I tell you about a fact and truth. In physical reality of matter, there's no such thing as an imaginary spirit nor spiritual ghost. They are also made of matter, but totally different in size andlaws of physics which rule their life and the way they interact.
Nico knew something about ghosts. Letting them get inside your head was dangerous. He wanted to help Reyna, but since his own strategy was to deal with his problems alone, spurning anyone who tried to get close, he couldn’t exactly criticize Reyna for doing the same thing.
Of all the miracles Po had seen in the time and space of its death, Po thought this--the absorption of another, the carrying of it--was the most bewildering and remarkable of all. Whenever Bundle separated again, Po was left with an ache of sadness that reminded the ghost of the body it had left behind.
Today is an ephemeral ghost...A strange amazing day that comes only once every four years. For the rest of the time it does not "exist."In mundane terms, it marks a "leap" in time, when the calendar is adjusted to make up for extra seconds accumulated over the preceding three years due to the rotation of the earth. A day of temporal tune up!But this day holds another secret—it contains one of those truly rare moments of delightful transience and light uncertainty that only exist on the razor edge of things, along a buzzing plane of quantum probability...A day of unlocked potential.Will you or won't you? Should you or shouldn't
Jesper knocked his head against the hull and cast his eyes heavenward. “Fine. But if Pekka Rollins kills us all, I’m going to get Wylan’s ghost to teach my ghost how to play the flute just so that I can annoy the hell out of your ghost.”Brekker’s lips quirked. “I’ll just hire Matthias’ ghost to kick your ghost’s ass.”“My ghost won’t associate with your ghost,” Matthias said primly, and then wondered if the sea air was rotting his brain.
Imagine for a moment that you are the proud owner of a large house which you have spent years of your life painting and decorating and filling with everything you love. It's your home. It's something you've made your own, something for you to be remembered by, something that, perhaps years later, your children and grandchildren can visit and get a view of your life in. It's part of your creativity, your hard work... it's your property.Now suppose you decide to go camping for a couple of weeks. You lock your door and assume that nobody is going to break in... but they do, and when you return home, to your horror you find that not only do these trespassers break in, but they also have quite uniquely imaginative ways of disrespecting, vandalizing and corrupting everything within your property. They light fires on your lawn, your topiary hedges are in heaps of black ashes. There's some blatantly obscene graffiti splattered across your front door, offensive images and rude words splashed on the walls and windows. Your television has been tipped over. Your photographs of family and friends have had the heads cut out of them. There's mold growing in the refrigerator, bottles of booze tipped over on the table, and cigarette smoke embedded into the carpeting. Your beloved houseplants are dead, your furniture has been stripped down and ruined. Basically, the thing you've spent years working for and creating within your lifetime has been tampered with to the point where it is just a grim joke.So, I feel terrible for poor Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jane Austen and Lewis Carroll, who must be spinning in their graves since they have no rights to their own works of fiction anymore. I'm all for readers being able to read books for free once and only when the deceased author's copyright eventually ends. Still though, did Doyle ever think in a million years that his wonderful characters would be dragged through the mud of every pervy fanfiction that the sick internet geek can think of to create? Did Carroll ever suspect that Alice and the Hatter would become freakish clown-like goth caricatures in Tim Burton's CGI-infested films? Would Austen really want her writing to be sold as badly-formatted ebooks?The sharing of this Public Domain content isn't really an issue. Stories are meant to be told, meant to echo onward forever. That's what makes them magical. That being said, in the Information Age, there's a real lack of respect towards the creators of this original content. If, when I've been dead for 70 years and I then no longer have the rights to my novels, somebody gets the bright idea of doing anything funny with any of those novels, my ghost is going to rise from the grave and do some serious ass-kicking.
The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment... We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it.
The image of the "presence," whatever it was, waiting there for him to go--this image had not yet been so concrete for his nerves as when he stopped short of the point at which certainty would have come to him. For, with all his resolution, or more exactly with all his dread, he did stop short--he hung back from really seeing. The risk was too great and his fear too definite: it took at this moment an awful specific form.
You say 'love' too easily, Kepler.""No, not rally - please don't call me that. The idea that love has to be a blazing romantic thing of monogamous stability is innately ludicrous. You loved your parents, perhaps, because they were the warmth you could flee to. You loved your first childhood crush with a passion that made your lips tingle, your flesh grow light in their presence. You loved your wife with the steadiness of an ocean against the shore; your lover with the blaze of a shooting star, your best friend with the confidence of a mountain. Love is a many-splendorous thing, as the old song says....
