Here are a couple of fictional tales to chill your warm bones.

I AM A GHOST

I am a ghost. She reached for me with her long, curled fingernails that in one light were spun of gold, but in another were black and oozing creamy  pus. Her slender, bony fingers were cracked and crooked like sun-baked dirt and led to lineless palms and from there to arms glistening with oily sweat; one of which was milk-white skin stretched taut over protuberant bone, and the other of which was bejeweled with numerous red, throbbing, tumescent growths, radiating the pulpous pungency of rotten fruit. A heavy gray, woolen shawl was thrown carelessly across her shoulders and draped the length of her frame, covering what appeared with movement to be a tattered but not immodest black frock of the same length. Her long yellow and blood-streaked tresses appeared to spontaneously regenerate with each clump of scalp and hair that fell with a thud at her feet. Her feet were bare. I could not see her face for the flap of skin drooping off her high and wide forehead, but I could hear her throaty laugh, so sexy, punctuated by the agonized screams of those tortured souls haphazardly tossed against the jagged rocks at the back of her throat. I call her Lica. She was beautiful. I am a ghost.

But she is not the focus of my story; she is merely a visual aid. I know I see her (and the others) as I do because I see as a ghost; I see the grotesque beauty of truth; I see a projection of my twisted fascination with forbidden reality; I breathe life into previous incarnations of myself, reanimating infantile urges, juvenile fancy, and a refined sense of the macabre; I see past the light and through the shadows, where ultimately darkness and despair take me by both hands and lead me toward the depths of nothingness... I am a ghost.

 

I have met no other ghosts. I do see the wandering, dazed, sentient beings who (I know) sense me as I and my traveling companions pass, but like the Lovely Lica, none appear to see me. Some may reach out, slow down, and gaze curiously in my direction, and nearly all of them get twitchy and more agitated in my presence, but most just quickly pass by. I am lonely because I am alone. All of the passing gentry are moving uphill in the opposite direction, and even those most-tormented somehow know not to go deeper. If there are other ghosts traveling on the decline, we must all be moving at the same pace because I cannot sense them. If I try to quicken my pace, darkness and despair slow me; and if I try to stop, the downward slope steepens, forcing me onward. This is my story and has been for a season or a century, for as you would expect I have no sense of time. I am a ghost.

But Lica... ...she has awakened something within me. She has come closer to me than any and her comeliness has caused me to stir. It is difficult to think with the weight of darkness and despair smothering and tugging as they do; but I want to think. I had said that Lica was merely a visual aid, but perhaps she is more. As I remember, she came at me from below with more purpose. She also stopped suddenly when she sensed me. Most others become anxious and jumpy, and stumble (some falling) on by. Most all appear dazed and afraid even before they sense me. What are they fleeing from? Or to? Lica was different. She stopped, turned and faced me, and reached out. I know she did not see me (or if she did, it was only for a moment) because as I was driven forward she kept facing and reaching toward the place I had been; and if she were able to see me, I believe she would have either turned to her peripheral vision or lifted the pendulous flap of skin from before her eyes. Why did she take note? What did she feel? What was she thinking? I had an impact. I am a ghost.

I spent another season moving slowly down the hill. As you may or may not know I can pretend to walk and thus feel the sensation of gravity and contact with surface textures (in this case, a grassy hill); or I can hover and float, though (at least in this case) I am still required to exert or control effort according to the direction and degree of the slope. As a ghost, this is all I have known; or, all I remember, so I am uncertain if these rules apply to all ghosts. I am uncertain that there even are other ghosts; though I doubt that I warrant such consideration as to be the 'only' ghost. I will ask. I am able to do so because it is at this point in my story, after this insufferable post-Lica season of walking, that I have come to the bottom of this hill and found him. Him is a specter, in both the sense that him is a visible apparition "neither living nor dead" (him's words), and in the sense that him is a source of terror and dread. Him is also a fount of knowledge and wisdom. Him is a gatekeeper. Him is incorporeal and ineffable. Him is the expressor of everything and the decidor of nothing. Him is the depersonification of all my earthly and deathly experience. I, am a ghost.

The hour had come - the hour beyond the season; the hour within the moment; the hour upon which all of time is built. And that hour is what I was given. Him told me that this hour at the center of everything and the beginning of nothing, would be my last hour as a ghost. Him told me that at the end of this hour I would make a choice, and that choice would determine my next incarnation. Him told me that I could ask anything I desired and he would answer. Him told me that him's answers would be true to the intent of my question; which I took to mean that if my intent were true then him's answer would be true, and if my intent were false then him's answer would be a lie. Him told me that this hour would hold me to its breast starting "now." I Am A Ghost.

