ghost – Facts, Fictions & Fantasies

Friday Fictioneers — The Ledger of the Lost

June 13, 2025June 12, 2025Fandango37 Comments

Eleanor tapped furiously on the Underwood typewriter, composing letters to someone long gone. Beside her, the still functional Burroughs calculator clicked on its own, spewing out mysterious figures.

The owl statue watched silently, as it always did. Eleanor insisted it was Harold, her husband, guiding her. Neighbors thought grief had cracked her.

But when her manuscript, The Ledger of the Lost, was published posthumously, filled with exact accounts of crimes never solved, police grew uneasy. None could explain how Eleanor knew such details — or why the final page read: “Harold, I’ve balanced the books. I’m coming home.”

(100 words)

Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers prompt. Photo credit: Dale Rogerson.

FOWC With Fandango — Ghost

January 4, 2025December 29, 2024Fandango14 Comments

Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “ghost.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.

OLWG #391 — The Fire

November 10, 2024November 10, 2024Fandango5 Comments

“It’s my fault, Danny,” Harriet said. “I was so angry with Tom. I know he was devastated after Tuesday’s election, but since then he was just sitting on the couch in the living room staring at the TV, which wasn’t even on. He would get up every now and then to go to the bathroom and to get a beer and to make himself a sandwich. But he hadn’t uttered a word to me since almost midnight on Tuesday night. He hasn’t even been sleeping in our bed. It was like I was living with a ghost.”

“This wasn’t your fault, Harriet,” Danny, Tom’s older brother said, giving Harriet a brotherly hug. “How could you have known that he would fall asleep without putting out the candle?”

“I couldn’t have know but I was so angry with him that I left last night and went to stay at my sister’s place,” Harriet said, tears running down her cheeks. “If had been at home, this wouldn’t have happened and Tom would still be alive.

“You don’t know that, Harriet,” Danny said. “You don’t know what time the fire started and if you had been here and had been sleeping, you, too, might have perished in the fire.” Danny hugged Harriet again, but this time it was anything but brotherly. When he moved in to kiss his sister-in-law on the lips, she pushed him away.

“Will it always be this hard?” Harriet asked rhetorically.

This post is in respone to a prompt from Aooga at The New Unofficial Online Writer’s Guild. Aooga’s prompt is called OLWG and he posts two or three prompts from his vast collection of writing prompts weekly. Our task is to choose one of them, choose all of them, or choose none of them and incorporate them into a story or poem. This week, his three prompts are:

living with your ghost
he fell asleep and didn’t put out the candle
will it always be this hard?

Image credit: shutterstock.com.

Share Your World — 10/28/2024

October 28, 2024November 4, 2024Fandango19 Comments

It’s the last Monday in October and that means that Di, at Pensitivity101, is back as our host for Share Your World. Here are her questions for this week.

1. How would you describe a wicked witch?

Marjorie Taylor Greene.

2. What would scare you most, a ghost or a headless horseman?

Neither would scare me as much as Trump winning next week’s election.

3. If you were attending a Halloween-themed fancy dress party, what would you go as?

I’d go as Manny Calavera, travel agent to the deceased. Oh, you may know him as Fandango. Very scary, right?

4. Do you have many Trick or Treat visitors on October 31st?

We probably get two to three dozen trick-or-treaters at Halloween, but my wife insists that we have enough candy on hand to accommodate three times that many, which is fine with me because it will give us enough candy leftover to snack on for at least the rest of the year.

Gratitude

I am about to install iOS 18.1 on my iPhone. 18.1 is the update that, according to Apple, “introduces the first set of features powered by Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system that unlocks powerful new ways to communicate, work, and express yourself, all while protecting your data with an extraordinary step forward for privacy in AI.”

My curiosity about what “Apple Intelligence” actually is, so I’m looking forward to installing this update. I just hope that it doesn’t break how WordPress (or Jetpack) works on the iPhone. I won’t feel much in the way of gratitude should that be the case.

The Man Behind the Scenes

October 25, 2022October 25, 2022Fandango23 Comments

“Ghostwriting? Why would you want to be a ghostwriter?” Dean’s father asked. “You do all the work and someone else gets all the credit.”

