Procedure for the Extraction of a Pulmonary Haunting

1. Diagnosis

You will mistake it for bronchitis first.

There is a rattle in the lower lobe of your left lung, a heaviness that feels like you have inhaled a wet wool sock. Antibiotics will do nothing but make your stomach sour. The X-rays will come back clean, though the technician will frown at the negative space between your ribs, noting a shadow that looks suspiciously like a curled fist.

Accept that this is not a virus.

You have swallowed a ghost. It is hibernating in the alveoli, feeding on your breaths.

2. Preparation

Go to the drugstore at 3am. Purchase the cheapest cough suppressant available—the kind that tastes like synthetic cherry and burning plastic. You need the viscosity. You need to coat the throat so the exit is frictionless.

Do not buy the non-drowsy formula. You want to be half-asleep. The ghost is most active when your conscious mind stops patrolling the borders of your chest cavity.

3. Ingestion

Strip. Stand over the bathroom sink. The porcelain should be cold against your hips.

Drink the syrup straight from the bottle. Do not use a spoon. Spoons are for nourishment. This is an eviction.

Feel the sludge coat your esophagus. Imagine it as a sealant, painting over the cracks where the ghost likes to dig in its fingernails.

4. Silence

Note: This is the most critical step.

You must be absolutely quiet. The ghost thrives on the vibration of your voice. If you speak, if you whimper, even if you hum, it will anchor itself deeper.

You must starve it of sound.

Hold your breath until your vision spots with grey static. You are creating a vacuum, making your body an inhospitable host. Squeeze your eyes shut. Remember the layout of your ribs.

5. Expulsion

Your body will rebel. The diaphragm will spasm. Do not fight it. Lean forward. Open your mouth uncomfortably wide.

The cough will not sound like a cough. It will sound like fabric tearing. Retract your tongue. It will come up wet and struggling. It will not look like what you think a spirit should look like. It will look like a clot of black ink, dense and trembling. Spit it into the basin immediately.

6. Identification

Wait. Do not turn on the tap yet. Look at what you have expelled.

As the syrup congeals around it, the ink will unravel into a sentence. Lean in close.

It says: I only said I loved you because you looked like you needed to hear it.

7. Disposal

Turn on the hot water. Do not look away until it swirls down the drain. It will try to hook onto the metal stopper. It will try to whisper itself back into your ear. Use a toothbrush to push it down.

8. Recovery

Your chest will feel vast and terrifyingly empty. The air, as you breathe it in, will be too cold.

This is normal. Pain is a heavy blanket, and you have grown used to its warmth.

Go to bed. When you wake up, say hello to the dawn. Notice how the word doesn't scrape your throat on the way out.