Art from the Interwebs
Tag: Ghosts
Flash: Dies Irae
Photo by Joel Wyncott on Unsplash
The ghosts were at it again. Squeaking the attic ceiling vents, walking back and forth on the wooden floorboards, and Rascal sounded like he was about to hit the pots and pans in the kitchen. I had to sleep tonight; tomorrow the new job starts and I needed to be fresh. Ugh.
I got out of bed and crossed to my violin collection. So far, I had been nice about all the noise, after all, I just moved in. But enough was enough. They wanted noise, they will get noise.
Do you know just how shrill you can push a treble violin?
I put in my ear plugs, grateful for the lack of neighbors around this old Victorian I picked up for a song, and started playing. After the screecher I nicknamed Nails on Chalkboard in my head, to establish dominance, I switched to my fiddle and rocked Fire on the Mountain.
The temperature in the bedroom dropped enough I could see my breath. The four annoyances were an audience now.
Putting away the fiddle, I reached for case number three of the night, my normal violin.
Looking at their hazy forms, I addressed them for the first time with more than curses.
“Alright, you and I, we need an agreement. I need sleep time to make money to pay for the house. Keep it repaired and a roof over our heads. I assumed you want that since you aren’t going anywhere.”
I waited to see if I would get a reaction. I could feel a hole, an anticipation, a waiting.
“You let me have my eight hours, and I will play a song a night. Don’t let me sleep, and I will find the most hateful songs you have ever heard.”
I could hear them laugh at that.
“Oh, you don’t think I won’t play ‘Be Kind to Your Webfooted Friends’ for three hours? Try me.”
One of them tightened up their mist.
“Oh, you know that song. Good.” I moved my bow to point at the others. “Tell them. Tell them I will find other songs, something from their eras if I must. Trust me that I will find something.” I lifted the violin up. “But I’m not here about the stick. Like I said, a song a night if I am healthy and getting my sleep. Do you want to hear one?”
Two moved, the hole to be filled returned.
I poured Verdi’s Dies Irae into it.
(words 410; first published 10/20/2024)
Flash: Say I love you
Photo 197380210 | Pollen © Wolverine6 | Dreamstime.com (paid for – please go to Dreamstime and pay the artist to reuse)
“Hey man, how ya doing?”
Paulie’s head snapped up from where he was putting away his mower. “Doug? What are you doing here?”
“Just stopping by to say ‘Hey’ and tell you I love ya man.” Doug hopped the short knee-high brick wall used to keep back the street debris, landing on the lawn. “We never say that enough, you know?”
“Yeah,” a confused look crinkled Paulie’s sun-wrinkled forty-something face, “sure.”
“Yeah, you never know when it is going to be the last time, so I thought I should say it. Been a while.” His high school best friend resettled the flannel shirt over his Mariners shirt as he walked across the freshly mowed grass. “Not even a call.”
Paul nodded. “Like a year, funny how it slips by.” He ran memories back, confirming a year. They had exchanged jokes about Doug digging things out on the West Coast mountains while he had to mow the lawn for the second time at the Carolina shore.
“Yeah, the girl graduates this year and her brother pulled honors freshman year.” The bear of a man reached his arms out, “Come on give me a hug. I’ve missed you bro.”
Paulie did as requested, leaning forward and preparing to be squeezed half-to-death, and stuttered-stepped through his friend.
“Ha! Gotcha good, didn’t I? Love you man.” Doug’s edges faded as he did finger guns when Paulie spun around. The image of the flannel and denim swirled like pollen on a car getting up to speed,. “Keep it real.” And the next moment he was gone.
“What, NO!” Paulie yanked out his phone and spun through his contact until he found Doug’s number and hit the call icon. “Come on, come on. Answer!”
(words 288, first published 6/16/2024)
Flash: Passing Fancy
Image from freedigitalphotos.net
“Didn’t someone live there yesterday?”
“Huh? What?” asked Jenkins, his driving haze breaking.
“There.” I point to a falling down manor with an overgrown yard visible between the tree break. “I swear that was a white-washed confederate monstrosity yesterday.”
He slowed, craning his neck around as we passed it. “I don’t know.”
“We should look.”
“Angel…”
“No, something big has changed.” I firmed my voice. “We should look.”
“Ain’t happening.” Jenkins gripped the steering wheel of Toyota tighter, his dark skin highlighting his white knuckles. “Nope, we are not going hunting ghosts.”
“I’ll just come back alone after dark.”
He sent me a dirty look.
“You know it is true.”
“Tomorrow. We promised your mother we would be home tonight in case she calls.”