Um, thanks,” Jackson told her. “And your name is…?”“I’m Margaret, Margaret Van Der Graaf,” she answered with another eerie smile. Her teeth were so white that they looked bleached.“Van Der Graaf?” Jackson repeated, trying to stifle his laughter. He didn’t want to be rude to the only person in sight, to this kind-hearted stranger who was offering to help him, but… Van Der Graaf?“What are you laughing at?” Margaret asked with curiosity, flashing him a calculating gaze. “I like my name. If you’re going to be a jerk, then I won’t help you. You can stay out here on the street through the night for all I care.”“…Harsh,” said Jackson, giving her a quizzical glance back. There was something ‘off’ about her, something that Jackson couldn’t quite place, something that bordered on horrible loneliness and longing. “Who else lives here, Margaret Van Der Graaf?” He couldn’t resist saying her name aloud. Despite its hilarity, it had a nice ring to it. “Who else lives here?” he urged.“Me, myself and I,” said Margaret simply, snickering when she saw his horrified and annoyed expression
My laps-meter, the first caliper of the soul and the first hope of bridging the dread chasm that has rent the soul of Western man ever since the famous philosopher Descartes ripped body loose from mind and turned the very soul into a ghost that haunts its own house.
The subject dropped, and we sat on in the dusk that was rapidly deepening into night. The door into the hall was open at our backs, and a panel of light from the lamps within was cast out to the terrace. Wandering moths, invisible in the darkness, suddenly became manifest as they fluttered into this illumination, and vanished again as they passed out of it. One moment they were there, living things with life and motion of their own, the next they quite disappeared. How inexplicable that would be, I thought, if one did not know from long familiarity, that light of the appropriate sort and strength is needed to make material objects visible.Philip must have been following precisely the same train of thought, for his voice broke in, carrying it a little further.'Look at that moth,' he said, 'and even while you look it has gone like a ghost, even as like a ghost it appeared. Light made it visible. And there are other sorts of light, interior psychical light which similarly makes visible the beings which people the darkness of our blindness.' ("Expiation")
But this time as soon as he moved she began to fade. He stopped at once, not breathing again, motionless, willing his eyes to see that she had stopped too. But she had not stopped. She was fading, going. "Wait," he said, talking as sweet as he had ever heard his voice speak to a woman: "Den lemme go wid you, honey." But she was going.
I'm chasing a decade old ghost. Searching beneath the rafters of a cobweb-filled haven lined with old memories which my brain cannot accept are dead. The light of nostalgia is burning bright inside my heart. Ignoring the emptiness around me, and hoping for a resurrection of love.
Oh God just look at me now... one night opens words and utters pain... I cannot begin to explain to you... this... I am not here. This is not happening. Oh wait, it is, isn't it?I am a ghost. I am not here, not really. You see skin and cuts and frailty...these are symptoms, you known, of a ghost. An unclear image with unclear thoughts whispering vague things...If I told you what was really in my head, you''d never let me leave this place. And I have no desire to spend time in hell while I'm still, in theory, alive.
The one plus side to demonic infestation is that children cannot be harmed by a demon. The sanctified aura of a child somehow repels the demon and they can only oppress them if the parent makes a contract allowing them to do so. Because they can be very clever in tricking people into agreeing to additional contracts, it is important to never converse with a demon. Either call in a priest or move out as soon as possible.
Everybody is equally weak on the inside, just that some present their ruins as new castles and become kings –
There are tales that rise like the early sun, breathe, and take on a life of their own. There are ones that flow quietly and effortlessly until time forsakes them, but there are others that fight until they find their way to the edge of reality, as if coming straight out of a dream.
How do you feel when you read stuff written by dead authors? A visit by a ghost?
It's a shame, when I'm at the checkout line, and the cashier holds up my bill to the light, in search for a ghost president, or slashing a yellow marker to see if counterfeit. Even in money we can't be trusted. Makes we wonder whats next, will the government make a marker to slash our hand, or an x-ray we will have to walk through, to check if we have a dishonest heart or corrupt spirit?
The unknown grayish mystifying forest was benumbed into frost-covered cold, and the tremendous pines towering above the dark marshy soil resembled a gathering of severe mute brothers from a forbidden ancient order worshiping forgotten gods no one had ever heard of outside of the world of secret occult visions.
Imagine being just strong enough to remember what life was like, feeling things, your heartbeat, the world around you. And imagine you couldn’t have it anymore, couldn’t even properly remember it, but there was just enough that some deep part of you knew what you were missing. Wouldn’t you do anything to get it back, if it was right there for the taking? Wouldn’t you be willing to kill for it?
