Each functioning in their states of mental incapacity, some are coherent to reality while others are alive and well in the world, which they have created. Yet others can come out of their fugue state long enough to recognize me and call me the devil.
"How did we come to this?" One person asked on an evening ghost tour of Fort Street Mall. "How did we go from a place that was the downtown version of the Ala Moana shopping center to a place infested with mentally ill homeless people?"
"The ghosts here are homeless and desolate; the living reflects it," I explained.
~
Naomi worked in the Pioneer Plaza building, and she loved her life. It centered around work and her husband, Roy. They were sweethearts from high school and had been married for forty years. All those years together, and you can imagine the grief Naomi must have suffered when Roy passed suddenly. It was like a huge part of herself had been torn away and left her incomplete. Everyone who worked in one of the smaller shops along Fort Street mall knew Naomi as she was someone who made it a point to frequent their businesses. "We're all in the same boat together," Naomi would say. "We have to help each other out."
No one saw her for quite a while until one day, old man Chu saw her walk past his shop. She wore in the same pink outfit that Jacquline Kennedy wore on the day that her husband John F. Kennedy died. Naomi walked the full length of the mall to Beretania street and then turned back and walked in the opposite direction, replete with the pillbox hat, and an added veil of pink and covered in sheer black material. Mr. Chu saw this and waved hello to Naomi and asked her how she was doing? The tall, middle-aged Hawaiian woman was glassy-eyed and stared straight ahead with no idea of Mr. Chu's presence. She walked to the end of the mall at Walker Park. There she turned around and went back in the opposite direction. She kept up like this from morning to night, never once faltering. People tried to stop her to ask her what was going on? She ignored them and stayed vigilant on her journey. Back and forth, she went day and night, night, and day. Shop owners wept at the sight of her. Who knew that the loss of a beloved one could unhinge someone so completely?
One night the tattoo shop owner named Damon Danillo came walking out of his shop. His face buried in a note pad held together by a spiraling wire with one end sticking out, he didn't see Naomi approaching and nearly bumped into her. Stopping short, Damon didn't notice that the errant wire from his binder caught the sheer black material in its point. Naomi continued to walk, but the sheer black material pulled away from her form, and she slowly dissipated into thin air.
~
"Maybe if you've worked several years at some business on Fort Street Mall, it could be that after you've passed, the afterlife you hoped would await you won't be there after all. Maybe you'll become a homeless, desolate spirit like Naomi, and wander the mall for all eternity," with that I concluded the ghost tour and walked away. That was the last night; we ever did that tour.
Great story. I have often wondered about some the folks that you see at Fort Street. It's eerie how it changed from a vibrant shopping area, that I remember from my childhood, to "epicenter" of "lost souls".
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