seat open for me to sit behind her.

“So I heard about your husband.” I said.

“Yes, he was a good man”.

“I come to pay my respects”.

“I guess no all murderers are awful people”.

We road away into the train. It turned out, she was the one that kept my backpack for me waiting on the train. I opened the black backpack and found, to my horror: the box of ashes of the heavy weight champion over my folder of business papers.

“So where are we going to take these?”

“Lets work together and find out”.

“I thought you died by the way”.

“As long as this fitness center remains open, I can keep my husbands memory alive. As we’re going to go somewhere far away, where the lights of the city never reach. And the ghosts of the past walk the dirt roads. For you are also dead, as we go from one world to the next”.

I suppose your taste buds is the last to leave.

I drank the last bit of my coffee cup.