The Idea of Ghost, like the Idea of North. A mere looped whisper, in darkness or in light. And no matter what this person may have been like before he or she died, no matter what they--specifically--might have wanted, ghosts only really want one thing: you, with them.Not to be alone. Not to be trapped. Not to be where they are. Not to be.
By the Hospital Lane goes the 'Faeries Path.' Every evening they travel from the hill to the sea, from the sea to the hill. At the sea end of their path stands a cottage. One night Mrs. Arbunathy, who lived there, left her door open, as she was expecting her son. Her husband was asleep by the fire; a tall man came in and sat beside him. After he had been sitting there for a while, the woman said, 'In the name of God, who are you?' He got up and went out, saying, 'Never leave the door open at this hour, or evil may come to you.' She woke her husband and told him. 'One of the good people has been with us,' said he. ("Village Ghosts")
It was no wonder that they thus questioned one another's actual and bodily existence, and even doubted of their own. So strangely did they meet in the dim wood that it was like the first encounter in the world beyond the grave of two spirits who had been intimately connected in their former life, but now stood coldly shuddering in mutual dread, as not yet familiar with their state, nor wonted to the companionship of disembodied beings. Each a ghost, and awe-stricken at the other ghost.
When he had eaten, Mr. Lecky lay down on his cot, though he did not expect to sleep. The four lanterns continued to shed their thin floods of light. Against the dark, this illumination set the varied, ill-matched shapes of his assembled defenses. Studying the odd wall, in spirit unquiet, Mr. Lecky was reminded of his childhood - not in any detail of actual reminiscence, but more deeply, less coherently. He seemed to recall himself, unreally small and young, in concealment under a table. A table had been fort enough, for his enemies were imaginary. He never imagined them winning.Even at that early period, furniture would only be useful against foes which he had invented to play with. Tables could not have protected him from bears or wolves. Perhaps he had been taught, by his amused elders, a conventional fear of bears. Unassisted, he had picked up a private fear of wolves. Bears were no more than vague monsters coming at night, never distinct or well defined. But of wolves his unruly imagination could produce whole lifelike packs such as those which he had somehow been led to believe pursued any sleigh venturing out, three frantic horses abreast, in perpetually snow-sunk Russia.At a brief later stage he had entertained, fruit of the new-found ability to read, some concern about ghosts. His spectres were, however, practically people, if hideous, gaunt and pale ones. It was doubtful if he ever actually believed in them, in the sense of fearing that he might meet one. His eyesight had always been good, so it played him none of the terrifying tricks necessary to confirm a belief in the supernatural. Indeed, he could not be long in discovering that people beyond a suspicion of unbalance, or not obviously coveting the moment's arrest of attention gained them by their statements, never had experience with or knowledge of the restless dead. Slowly accepting this as evidence that no such things existed, Mr. Lecky found terrors deeper, and to him more plausible, to fill that unoccupied place - the simple sense of himself alone, and, not unassociated with it, the conception of a homicidal maniac quietly pursuing him.
She was our guardian angel. Lucy saved us from mystery. Without her, our marriage would be ruined. Her disappearance created an open wound that we can't fix but the most devasting reality is probably the fact that her body will never be found. She is a living ghost in Wilmington, North Carolina.
If anyone views himself as being totally perfect in the actual sense of the word, he is undoubtedly imperfect in God's eyes. For the thought alone is one of presumption, impurity and imperfection. One may rightly strive for perfection pertaining to character and spirit, but must bear in mind that he will never reach its purest form within this human body. The fact that he has strived for it until the end has made him 'perfect' in the eyes of God.
Hello?” I ask. No one is there. Not a word. Not a whisper. Not a single sound resonating from the other side of the receiver. “Hello? Anyone there?” I ask again. Repeating myself. I am beginning to feel rather anxious now. Scared, would be a better word to use. Shivers have begun to creep up my spinal cord, and I can feel the urgency of goose pimples begin to line up on by frightened pale skin.
As Sandy and his wife warmed to the tale, one tripping up another in their eagerness to tell everything, it gradually developed as distinct a superstition as I ever heard, and not without poetry and pathos. How long it was since the voice had been heard first, nobody could tell with certainty. Jarvis's opinion was that his father, who had been coachman at Brentwood before him, had never heard anything about it, and that the whole thing had arisen within the last ten years, since the complete dismantling of the old house: which was a wonderfully modern date for a tale so well authenticated. According to these witnesses, and to several whom I questioned afterwards, and who were all in perfect agreement, it was only in the months of November and December that "the visitation" occurred. During these months, the darkest of the year, scarcely a night passed without the recurrence of these inexplicable cries. Nothing, it was said, had ever been seen - at least nothing that could be identified. Some people, bolder or more imaginative than the others, had seen the darkness moving, Mrs Jarvis said with unconscious poetry. ("The Open Door")
Although terrifying, the evil ghost will probably pose no real danger to you or your family. On the other hand, if you have a demonic infestation, your entire household is in very real danger. A demonic entity will not usually confront you or induce you to flee the home. Because, unlike the evil ghost, the demon does not actually want you to leave. On the contrary, it wants you to stick around so it can destroy your life and sully your soul from the inside.
