A Ghost

We think of a ghost as being a spirit of the dead, but in the siren’s world a ghost has a greater poignancy than this. To a siren, a ghost is someone still living who has become lost to herself. To a siren, to lose one’s own sense of self, that being whom one truly is, is a tragedy greater than mere death, for how can one fulfill one’s purpose when in such a state? The hapless individual must wander without direction, without identity, perhaps believing herself to be fulfilled in ways invisible to those who care for her. She loses herself in love, or in a cause, or in the identity of another, and the border between the realm of the living and a ghostly twilight of wandering is crossed without her even being aware of it.