How To Find What You Came Here For

Welcome to the worlds that populate my brain!
The short stories you find here are the product
of a vastly overactive imagination
powered by coffee and M&Ms.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Ghost Story


Light is different in the fall.  It’s somehow weaker, and the shadows are longer and emaciated in that strangely frail light.  The smell of the wood fires burning adds a bite to the early evening air.
When the shadows started chasing me home from school, I started thinking about Halloween.
For years, the end of October was all about the candy.  We would stay out as late as we could, and then come home and listen to whatever creepy radio play our local station was presenting.

Then, about the time I was twelve, there was a haunted house.  I wanted to help, but I wasn’t comfortable popping out at people.  One of the adults suggested that I play the part of the gypsy woman in the room where the groups waited to begin.  All I had to do was tell a ghost story to keep them busy until the guide came back to get them.

The first group came in, and I started my tale…an old one about two teenagers in a car and a maniac with a hook.  Without thinking, I made changes to the parts I didn’t think were scary enough as I spoke.  I realized that the group that had been clustered loosely around the room had begun moving closer and closer to each other.

At the climax of the story I’d made my own, one of the guides burst through the door…and my audience screamed and scrambled back.

It was an epiphany. 

For the most part, I was an awkward, shy kid.  I always felt out of step with the world – I just didn’t seem to fit.  I realized that while I couldn’t change myself to match the world, I could tell a story that changed the world to match me… just for a moment.




This post is in response to a prompt from Write on Edge - we were supposed to write about what fall makes us think of in 300 words or less.  Every year, as fall approaches, I remember that basement room where I told my first ghost story...and the thrill of sucking total strangers into the world I created.  Thanks for stopping by, and please let me know what you think in the comments!

7 comments:

  1. Loved this! What a great story! What a great moment. What a great way to learn that you are a storyteller.

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  2. I absolutely love that you wrote about realizing that you were a word weaver, a story teller!

    And that first line? Is such a grabber- love it!

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  3. love it! i'm sure your first audience will not ever forget being scared like that!

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  4. Excellent! I love that you found your own voice in the storytelling.
    And the description of fall light was perfect.

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  5. I agree with Galit about the first line -- had to keep reading. Loved the idea of a memory rather than description. True memoir encompassing a story rather than evocation (which mine was...).

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  6. Loved this! Like that the shadows were longer and emaciated.

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