Miss Millick wondered just what had happened to Mr. Wran. He kept making the strangest remarks when she took dictation. Just this morning he had quickly turned around and asked, "Have you ever seen a ghost, Miss Millick?" And she had tittered nervously and replied, "When I was a girl there was a thing in white that used to come out of the closet in the attic bedroom when you slept there, and moan. Of course it was just my imagination. I was frightened of lots of things." And he had said, "I don't mean that traditional kind of ghost. I mean a ghost from the world today, with the soot of the factories in its face and the pounding of machinery in its soul. The kind that would haunt coal yards and slip around at night through deserted office buildings like this one. A real ghost. Not something out of books." And she hadn't known what to say. ("Smoke Ghost")
It had all begun on the elevated. There was a particular little sea of roots he had grown into the habit of glancing at just as the packed car carrying him homeward lurched around a turn. A dingy, melancholy little world of tar paper, tarred gravel, and smoky brick. Rusty tin chimneys with odd conical hats suggested abandoned listening posts. There was a washed-out advertisement of some ancient patent medicine on the nearest wall. Superficially it was like ten thousand other drab city roofs. But he always saw it around dusk, either in the normal, smoky half-light, or tinged with red by the flat rays of a dirty sunset, or covered by ghostly windblown white sheets of rain-splash, or patched with blackish snow; and it seemed unusually bleak and suggestive, almost beautifully ugly, though in no sense picturesque; dreary but meaningful. Unconsciously it came to symbolize for Catesby Wran certain disagreeable aspects of the frustrated, frightened century in which he lived, the jangled century of hate and heavy industry and Fascist wars. The quick, daily glance into the half darkness became an integral part of his life. Oddly, he never saw it in the morning, for it was then his habit to sit on the other side of the car, his head buried in the paper.One evening toward winter he noticed what seemed to be a shapeless black sack lying on the third roof from the tracks. He did not think about it. It merely registered as an addition to the well-known scene and his memory stored away the impression for further reference. Next evening, however, he decided he had been mistaken in one detail. The object was a roof nearer than he had thought. Its color and texture, and the grimy stains around it, suggested that it was filled with coal dust, which was hardly reasonable. Then, too, the following evening it seemed to have been blown against a rusty ventilator by the wind, which could hardly have happened if it were at all heavy. ("Smoke Ghost")
He clicked the Save button, and there was the sound of a trumpet fanfare. A cleverly designed Flash animation in emerald green illuminated in gold leapt out at him in a 3D effect like the titles of an epic film: WELCOME, ASH, TO BIG BROTHER, THE AVENGER! The words exploded in a shower of gold dust. A voice boomed chillingly, ‘If you want help to sort them out, look no further! Big Brother will avenge you!
The air changes. Then that invisible spider crawls up my spine, tickling the hairs behind my neck. I have come to know this spider these last couple of years. It whispers there’s something else in the room, breathing with you, watching you, grinning at you.I hate that damn spider.