Dean knew this conversation was going to be a tough one. His father was a well known TV news anchor and was hoping his son would follow in his footsteps.

“Dad, you just sit in front of the camera and read what other people have written for you,” Dean said. “Your success depends upon what those writers put in front of you to read on the air. They are your ghostwriters.”

“First of all, Dean,” Lawrence said, “I don’t just sit in front of the camera and read their words. I bring their words to life. I animate them. I give them depth, dimension, personality. Second of all, I’m the face of those words. I’m the name everyone knows. Nobody knows their names. They’re anonymous, they’re interchangeable parts. Is that what you want to be, an anonymous interchangeable part. Clearly I’ve been too lenient in how I raised you.”

“You don’t know me at all, Dad,” Dean said. “I’m like a stranger to you. I don’t need to be in the limelight. I don’t mind being behind the scenes. And you know what, Dad? I’m a great technical writer, but I’m not the creative type. I’m not the idea type. So,” Dean continued, a gleam in his eye, “by functioning as a ghostwriter, I’m playing to my strengths and helping others who have the gift of creativity to achieve their goals.”

“Dean, you are not an insubstantial young man,” Lawrence said, “but the low bar you’re setting for yourself is going to put me on a slab in the mausoleum before my time.”

“Well don’t you worry, Dad,” Dean said. “Should that happen, it will be only fitting for me to write your obituary, since I’m a ghostwriter and you’ll be a ghost.”

Written for these daily prompts: E.M.’s Random Word Prompt (ghostwriting), My Vivid Blog (conversation), Your Daily Word Prompt (lenient), Ragtag Daily Prompt (stranger), Word of the Day Challenge (gleam), Fandango’s One Word Challenge (insubstantial), and The Daily Spur (slab).

The Letter X

September 11, 2022September 11, 2022Fandango8 Comments

Deb, over at Nope, Not Pam, has this weekly challenge called A Letter a Week, where she gives us a place, an emotion, an adjective, a verb, and an animal all starting with the same letter. Then she asks us to write a post using those items and the letter she has given us, which this week is the letter X.

Here are Deb’s X-words:

Place – Xenia
Emotion – xany
Adjective – xenial
Verb – xylophone
Animal – Xerus

“X” is a tough letter. So before I begin, let me point out that Deb said that Xenia is an unincorporated community in the state of Kansas. She also noted that xenial is a friendly relationship between host and ghost. Finally, xany doesn’t seem to exist as a word in American English. So, for the sake of my story for the letter X, I’m going to use the definition of “zany” for the word “xany.”

“Toto, we’re not in Xenia anymore,” Tom said.

“What?” Carl responded.

“Don’t you see it over there?”

“See what?”

There’s some xany animal, I think it’s a xerus, wearing a top hat and it’s playing the xylophone.”

“I knew coming to a haunted house was a bad idea.” Carl said. “You’re seeing things.”

“Oh, you mean like that xenial ghost over there,” Tom said. “Don’t worry, he’s friendly.”

“Dude, have you been smoking dope?” Carl asked.

“No, but I did take some Ecstasy,” Tom admitted.

“That explains a lot,” Carl said.

“Exactly,” Tom said, laughing.

FFfPP — Does It Matter Anymore?

April 7, 2022April 6, 2022FandangoLeave a comment

I’ve lost track. How long have I been here? Days? Weeks? Months? Could it be years? I don’t know.

But does it matter anymore?

Is this a prison I’m in? An asylum of some sort? Did I commit a crime? Am I insane? I don’t remember why I’m here.

But does it matter anymore?

I don’t even know where I am, as I have no recollection of how I got here. or even where I’m from.

But does it matter anymore?

My name. What is it? I don’t seem to know my name or who I am.

But does it matter anymore?

I see people through the small porthole, beyond the bars. I call out to them, but they don’t hear me. Or choose to ignore me.

But does it matter anymore?

Am I Dead? Am I a ghost? Is this Hell?

It doesn’t matter anymore.

Written for Roger Shipp’s Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner. Photo credit: Dynamic Wang on Unsplash.

