Sample: Ghostwriting. This is an excerpt from a Work in Progres

I woke up the next morning in an apartment unfamiliar to me. I was confused for a minute as I realized where I was and what had happened. I slept fitfully as I kept tossing and turning, dreaming that I was going down a never ending hallway, and I couldn’t get out. 

“So how did you sleep?” Jessica asked awakening me for a second time, except this time I was awoken from my thoughts. 

“Oh, alright. Thanks again for letting me stay here last night. I appreciate it. ”Of course, thank you for not murdering me in my sleep.” She laughed.

“What?” I asked startled wondering why she would think that I would do that.

“Oh nothing. It’s a joke. Because homeless people have a reputation for being dangerous… and they can be if they are mentally unstable. You didn’t seem that way yesterday though so I figured it would be safe.” 

“Oh. Yeah. I can’t imagine anyone actually killing another person. I mean I’ve heard of it happening in like history books, but I’ve never heard of it actually happening now.”

“Now? Murders happen all the time. But that’s a discussion for later. Do you want breakfast?”

“Um, sure.” I say recalling the last thing I had eaten was that bowl of chili at Reggie’s.”

“We have eggs, um, oatmeal, and bread with butter if you want toast.” Jessica called from the kitchen about 10 feet away.

“Toast is fine. Thank you.”

“Water is in here, I have milk but I ran out of juice yesterday.”

“Water is okay. Can I help with anything?” I asked heading into the kitchen. “Nah, I got it. I don’t have a toaster so bread will be toasted on the stove after I finish cooking my egg. Are you sure you don’t want one?”

“Yeah I’m sure. Thank you.”

“You’re so polite! Jeez.”

“Oh, um. Thank you? Isn’t everyone polite?”

All Jessica could do to keep from laughing at my question was to just say, “no. they aren’t. I wish we were all polite to each other. The world would be a much better place. But no. We all aren’t polite to each other.”

“Oh.”

“So where did you say you were from again?”

“Here.”

“Um, no. no you aren’t. With the information you gave me yesterday and your question just now? No. Are you from a Nordic country? I hear they are all nice up there. At the very least they have like almost none of the problems that we have here.” She said flipping the egg.

“I really am from here.”

“Then you are from an extremely sheltered home, probably wealthy. Although that wouldn’t explain how you ended up in Reggie’s unable to pay.”

I didn’t have an answer for her question. She was right, I was out of place. I didn’t know how anything worked, I had no way of paying for anything. 

“I don’t know what to say. I really am from here.”

“Here in America? Here from Berkley?”

“From here in Berkley.”

Okay, then why didn’t you just go home yesterday when you couldn’t pay for your food?”

Another question that I couldn’t answer.

“I don’t know.” I lied. I couldn’t go home because that would require me to travel 130 years back into the future. So then are you going to go home after this?”

“I hope so.”

“Okay, so you had a fight with someone? Are you being abused? Why wouldn’t you be able to go home.”

At this point my stomach turned in knots as I had no idea how to answer this question either.

“No, I’m not being abused.” I said, not knowing what she meant by that.

“I don’t mean to lay this on you first thing in the morning, but I don’t get it. You say you can’t pay but you don’t look homeless. You say that you are from here, yet you seem to have no comprehension of how society really works.”

I felt nervous because I was completely unprepared for this. Not because it was the first thing in the morning. I actually really liked mornings. I felt nervous because I was completely unprepared for this. My teachers and my parents had always told me how lucky we were to be born at this time but never went into any details about it. Anytime they were presented with a question about going back to the past, the adults were always dodgy and said ‘people in other time periods are unpredictable and best to avoid time travel altogether’.

Now that I’m here, I don’t know how to act or what to do. 



On the other hand though, Jessica seemed really nice and my instinct or intuition, whatever you want to call it was telling me that I could trust her.



“Honestly.” I started deciding that I was going to tell her. “I am from here but I am from the future.” I said with as straight of a face as I could.

“Hey, look. You come into my bosses restaurant asking for food. I let you into my apartment with the risk of you murdering me in my sleep, the only thing I ask is that you tell me were you’re from. And you are sarcastic with me?”

“What does that mean? Sarcastic?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“No, I mean it. I am from 2150. I had an interview with a time scientist for a potential job that I clearly won’t be getting now but kind of wanted. After the interview we were in the cafeteria, he had to deal with an urgent matter and told me how to get out of the building. I did as he said but instead of leading me out of the building, his directions led me to the end of a hallway that had the time machine in a room. Of course never actually seeing a time machine, I was curious. I went in and looked around the machine and when I came back around I was blinded by a blue light.” I said, recalling the events of the previous day.”

“The least you could do is tell me the truth. If you can’t even do that then you might as well leave.” She said bluntly.

“Okay. I’m not sure what I can say to make you believe me; but it’s true.” I said getting up to leave. “For the record, I really appreciate you taking me in. It’s a lot colder than I’m used to and I don’t know what I would have done.” With that I started walking toward the front door.

“Wait.” Jessica called as my hand touched the handle. “Are you really from the future?”

“Yes. I am.”

“Okay, then tell me one thing.”

“I have to be careful because of time rifts, but I can try.”