As he sat up, he heard soft dripping sounds from the bathroom, little plips like water slipping over the edges of the tub and into the floor. The hairs on the back of his neck rose as he realized where he‟d last heard that sound. His muscles tight with strain from his earlier exertions, he stood and walked warily toward the half open bathroom door and the tub beyond it. Slipping quietly past the door, he saw that the curtain was drawn, and again the shadowed figure lay behind it. One long, slim, leg dangled from the end of the tub, beads of water gliding down its length and off the polished toes. At the other end he saw a mass of auburn curls, matted deep red near the porcelain of the tub. It was the dream and the vision again, more real now, too strong to deny. Shaking, he moved toward the curtain, gagging on the sickly smell of rust and roses, feeling the thin nylon glide between thumb and palm as he pulled it back to reveal his darkest nightmare and deepest regret. He could see the crimson water now, blood bubbles gliding over its surface and clinging to the legs dangling over the tub‟s edge. When he‟d pulled the curtain completely away from the tub and around to its opposite side, he saw her face. Her eyes were closed and he saw that her lids were bruised and purple against the translucent paleness of her face, drained completely dead white under the makeup she‟d brushed on before she‟d died. Staggering by the sight of her, he knelt by the tub and extended one shaking hand to touch her cheek. It all seemed as if he‟d walked into a horror film and once again he needed to prove to his mind that this wasn‟t real. His hand shook as he lifted it nearer to her flesh, waiting for the corpse, the supposedly dead and buried to move. He touched his quivering fingers to her face, feeling its claylike reality. The sensation caused an immediate shudder of revulsion and he fought not to vomit. Even as the moment came, the sight of her moving in the water startled him and he jumped away from the tub. It wasn‟t an obvious movement at first, only soft breaths moving in and out of her nostrils, but then her chest rose and fell with it and he quaked, feeling unstable where he knelt on the floor.Her eyes opened next and he felt the blood fall out of his face, wanting to scream but too afraid he would cause her to take some action, to reach out and touch him, proving well and forever that he was indeed insane. Scream and you might as well slit your own throat. He swallowed the scream like a rock and stared as her eyes moved slowly in their sockets, locking on him. Slowly, as if she‟d lost control of her muscles, she rose from the tub and looked down at him, smiling. Blood water slid down her bare body, over her neck, down her back and the smooth ridges of her breasts, to slip slowly down her thighs and down over her calves. A puddle spread on the floor, and as it extended toward him he struggled to his feet, skittering away from it. As he watched it spread, he shivered, weak as he started to cry frantic, horrified tears. Breaking down, he looked back up at her face and slipped to the floor once more, his knees incapable of sustaining his own weight. The smile grew wider as she strode to his shivering form, thrown on his side and struggling to rise. The blood water seeped into his clothes, making him sick, a drop of it trickling along the lobe of his ear and into it. And then she leaned down, holding those dim, stained curls of auburn out of her face and tucking them behind her ear. Her lips parted, blue beneath the strong crimson red of her lipstick, and she spoke into his ear with the chill breath of the dead. His eyes grew wide and horrified as she spoke, the hair on his neck rising, sending a maddening shiver of fear through him. “I‟ve returned, Raven.” She whispered “And I want what is mine.” The last thing he saw before his mind, finally, thankfully, shut down was her face in front of his. They were pursed for a kiss.
In the dark behind the glare of the television, like a mannequin behind it, I could see a silhouette and it wasn’t moving. It was maybe six foot high with its shoulders hunched and I blinked to make sure it was real. The TV fuzzed grey and white and black and I had a lump in my throat that I couldn’t swallow away. “Rory” I whispered. Clawing out gently beneath the duvet cover, reaching for his hand. But I couldn’t find it. And he didn’t answer.
He fills me with horror and I do not hate him. How can I hate him, Raoul? Think of Erik at my feet, in the house on the lake, underground. He accuses himself, he curses himself, he implores my forgiveness!...He confesses his cheat. He loves me! He lays at my feet an immense and tragic love. ... He has carried me off for love!...He has imprisoned me with him, underground, for love!...But he respects me: he crawls, he moans, he weeps!...And, when I stood up, Raoul, and told him that I could only despise him if he did not, then and there, give me my liberty...he offered it...he offered to show me the mysterious road...Only...only he rose too...and I was made to remember that, though he was not an angel, nor a ghost, nor a genius, he remained the voice...for he sang. And I listened ... and stayed!...That night, we did not exchange another word. He sang me to sleep.
The tales of pure terror, of course, are completely naturalistic in their content, and must stand or fall by their merit alone. But what about the supernatural stories? Can we, the children of a scientific age, give any credence to these medleys of devils, ghosts, and other psychical invasions? There is only one answer: we can and do. We are dealing with stories, not with scientific dissertations. And if, as stories, they have the ring of truth, we'll believe them, as stories, implicitly.("Introduction")
Did you ever think about boys?' I say, staring up into the dark. 'There wasn't room,' she whispers, and her voice is unbelievably sad. 'At first, after Connor, I was just waiting. I was going to get a new boyfriend soon- as soon as I was prettier or better, more perfect. But after a while there was no room for anything else. If I though about kissing or sex, I just started feeling ugly, too awful for anything good.
... I don't believe in ghosts - not the scary white sheet, boogie-woogie type of ghost anyway. And yet ... I don't disbelieve either. I'm kind of sitting on the ghost fence, dangling my legs on both sides, not sure which way to jump. I think I might be here for a while.
No weekends for the gods now. Warsflicker, earth licks its open sores,fresh breakage, fresh promotions, chanceassassinations, no advance.Only man thinning out his own kindsounds through the Sabbath noon, the blindswipe of the pruner and his knifebusy about the tree of life...Pity the planet, all joy gonefrom this sweet volcanic cone;peace to our children when they fallin small war on the heels of smallwar - until the end of timeto police th eearth, a ghostorbiting forever lostin our monotonous sublime.