The Shadow of a Man

December 30, 2020December 30, 2020FandangoLeave a comment

“Good tidings to you, sir,” the stranger said to me. “May I ask you to help me out? It seems that I have lost my shadow. He turned around slightly and pointed toward the ground. “You see,” he said. “My silhouette is nowhere to be found.”

This strange man didn’t appear to be a homeless man talking gibberish. He didn’t smell poorly and he was reasonably well dressed in his white dinner jacket. So what was he going on about? “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I get your meaning,” I said.

I could see that he was beginning to get irritated. “My shadow is missing!” he said in a rather loud voice, a look of frustration on his face.

Was this man exhibiting some form of satire that I could not fathom? I looked carefully at him and pointed out that one must be standing within the range of some source of light in order to cast a shadow. Since it was neither sunny out, nor were there any artificial sources of light around that might produce a shadow, I explained to him that there was nothing unusual or untoward about being unable to see one’s shadow under the circumstances.

Curiously, just at the moment at which I pointed out that there was no source of light, the sun broke through the clouds. Given that it was late in the afternoon, I was sure that the man would finally be able to see his silhouette reflected on the ground behind him, thus alleviating his anxiety.

“Oh, look,” I said, pointing to the sidewalk behind him. “There is your shadow.”

He looked down and behind him. A smile graced his face and he said to me, “Good sir, may I offer you my most sincere wishes for many happy returns?”

I was truly befuddled. Tidings? Wishes? Happy returns? What a curious man he was. Now it was my turn to become irritated with this strange man and the way he talked. I acted out my irritation by throwing a punch at him. Suddenly, I found my arms and torso being grabbed by a handful of men, all wearing the same white coats as the man who had been unable to find his shadow. These men ignobly hauled me off and threw me into a room with padding on the walls.

I heard the strange man who had been unable to find his own shadow say, “Can you believe that he took a swing at me?” to one of those who grabbed me and threw me into the room.

Then I heard a different man say, “It looks like Mr. Alexander is having another one of his episodes. The medications are supposed to control these hallucinations. Did you check to see if he got his meds this afternoon?”

What is with these people? They apparently don’t appreciate what it means to lose one’s shadow, to have no silhouette. Don’t they realize that without a shadow a man is nothing but a ghost? I looked around my padded room, but no matter where I looked — up, down, front-to-back, and side-to-side — I couldn’t find my shadow. I couldn’t see my silhouette. I had become nothing more than a ghost.

I started to scream.

Written for these daily prompts: Your Daily Word Prompt (tidings), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (silhouette), Ragtag Daily Prompt (satire), Word of the Day Challenge (wishes), MMA Storytime (returns), and The Daily Spur (punch). Photo credit: Valori Fussell.

Sunday Photo Fiction — Photobomber

August 4, 2019August 4, 2019Fandango15 Comments

32C83F50-7ABB-4BE2-8000-68BB9220FEC3 “What the hell?” Alex said as he reviewed the pictures he took that day through the viewfinder on his digital camera.

“What’s the matter, hon?” Alicia asked.

“Look at this picture I took today at the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela,” Alex said.

“Who is that guy in the picture?” Alicia asked.

“Exactly!” Alex said. “Some shadowy jokester jumped in front of the cathedral just as I was taking the picture and photobombed it.”

“You didn’t see him step in front of the camera?” Anita asked? “He ruined an otherwise great shot of the cathedral.”

“Tell me about it,” Alex said. He then went to the next picture and the next picture and the one after that. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “This same guy photobombed every one of my pictures.”

“You’re kidding,” Alicia said. “Every picture?”

“Every goddam picture,” Alex admitted. “And we’re leaving Galicia tomorrow morning. This really pisses me off.”

Alicia opened her laptop and did a google search. “Hon, come look at this,” she said. “This guy is a local legend. He is a supposedly a spirit who tries to protect the historic and religious sites of Galicia. He’s referred to as the Ghost Photobomber of Galicia.”

(200 words)

Written for Donna McNichol’s Sunday Photo Fiction prompt. Photo credit: Alexis Ortiz. 9D556121-5A3F-4C86-9803-C16CFD8FDEDF