Some cower in fear before Wisdom. I asked the following questions:

• Am I the only ghost?
• Is it better to have pity for - those who deserve pity, those who pity, myself, or no one?
• Who enlightens the jackal?
• Is it better to see beauty veiled, interpreted, or untrammelled?
• Will darkness and despair accompany me throughout all of my days?
• Does the earthly decor of death accurately reflect the deportment of the recently dead?
• What color is Wisdom?
• Is it better to see shadows in the dark, or is it better to see radiance in the light?
• Who will listen for the ghost drum?
• Is it better to glory in the strenuous ignominy of skeptical dissent, or is it better to be happy in the comfortable folds of labial affection?
• Will I ever see Lica again?
• Is a perpetual state of positive anticipation possible?
• Who slays the dragon?

Him answered all of my questions, but I am not allowed to disclose him's answers because it is not possible for you to know my intent, making him's answers meaningless. When I was told that at the end of this hour I would make a choice that would determine my next incarnation, I at first thought that choice would be between existence and nonexistence. I was mistaken. After absorbing him's answers I have realized that nonexistence does not exist. I am forever. I am a ghost...

...but not for long. I have stretched this last moment in this decisive hour, to its limit. I must choose "now" to either struggle back up the hill as a sentient being and return to an earthly incarnation, or remain at the bottom of the hill as a visible apparition "neither living nor dead" imparting knowledge and wisdom in the form of meaningless answers to other ghosts as they end their journey here. Lica was a ghost before choosing to return; uphill. All of the sentient beings, (formerly ghosts), that I had passed were still lost and afraid; uncertain if they had chosen wisely. I was avoided because they had made their decision, they knew what I was facing, and they did not want to be overwhelmed (again) by my traveling companions whom they could sense, making it that much easier to not see me. They wanted to reach the top without distraction and again join the multitudes that never make this journey. Perhaps Lica, in my presence, was reconsidering; or perhaps she wanted to turn me around. I had to consider all of this and weigh it against the stipulated stillness of this eternal exigency at the bottom of the hill. Uphill or downhill; the hill is just a means, and a mode. I am forever.

I choose to be forever.

I tasted oxygen today. It was equal parts eternity and vanilla, with a delicate aftertaste of dark chocolate and earth.

I. Am. Forever...

MY GREATEST FEAR

My husband had a dinner meeting and I am alone. After a bite of leftover ziti, I sit in the claw foot tub in the second floor bath with a glass of merlot on the floor at my side. I start to drift. Suddenly, I am wrenched from my doze by a rending sound of ferocious intensity. Crunching wood and porcelain  - falling - and all I can think is that the merlot will stain the brand new sofa in the drawing room below. But somehow, in mid-plunge, I catch the stem of the glass and hold it above my head, keeping it level so as not to spill a drop. I am thankful as well to hear the water from the tub and the busted pipes draining between the walls, hopefully into the basement. I prepare myself for the crash, ready to toss the wine to the side away from the davenport, when I feel a springing and a soft landing halfway between the hole in the floor/ceiling above and the first floor below. I carefully peer over the side of the tub, with the wine glass still unperturbed in my left hand, and I see the claw feet and legs of the tub poking through a web of filament so fine it can barely be seen, yet (obviously) strong enough to hold an old-fashioned porcelain claw foot tub and its young and attractive occupant. I know what you're thinking, (no, not that), and yes; this did look much like a spider's web. I confirmed as much when I searched the corners of the room and indeed spied the culprit. You would think that a spider able to construct such a web must be very large, but I was surprised; it was (even accounting for its leg span) not much larger than my Corgi. I was not sure what to do next.

I, at first hoped, that the tub would continue its plummet to take me away from the arachnid eyeing me from above, but then I remembered the wine, and the settee below; and well, being the practical sort, I decided the best thing to do in this moment was to finish my digestif. So I sipped. As I was savoring my fermented aqua vitae and gently bouncing to test the strength of the strands of web, the harvestman began his slow, ominous march forward. So here I sit, naked, jouncing in a claw foot tub, suspended above a new cream-colored chesterfield, uncertain of the intent of a certain predaceous hunter, and frantically trying to relax and enjoy my after-dinner libation. I was in quite a fix; but the wine was quite good - hints of cherry and oak, full-bodied, and dry as is my preference.

