My mind is a fucking torment of ideas
and i’m not sure how AI
is supposed to help assuage them
the only way to perform an exorcism
is to rip the ghosts out by hand
___________
Notes:
1. Written on November 8th, 2024
__________ghosts
Tales From The Town #171: A Haunting
If I could be a ghost
I’d be the sort of ghost
that lingers
and doesn’t leave
__________
Notes:
1. Written at some point in 2023
__________Support An Accumulation Of Things
If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi. Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more). Thank you!Tales From The Town #129: And the apples are all dead at the bottom of their trees
Apples rotting beneath the trees. Teardrop jewelled spider’s webs on the washing line. And in the distance ships lost in the fog out at sea.
Autumn was here, and not even Claire declaring that there’s no such thing as ghost ships could spoil Agnes’s mood.
__________
Notes:
1. Written on July 27th and August 26th, 2023
__________Support An Accumulation Of Things
If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi. Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more). Thank you!Tales From The Town #119: A Scene From Any Summer
The tennis courts were empty. The gates were shut, locked, padlocked, chained, bolted, and, quite possibly, even welded. No one had set foot inside since 1985 and no one would set foot inside again until 2055 at the very earliest unless something catastrophic happened and even then it was unlikely to be catastrophic enough to change anything that drastically.
The nets fluttered in the wind, as close a thing to genuine ghosts as anything in material existence could ever hope to be.
__________
Notes:
1. Written on May 26th, 2023
__________Support An Accumulation Of Things
If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi. Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more). Thank you!A Sea As Pale As A Dead Child’s Eyes
The boy, Robert, my nephew, had been missing two hours now when I saw him in the harbour, his head bobbing up and down in the water between two fishing boats, as if caught in the ropes that tethered them in place and now calling for help in between the slow swell of the incoming waves.
The breathe caught in my throat, tears welled in my eyes, the shock of it, the surprise, the suddenness of the sight. I didn’t even think, no worries for my own wellbeing, no attempts to call for help. I didn’t even kick off my shoes, simply ran into the water, wading through the waves, clambering across the pontoons floating in the shallows, climbing into and out of boats before diving from a small wooden raft down into the depths of the sea.
A single vision then, clear as a painting, as staged as some devastating tableau. Robert floating in glass, the scene bisected by ropes fringed with weeds, his billowing hair lit by a single shaft of light from above, a bubble of air almost lazily forming between his lips, his eyes a piercing blue sharp enough to cut apart my soul.
I surfaced, coughing, choking, panic and horror and shame, of failure, loss. Clinging to the side of the boat I called his name, “Robert! Robert!”, then dived back down. Dived back under to try again, again, again.
There was nothing there, of course. Oh the water was in turmoil, sand swirling in the maelstrom, shapes redolent of ghosts in the tumult. But in those lifeless waters of the harbour there was nothing more.
__________
Notes:
1. Written on the 8th July, 2022
2. An attempt at a ghost story
3. And based upon a dream