Not a favorite. Not by a long shot.
Story suffered from two things. First, narration was not the best, slow-fast-faster-slow. Second, over-description and metaphors that were just annoying. Maybe it's just my ADD kicking in, but I really had to work at listening to this one. Where's the pay-off on this?
I ended up checking out Wikipedia for the definition of "Geist" to see if I'd missed some great "ah-ha" moment beyond Ben's out-tro, and I missed the Jennifer Love Hewitt (Ghost Whisper?) reference.
It also didn't meet my standard of horror. A guy kills himself and gets painfully stepped on as a ghost. Couldn't relate to the characters, couldn't put myself in either of their shoes, and the little kid's "I see dead people" scene was less than stellar. Fits under supernatural, but ultimately the story was as ineffectual and weak as it's main character.
Things I would have liked to have seen.
1. just as a comedy factor, start the after life in the toilet.
2. something more substantial in why he killed himself - other than "I just know I am". Made him sound like a goth wanna be.
3. The only reason I could see for the woman thinking of killing herself was because she saw Tom's(?) name written in the mirror - I think wanting to end your life should at least have a bit more motivation. Did he leave her with crushing debt? is she as much a goth wanna be as Tom? Why was Tom so much the love of her life that she couldn't go on without him?
As for what would have made the story for me, after learning a bit more about the term Geist - here's more of the outline/direction I would have enjoyed...
* We get sympathy for dorky Tom getting rebuffed by woman (ah, males of the world now relate to the main character)
* Tom is obsessed/driven with this particular woman, queue scenes of him stalking her (females of the world now relate to woman).
* We now find out he's been breaking into her house, flipping through photo albums, reading mail, bugging her computer.
* Tom takes it to the extreme after a final rejection, breaks into her house, gets in her bath and kills himself to teach her a lesson. Laughing as he imagines the expression on her face when she walks in and sees what her rejections have made him do.
* He reawakens realizing he's now haunting her bathroom - oh joy! he can finally be with her.
* he continues his obsession, leaving little presents of flowers on the table, dusting, cleaning, leaving love notes electronically on the computer - all of which slowly drives the woman closer to the edge.
* Tom tried to follow her to work and finds out that he cannot leave the house, as his death is linked to the property.
* Tom realizes that he can push her over the edge - and if she kills herself in the house, they will be together forever.
* queue up more haunting, maybe an internet IM relationship where he controls the computer, etc.
* Woman end up distracted, not sleeping, and Tom is whispering into her subconscious to kill herself.
* She leaves for work one morning and ends up driving off a cliff - Thus escaping from house-bound Tom.
* Tom finds out she died in an accident (newspaper/friends in the house, whatever).
* Tom is now distraught because the woman is beyond his grasp for all eternity, mopes around for 6 months as the house is sold...
*... and then a new woman moves into the house.
* Queue psycho theme.
Yeah, that would have been cool.