Write a Ghost Story
Adam McOmber
Remember the first word you ever spoke. Now, write that word down on a piece of paper. What word did you write? Was it “ghost?” Okay, good. That’s a start. Now, think about why this was the first word you ever spoke. Was it because of what you saw in your bedroom that night? How old were you? Two years old? Three years old? Was it a dark shape? A shape that seemed to turn and dance? Okay, good. Now, remember how you began to cry that night. You cried because you knew something was wrong. The shape that turned and danced did not belong in your room, and yet there it was. Now, remember how you saw the same dark shape later in life. You were a grown man the second time you saw it, nearly forty years old in fact. You were in bed alone. Your partner, Matthew, had recently left you, saying the two of you were different people. You still loved him though. And you couldn’t believe he would use your difference against you. You wondered if he had simply met someone else, someone better. Remember it was the middle of the night when you opened your eyes. You saw the dark shape turning and dancing in your bedroom. Now, remember thinking the word “ghost.” Remember thinking: “Shadow from another world.” And then: “This is what I saw when I was two or three years old.” Remember closing your eyes. Remember believing that, when you opened your eyes again, the dancing shape would be gone. Remember opening your eyes. See how the dancing shape is still there in the middle of your room? Okay, good. Now, remember waiting in your bed, hoping the dancing would stop. Hoping the thing would dissolve or drift away. Remember how the thing did not dissolve or drift away but, instead, danced closer and closer to your bed. Remember how the thing was soon close enough that you could see more than just the dark outline of its body. Remember realizing the dancing thing had a face. The face was pink and fleshy, sick-looking. It’s mouth hung open. It had tiny, pale teeth. Remember thinking: “This is not the face of a dead thing. This is the face of something that was never actually alive.” Now, write down the word that means: “Something that was never actually alive.” While you are writing, remember that you are not dreaming. You have never been dreaming all these forty years. Remember how the thing reaches out to touch you. Can you see how it dances still as it shows its little teeth? Okay, good.
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Adam McOmber is the author of The White Forest: A Novel (Touchstone) and two collections of queer speculative fiction, My House Gathers Desires and This New and Poisonous Air (BOA). His new novel, Jesus and John, is forthcoming from Lethe Press in June 2020. His work has been included in The Year’s Best Speculative Gay Fiction, Best Microfiction and shortlisted for Best American Fantasy. He teaches in the MFA Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