If your spirit is persistently harmless or if it has shown itself to you, in a non-threatening way, then you most definitely have a ghost. The ghost can be frightening, by its very nature. But the ghost will never intentionally frighten you. They will be there for three reasons: 1. They used to live there and are attached to the location 2. They are trying to communicate something to the living or 3. They are protective of somebody who lives in the house and so they are “standing guard” so to speak, over the loved one.
Like most people, my views about ghosts and haunted places were traditional while growing up. I believed ghosts were human spirits. Not that I talked to many people about the subject or my experiences. I assumed people would think I was weird.
Eight-and-twenty years,' said I, 'I have lived, and never a ghost have I seen as yet.'The old woman sat staring hard into the fire, her pale eyes wide open.'Ay,' she broke in; 'and eight-and-twenty years you have lived and never seen the likes of this house, I reckon. There's a many things to see, when one's still but eight-and-twenty.' She swayed her head slowly from side to side. 'A many things to see and sorrow for.' ("The Red Room")
Many people, after spending a long weekend being stealthily seduced by this grand dame of the South, mistakenly think that they have gotten to know her: they believe (in error) that after a long stroll amongst the rustling palmettoes and gas lamps, a couple of sumptuous meals, and a tour or two, that they have discovered everything there is to know about this seemingly genteel, elegant city. But like any great seductress, Charleston presents a careful veneer of half-truths and outright fabrications, and it lets you, the intended conquest, fill in many of the blanks. Seduction, after all, is not true love, nor is it a gentle act. She whispers stories spun from sugar about pirates and patriots and rebels, about plantations and traditions and manners and yes, even ghosts; but the entire time she is guarded about the real story. Few tourists ever hear the truth, because at the dark heart of Charleston is a winding tale of violence, tragedy and, most of all, sin.
Showmen's Rest was truly something to behold. Throughout the entire yard, statues and carvings of elephants, clowns, and tight-rope walkers danced on the gray and white surfaces of tombstones and grave-markers. For the first time, Michael got the feeling that the men and women who'd been buried there were probably really happy with their final resting place. It was a touching tribute, one that honored their passion in life and that had been constructed out of love and respect.
Martha Ridgley had been a single, working-class woman with no children or close family. Her killer had never been caught, and her case was eventually forgotten.But not by everyone—not by whoever had been paying the rent on Apartment #37 for over two decades until, for one reason or another, the lease was finally up.The Woman in Apartment #37byJohn MeadfromBook of the Dead
Every town has ‘THAT house’: the one that once held dark secrets. You know the house… the one no one will purchase? The one whose walls have seen blood? The one that even birds avoid, and the darkened windows resemble empty eye sockets? There are furtive, yet insistent, whispers about ‘that’ house, murmurs that perhaps the house is best left alone, lest the dark stain left upon that abode’s history seep into our own present-day.
To your simple existence, do not boast;merely to breathe or move or think is not to live.The shore of the sea is but a ghost,compared to the depth its wholeness gives.You exist in the miry foam;make the ocean depths your home.
His kiss was like no other! His kiss was enchanted and fairy-tale like. He applied pressure, but just enough to feel his tenderness and warmth. I could feel his heart beating wildly as he pressed his chest against my chest all the while his loving lips brushed up against mine with a care-filled affection. His tongue lightly licked the outer edges of my mouth, and then searched for my tongue. The pursuit allowed a marriage of both tongues to meet - inspiring a mingling tango of hot and heavy French kissing to manifest profusely. We kissed like two hot and horny teenagers, our mouths moving and craving each others lips, in animalistic desires!
Do you really think I’ve been murdered?” Michael’s voice was soft, but I still heard it from across the bedroom. He stood in the doorway with a rather solemn expression. Words failed me. Would he really want to hear the answer? If it were me, would I want to know if someone killed me? Maybe. I took a deep breath. “I’ll be honest with you. It doesn’t look good. The fact that no one knows you’re dead yet makes me worry that your death might have been intentional.”I stepped closer to him, staring all the way up into his face. “But if you want the truth, I don’t think the reason you died was your fault. You’re a pain in the ass, but you’re a good guy. I’m sorry this happened to you.”He gazed at me for a handful of seconds before nodding and his hair slid forward into his eyes. For some reason, it was the first time Michael seemed human. He was always so amiable and confident that seeing him be vulnerable felt odd. “Thank you.”“Come on. Let’s go find some answers.
