His named him something but he preferred Donny.

Every Sunday morning, Gladly headed out to read poems to a blind man.

Every morning Donny tried finishing his novel. Every morning he failed.

She missed having a friend. His deadline was near.

Donny wrote on paper, and filled his room with crumpled pages.

Gladly always carried her green umbrella with her.

That morning when Donny felt useless, he wrote “HELP” on a piece of paper and threw it outside his window.

When it fell on Gladly’s umbrella, she opened it and read.

Then she went upstairs.

Gladly walked up the stairs of an old building whose tenants either had left the place or were all dead. There were mollusk-like growths on the sides of the steps and spider webs adorned the corners of the walls.

She somehow managed her way up and made a calculated assumption that the paper ball must have come from the 2nd floor window. She knocked.

Donny was in the bathroom, wasting time; just staring into space and lazing on the toilet seat whenever he was out of depth.

He didn’t hear her knock.

But she wasn’t one to give up.

Any other girl in her place would have let common sense get the better of her, and left.

Or looked elsewhere. But in Gladly’s overactive mind, a faceless figure was already up high on a stool and hanging himself with a rusty ceiling fan. Gladly loved studying handwritings, she could tell it was not a woman.

She looked around and found a chunk of concrete that must have come off one of the walls. Then picked it up without any hesitance and brought it down on Donny’s main door with a thundering thump.

Donny heard the sound and fell from the commode.

Now Donny never admitted this in front of his friends, but he was not scared of thieves or murderers. The only thing he was ever scared of was ghosts.

That’s the first thing he thought when he heard a strange noise in the other room.

And this was no ordinary ghost. This one was breaking his bloody door down.

He looked around. There was hardly anything to fight it with.

He should have bought that hammer when mother asked him to.

All he had was pen and paper.

So he drew a biggish + and slipped it under the door.

Gladly had a strange mind.

You give her a chocolate and she’ll doubt you. You ask her to climb up the traffic post at night and break the lights so they don’t disturb the homeless during their sleep, and she’ll be your friend.

She picked up the note, and thought for a second.

Then took out her nib pen, wrote something on it, and slipped it back.

“Weak in math?” it said.

The note didn’t come back for a while.

When Donny finally opened the door, Gladly was already gone.

Seeing no one, Donny turned.

Something was scribbled on his door.

Hello, stranger!

(Image courtesy: The New Yorker)