While thinking this last thought, there was a sudden rush from above and - Oh My Dear God, Nooo! I spilled some wine! And of course it sploshed directly below onto my now-discount-house couch. "Damn You Sir!" I stood in all my lascivious glory, took another sip of my wine, and threw the glass at the hated brute, willing it to somehow hit him between his eight eyes, shattering and disbursing eight well-placed shards of leaded glass that blind him, allowing my heroic escape. This is unfortunately, not what happened. The stem-end of the glass bounced off his snout and did a perfect forward one-and-a-half somersaults spraying the last bloody red droplets the length of the now-polka-dotted divan. To add insult, the crystal shattered when it hit the edge of the tub. The only thing that could be more perfect is if I suddenly found my creative fiction class at the far end of the drawing room expectantly looking up at me and patiently waiting for my story; and I have nothing prepared.

Oh yes - The sudden rush from above had been the whispering of eight hairy legs coming closer. When I stood Mr. Long-Legs did stop and after the wine glass bounced away (I didn't know this was possible, but) he looked amused. He also still looked serious. I believe he means me bodily harm. I know from morbid curiosity that many (I believe most) spiders will bite their prey, wrap it, wait for it to die, and then commence to feasting. However some spiders who are unable to kill with a venomous bite, wrap their prey in such an exorbitant amount of silk that the prey's 'legs break and eyes buckle inward' thus crushing their prey to death so they may commence to feasting. I feared that me being a human (naked, young, and attractive notwithstanding) that this latter method might be my suitor's plan. I hoped that he would get within arm's reach for a little love nibble because I was mad enough about the couch that I had confidence I could throttle him if I could reach him. But, no. I felt the first strands hit me about shoulder height, and my reaction was so violent that I threw myself out of the partial protection of the tub and found myself trying to roll around this clinging, sticky web to avoid the thready projectiles being flung my way. He changed his strategy and began to wrap my flailing legs as they must have appeared the greatest threat. Suddenly, I took in the reality of this attempted cocooning and realized that my claustrophobia may kill me before 'the legs break and the eyes buckle inward.' I could only hope; but either way I admit to the fleeting thought that to die in silk does have a certain charm.

I stopped moving for a moment to think, allowing 'old-eight-eyes' to patiently spray string, tentatively reach out with one forepaw, rotisserie me one-quarter turn, and again spray string. His patient effort gave me a thought. I would have to act quickly and anticipate correctly to pull it off; my lower legs to mid-thigh were already bound, though not yet unbearably tight or heavy. To lull him with the monotony of his task I waited 3 or 4 more rotations, and then as I was being turned from my right side to my back, I quickly reached out with both hands, tightly grabbed his foreleg, twisted and torqued, and satisfyingly heard it snap. He audibly yowled and as I had hoped lunged for my soft underbelly. Though my two hands did not reach all the way around his throat, I did manage to get a tight grip and avoid his bite. But he was still on top and regaining the advantage. I found a burst of energy. Aided by my kicking mermaid legs that were beginning to break free, I imagined wrestling my Corgi into and out of this very same bath and adroitly flipped my foe into the tub, bringing my full weight down upon him, apparently knocking the breath out of him. As he lay winded, I looked down at the tub floor (the water had of course all drained out now) and saw blood where my knee had come down on an elongated shard from my wine glass. This renewed my fury over the couch, so barely thinking, I quickly grabbed the wide end of that crimson-stained dagger, plunged it deep, and sliced that bastard from stem to stern: and even remembered to reinsert the plug into the drain. He lay still. With my arm to the elbow coated in spider goo and guts I did not wait to jump out of the tub (I knew he was dead), roll a little distance away, and strategically cut a small hole in the web just large enough for me to fit through but far enough away from the tub that the integrity of the web was (hopefully) not compromised. I dropped to the couch, adding my blood to the wine. Oh well...

I closed my eyes for a moment, congratulating myself for quick thinking and agile maneuvering. I was exhausted. I must have dozed, perhaps from shock. When I awoke I heard a terrifying rustling; then I saw it's source. All my congratulations were now seemingly for naught. It turns out that my dead friend in the tub was not a Bastard Sir; she was a Mistress Bitch.

Did you know that some mama spiders can hatch hundreds and even thousands of babies from one sac?