Ghostly
Dark Contemporary Fantasy Short StoryThis is the second story inspired by Chuck Wendig's January 2016 title prompt “Future Graveyard”, it one takes a slightly more usual approach compared to Regulatory Measures. This one may be considered close enough to a poetic description of reality to probably also count as literary fiction. In any case, it is my only ghost story so far, even if the ghosts are ghosts of the living, technically making them something different. Specters, maybe? Projections?
Continuing the vocabulary theme, I ran into a weird problem when writing this story. In my native German, pieces of fog are called veils. I could not find an English equivalent to that. Yes, there is the expression “veil of fog”, but that seems to relate to the whole of the fog. My instincts told me of “swaths of fog”, but I could not find that use anywhere, either. So I ended up with pieces of fog, hoping this idea does work for speakers of English. It is not even that Germans are more familiar with fog as in the old myth about arctic native's languages and snow. I mean, there is places like London and San Francisco known for frequent and thick fogs.
This might also be my only story written in the present and directly addressing the reader. It is just something the opening line caused once I wrote it down.
I would like to note I do not believe in the existence of such a thing as a soul, not even understanding what that is supposed to be. But, if it does exist I assume it to be much closer to the depiction as a parasite than an essential part of being human. Its immortality is the culprit here – anything immortal and incorporeal simply cannot be human in my mind. Humans are defined by their bodily needs and wants. Take away the body and whatever remains just is not human anymore by any definition.
January 2016
Available in:
How to Sing Butterflies