She had golden blazing sun kissed hair, which hung down in loose, lazy spirals, a heart shaped pouted mouth, which was pink tinged with violet blushing, wide, spangled blue eyes that glimmered sparks to flicker and ember in the vivid intelligence of the moon’s love, and a yielding body, that seem to tangle in loose rhythm as I walked near to her.
And suddenly, in the place of the woman-shape made of shadow, there was something else. Something huge, something ugly. Linay flung up both hands. The thing screamed like a hawk and opened to wings: one white as a death cap, one clotted in shadow. The wings came together and the whole pond shuddered.Something hit Kate's ear and shoulder and smashed to the deck by her feet. It was a swallow, dead. She could hear them falling all over the pond.
I think ghostliness is a good quality. I pretend I'm dead all the time." "What?" He stopped rummaging through his locker to look at me full in the face a last."It helps me go to sleep," I said."That shows you don't know anything about death," Jonah said."Do you?" I asked. He hesitated before saying "I'm a g-g-g-ghost, aren't I?" "I think being dead might be nice. Restful.""Death is not restful. It's nothing.""That's what seems restful to me," I said. "The nothing. Not being here. Not being anywhere.
Quinns always come at half price, about half the time, and half-naked, even during the colder half of winter. A Quinn is like a queen, but draggier, and cheaper to buy and use for personal gain, unless you’re suspicious that you’re poor and illiterate like Jarod Kintz, in which case Quinns could be the spirits of your dead relatives, come to haunt you until you gather a massive fortune through selling books on the internet, to send some back in time through a portal you bought from the NSA, so they would have lived better lives without having to move a finger for their fortune. Oh, yah, and since they aren’t - they’re blue, like smurfs, yet they turn purple whenever tickled on the belly, which is something they seem to rather dislike, since they start biting and scratching when it happens, for no good reason, I might add.
No! no! My engagement is with no bride--the worms! the worms expect me! I am a dead man--I have been slain by robbers--my body lies at Wurtzburg--at midnight I am to be buried--the grave is waiting for me--I must keep my appointment!
Sometimes Geraldine feels like she can drive forever. Maybe that’s partially why she took a job at Milo General Motors. Driving is the best means of escape that the human race has, at least, that’s her opinion. She’s never had the guts to try drugs before, both because her sister was a junkie in the last few months she knew her, and because she’s heard the overdose horror stories, seen 'Requiem for a Dream', smelled the vapours of a meth lab that Julia’s boyfriend built, heard the crunching glass of crack vials and heroine needles when they happen to break. Even this alone is too surreal, not to mention that if she were high or tripping on acid or whatever the drug of choice may be, this would give the ghosts more power to morph into something even more nightmarish than they already are.
I was too much taken up with another interest to care; I felt beneath my feet the threshold of the strange door, in my life, which had suddenly been thrown open and out of which came an air of a keenness I had never breathed and of a taste stronger than wine. I had heard all my days of apparitions, but it was a different thing to have seen one and to know that I should in all likelihood see it familiarly, as I might say, again. I was on the lookout for it as a pilot for the flash of a revolving light and ready to generalise on the sinister subject, to answer for it to all and sundry that ghosts were much less alarming and much more amusing than was commonly supposed. There's no doubt that I was much uplifted. I couldn't get over the distinction conferred on me, the exception - in the way of mystic enlargement of vision - made in my favour.("Sir Edmund Orme")
The doctor from the mainland came and went. Silence settled over the island again, like a displaced curtain falling back in thickened, heavier folds. For there was a different quality in the silence now. It had tasted something, rich food on which it had long been thinly rationed. Shadowy things were trooping up, called by that scent of blood, like flies that smell carrion. They were not strangers to the old house; they had been ill-fed and at a distance, now they were hungry and avid and near.
We designate the spirit of the well as 'she' because in most of her personifications she takes a female form, though not invariably. She appears in many guises - ghost, witch, saint, mermaid, fairy, and sometimes in animal form, often as a sacred fish - and her presence permeates well lore, and indeed water lore generally.
GHOSTS IN THE MINDThere are no ghosts among the livingThe only real ghosts exist in our mindsSo fear not the dead but the livingBecause the living can harm but not their ghostHave you ever seen a dead man risen?Don’t you see that nobody comes from the grave? It’s because the dead are nice to each otherEven the vilest repent, and are kind to their neighborsEach one content with the land of their lying
Charleston is an extraordinary place. There is a deep connection between the residents and nearly three hundred and fifty years of history, and those ties between daily life and the distant past are strengthened by the occasional glimpse beyond the veil.