I won. “I love you, honey.” I settled down in the passenger seat, smiling. “It’s best if I research the property first anyways.”
(words 147; first published 9/6/23)
Flash: Z is for Zzzz
Photo by Photos_frompasttofuture on Unsplash
Jonathan meandered into the second-floor nursey looking for his wife and their newborn. Obviously the baby had been fussy in the night, and she decided he needed sleep more than her. While he appreciated her concern, her logic didn’t hold up to reality and he would need to remind her, like he did after the birth of all their children, that she was no longer alone in her parenthood. The long nights broken by feedings always reset her back to the amazing self-sufficient, but exhausted, woman Elizabeth had been when they first met.
What he would not remind her of is the fact he was two decades younger than her and could handle lack of sleep better.
Also, he wouldn’t say a thing about how he wasn’t the one who had just given birth six days ago. The last time he tried to argue from that position, she went off on an esoteric rant of the renewal energies from birthing. She lost him between midwifery blessing incantations and timing the birth for maximum astrological benefit.
Shifting back and forth, the rocking chair creaked in the moonlight, the beam creating a shimmer over the person holding the baby on her shoulder. A doting smile began to touch Jon’s lips when a small snort-snore came from the chaise lounge snapped his head to the right where Lizzo slept under a charm quilt her coven had gifted her on their marriage.
Oh, …oh!
Looking back on the indistinct human form in the rocking chair, Jonathan asked, “Abby?”
Not that he didn’t believe his wife and Malcolm when they said the old Henry Plantation Manor came with its own ghost, or when Jonny and Ada filled him in about their garden explorations with their beloved invisible nanny, or Barby went room from room demanding “awBEE!” appear as only a two-year old can.
But, he was a scientist. Seeing things with his own eyes made a difference. Now he got to add ghost to the list of things he knew lived outside of nightmares and late-night television.
The rocking slowed, the shimmer coalesced into something more the shape of a woman then a determined fog. A hollowed voice whispered in the room, sending shivers down the man’s spine, “Master Turning, how you be doing this evening?”
“I’m well.” Jonathan gulped, struggling to pull up everything Lizzo and Mal had told him to do and ignore all the fiction and campfire stories he had absorbed in his twenty-nine years of life. They hadn’t done a full-sit down with him species specific briefing like they had when Elizabeth added dervishes to their Sparkle Network Services, so it was not as easy to do as with their normal supernatural clients. “Emma, okay?”
The fog-light shape sent a limb rolling up the infant’s back to cradle the head in a pillow of mist before standing, Emma hovering midair against the apparition’s form. Emma bounced a few centimeters up and down, rocking back and forth over four and a half feet above the floor.
Jonathan fought the urge to reach out and grasp his child.
“Just a little gassy tonight,” the voice seemed to be the echo behind words never spoken. “Kept the mistress up until I insisted she lay down a moment.”
Jonathan stifled a louder laugh to a quick chuckle. He could not picture anyone, let alone a whisp – a real whisp of a ghost – forcing Lizzo to do anything. “That I would like to learn.”
“Not something being good for a man to know.” The shimmer moved side to side, letting Jonathan see Emma’s blue eyes were wide open but calm and taking in what little a few days old infant could see. “There are things woman folk just need from women.”
His eyes closed for a moment and the mundane man breathed in and out slowly. His wife gave up so much to be with him, for a second he imagined her old coven filling the manor, visiting for the holidays and passing the infant around. He hoped they came for the Solstice; the new High Priestess didn’t approve of him and often refused given permission for members to visit because of his “contamination.”
“A pity.” Jonathan approached the circle of the moonbeam where the ghost stood. “But thank you for being there for her. Would you like to tag out?” He held out his arms cautiously.
“Thank you, Master Turning. Dawn is coming soon, and I did want to get the meals set up for the day while I could.” The shape that the family named Abigail laid Emma gently in his arms, brushing her frigid essence against his limbs in the transfer.
Worried, he pulled the child against him and touched her cheeks for temperature, finding the infant warm, even a little hot and sweaty on the side which had been against the ghostly shoulder as though it had been against a human body. “I really appreciate all you are doing, by the way Miss Abigail. The children love you, and you have made my wife’s life a lot easier.”
The vapor sparkled slightly pink a moment before fading to nothing.
(words 857, first published 4/30/2023)
Series: Under Contract
1. N is for Noise (4/16/2023)
2. Q is for Quicken (4/19/2023)
3. Y is for Yield (4/28/2023)
4. Z is for Zzzz (4/30/2023)