December Daily: ghosts

[resonant]

marginaliana - ghost stories

The spouse has had some seriously spooky experiences, but nothing along those lines has happened to me. He says I'm like the professor's wife in the original movie of The Haunting: not only do I not see ghosts, but no one else can see them when I'm around either.

I would tell you that I don't believe in ghosts, but I had one experience that proved to me that I really did believe. (Forgive me -- I know I've told this story here before, but I don't think I've told it recently.)

Before the kidlet was born, I was awakened out of a sound sleep by the tiniest of rustling noises, and when I opened my eyes, I saw a faintly glowing sphere floating at head height through the dim bedroom, and for a couple of seconds I truly, really, in the depths of my soul believed in ghosts.

What it was was a half-deflated round Mylar foil balloon catching the light of the streetlights as it was chased into the bedroom by a cat who had just figured out that she could reach the ribbon.

Now, the spouse would tell you that he thinks there's a possibility that ghosts exist, but he says his first feeling upon awakening that night was a profound certainty that there must be some non-supernatural explanation.





Specify a date if you want; otherwise I'll just answer them whenever.

This year, in addition to the usual kinds of questions, I'd also love to get storyish prompts. Storyish meaning you never know what you might get: two sentences of a story, or a description of a story that will never exist, or a love song about how much I like that trope, or a rant about my pet peeve about that trope, or I know nothing about that canon except what I see on social media and here's what I think it might be about, or Ten Reasons Why I Love/Hate/Am Indifferent To that character, canon, or trope, or ...

As always, I'd love to hear about it if you're doing the meme too.



13. runpunkrun - "a new thing you tried "
14. isis and clevermanka and trobadora - longhand?!
15. china_shop - Guardian as described by someone who only knows it via social media
16. kiezh following up with - "What have you heard about MDZS/The Untamed, and what did you think of what you heard?"
17. ride4ever's birthday prompt - "Storyish prompt: for any due South fic you've written, write a prequel or sequel snippet for the fic or meta about the before-or-after that can be imagined about the fic's story arc."
18. mific - "the genderswap trope where a character's gender is changed. Yes? No? Maybe?"
19. runpunkrun - "fake dating: yes or no"
20. minoanmiss - "One of my favorite tropes is Then Let Me Be Evil. What do you think of it/have you explored it/so on and so forth?"
21. hypertwink - "21. Now that you've come back, is there a fandom that you want to dip your toe into? (Follow up: Are you apprehensive/excited about it?)"
22.
23.
24. runpunkrun - "John and Rodney in 2020"
25.
26. ride4ever - "for any dS or C6D pairing that you ship, how that ship is doing in 2020."
27. reginagiraffe - "Hermione/Harry/Ron from Bed and Board in 2020"
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31.









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Comments

[lunabee34]

Aahhaahahhahaha. That's a fantastic story.

[james]

I always feel like - no I don't believe in ghosts = spirits of dead people still hanging around. But I do know that we have no idea about everything that is out there, so that people who see ghosts - I believe they are seeing (hearing, etc) something, and that we just don't know scientifically what it is. But, like, ball lightening is a thing that exists and nobody knows, but it's real and probably not something supernatural.

See also, magnetism. We can't explain it scientifically, not really, but it sure does exist.

But for all I know ghosts do exist? But I am also someone who doesn't see them and I absolutely do not ever want to (so I feel like they respect that and stay hidden or gone, which I appreciate, if they are real.)

[jesse_the_k]

Ha! I love that your marriage supports all the supernatural possibilities.

[krait]

Haha! Your 'ghost story' sounds a lot like mine. :D

[panisdead]

I would have expired on the spot.

[resonant]

The problem I have with the idea of ghosts is all the things that it seem to imply -- that our consciousness remains after we're dead? that after death we're still hanging around trying to interact with the living for some reason? That seems kind of horrible.

But of course I couldn't rule it out. I mean, we're inside time now, but there's no rule that says there can't be anything that isn't inside time.

[resonant]

The spouse has this weird thing where he grew up watching old b&w monster movies with his grandfather, and so they have a feel of homeliness and coziness and childhood nostalgia for him.

[resonant]

Did you post about yours? I'd love to read it.

[resonant]

It did feel like my soul left my body for a moment. Like I really understood what people mean when they say "time stands still."

[krait]

I know I've shared it various places over the years, but I don't know if any of them were in my own DW!

When I was 8-10, I was playing with toys in my room when my boom box - across the room, totally untouched - came on to some random radio station. Alarmed but not totally freaked out, I reached over and smacked the button to turn it off. Nothing happened.

The next day, it happened again: nobody anywhere near the radio, nothing touching it, and I'd turned it off yesterday! Yet there it was. Now totally freaked out, I crept up close to it (clutching my silver cross necklace) and whacked the off switch again as quickly as I could, from as great a distance as my arms could manage.

And then I looked at the switch I hit.

Realised it was in the "Standby" and not "Off" position.

Put down my necklace, moved the switch to the right position, discarded my plan to run down the hall and yell frantically at the nearest grownup that my radio was evil, and quietly went back to my game. :D

[resonant]

Oh, that's hilarious! Everybody says, "There must be some logical explanation," but Saturday morning TV leads us to think it's masked criminals, not switches that are set wrong.

[krait]

Yes! "Read the label, dummy" is a motto of my life, and that incident probably didn't hurt. :P I obviously turned it "off" without looking at the switch the last time I'd used it, and then scared myself silly two days running because I didn't stop to think, Wait, which direction is Sleep Mode and which is Off?

A little terror is good for the developing mind, I guess! Or at least it can emphasise the importance of reading. :D

[marginaliana]

OMG I love this story!