There are our ghosts,' Smithers said.It was a word he liked to use, said Brewster. Like most of us Brewster had read a few ghost stories, and to him the word 'ghosts' summoned up the creaking floorboards of a haunted house, shrouded white figures gliding silently through darkness, fluttering robes moving of their own bodiless accord, strangely transparent coaches travelling swiftly down a midnight road, and other such images quite remote from the chanting and drumming of desert folk in gaudy garb, with jingling anklets and necklaces, under a hot fierce sun. But the sounds of the Thar came from some invisible source, and to Smithers they were sounds made by ghosts.("Smithers And The Ghosts Of The Thar")
He does love prophesying a misfortune, does the average British ghost. Send him out to prognosticate trouble to somebody, and he is happy. Let him force his way into a peaceful home, and turn the whole house upside down by foretelling a funeral, or predicting a bankruptcy, or hinting at a coming disgrace, or some other terrible disaster, about which nobody in their senses would want to know sooner than they could possible help, and the prior knowledge of which can serve no useful purpose whatsoever, and he feels that he is combining duty with pleasure. He would never forgive himself if anybody in his family had a trouble and he had not been there for a couple of months beforehand, doing silly tricks on the lawn or balancing himself on somebody's bedrail.("Introduction" to TOLD AFTER SUPPER)
After breakfast the host takes the young man into a corner, and explains to him that what he saw was the ghost of a lady who had been murdered in that very bed, or who had murdered somebody else there - it does not really matter which: you can be a ghost by murdering somebody else or by being murdered yourself, whichever you prefer. The murdered ghost is, perhaps, the more popular; but, on the other hand, you can frighten people better if you are the murdered one, because then you can show your wounds and do groans.("Introduction" to TOLD AFTER SUPPER)
This was true enough, though it did not throw any light upon my perplexity. If we had heard of it to start with, it is possible that all the family would have considered the possession of a ghost a distinct advantage. It is the fashion of the times. We never think what a risk it is to play with young imaginations, but cry out, in the fashionable jargon, 'A ghost! - nothing else was wanted to make it perfect.' I should not have been above this myself. I should have smiled, of course, at the idea of the ghost at all, but then to feel that it was mine would have pleased my vanity. Oh, yes, I claim no exemption. The girls would have been delighted. I could fancy their eagerness, their interest, and excitement. No; if we had been told, it would have done no good - we should have made the bargain all the more eagerly, the fools that we are. ("The Open Door")
And there has been no attempt to investigate it,' I said, 'to see what it really is?''Eh, Cornel,' said the coachman's wife, 'wha would investigate, as ye call it, a thing that nobody believes in? Ye would be the laughing-stock of a' the country-side, as my man says.''But you believe in it,' I said, turning upon her hastily. The woman was taken by surprise. She made a step backward out of my way.'Lord, Cornel, how ye frichten a body! Me! there's awful strange things in this world. An unlearned person doesna ken what to think. But the minister and the gentry they just laugh in your face. Inquire into the thing that is not! Na, na, we just let it be.' ("The Open Door")
The popular notion that ghosts are likely to be seen in a graveyard is not borne out by psychical research... A haunting ghost usually haunts a place that a person lived in or frequented while alive... Only a gravedigger's ghost would be likely to haunt a graveyard.
Quick," I hissed. "Tell me what you know about this place."The ghost frowned. His face appeared sweaty and his hair was a mess, like he'd been running his fingers through it. "How about, 'hey, Frankie. How you doing, Frankie? I see you're missing both your legs, Frankie.
It was the ghost of rationality itself ... This is the ghost of normal everyday assumptions which declares that the ultimate purpose of life, which is to keep alive, is impossible, but that this is the ultimate purpose of life anyway, so that great minds struggle to cure diseases so that people may live longer, but only madmen ask why. One lives longer in order that he may live longer. There is no other purpose. That is what the ghost says.
Ah, mistress, you’re an angel. Sure there’s not a drop left? I might have remembered one more person….”“Up yours,” I said rudely with another belch. “It’s empty. You should tell me the name anyway, after making me drink all that sewage.”Winston gave me a devious smile. “Come back with a full bottle and I will.”“Selfish spook,” I mumbled, and staggered away.I’d made it a few feet when I felt that distinct pins-and-needles sensation again, only this time it wasn’t in my throat.“Hey!”I looked down in time to see Winston’s grinning, transparent form fly out of my pants. He was chuckling even as I smacked at myself and hopped up and down furiously.“Drunken filthy pig!” I spat. “Bastard!”“And a good eve’in’ to you, too, mistress!” he called out, his edges starting to blur and fade. “Come back soon!”“I hope worms shit on your corpse!” was my reply. A ghost had just gotten to third base with me. Could I sink any lower?