Getting in touch with our inner ghost

I mentioned 'The Woman In Black' in my last post, and if I hadn't been distracted by the thought of Christmas I would have gone on about ghosts themselves. Funny creatures, those unquiet spirits.

The basic idea is this: We live here, in the sunshine, the summer, and the morning dew, then we die. Our family puts us in a box, cries and huddles around it for a while, then it goes into the ground. Our grave gets flowers put on it once in a while, and people tell stories either about how nice we were, or what a mean fill-in-the-blank we were. The living move on.

We, on the other hand, don't. Not in this case. Our house feels cold, no matter how much wood gets put on the fire. Silence hangs in the air, strangling laughter. People get up suddenly to look behind them, and then can't explain why. Conversation is hushed, just because.

The reason is us, of course. We're still there, haunting the house or the churchyard, or the where-ever. But our behavior isn't what it used to be. These days the phrase 'unfinished business' gets used a lot, and there's the concept of a spook hanging around to point our hero or heroine to all the obvious clues which show just who helped us unwillingly shuffle off our mortal coil. But those are more convenient plot points than anything else, and ghosts like that don't seem to truly terrify us.

It's the other sort that we're talking about here. The kind that can also be neatly summed up in a sentence or two, but who are a lot harder to portray effectively. This is the more dangerous kind, because they don't give a damn.

What can the word haunted mean? In a B-movie or a B-grade book it means sharing a house with someone who walks through walls, clanks a really long set of chains, and wears clothing that went out of style two or more generations ago. But we also use it to describe someone who has had Death pay them a recent visit, someone who has lost some person in their life that they loved so dearly that they took all the meaning of life with them when they died. Someone left alone only in the sad ways.

That's the human part of the equation: pain, loss, fear. Not the normal sort that is everyone's portion in life, but the sort of gut-wrenching injustice that kills a person's soul. In a lot of the classic stories, our heroes and heroines are halfway dead, bringing their own ghosts with them into the story. With that door already open, what else can come through?

Why would it come? Why would it have never left in the first place? Anger. Blind, mad, rage. The sort of virulent soup that you get when you mix hate, loss, regret, and fear together, and then boil. Not very sensible, is it? To stay here where people weep and get hurt, when we have a ticket to a better place? Seems a bit petulant, doesn't it?

That's why I said part, and only part of us stays. That's why we feel ghosts before we see or hear them. That's why our belief in them is stored down in our gut and in our spine, while our head is full of reasons to not believe in them. Could non-believers, say atheists, be afraid of them without believing in them or in any of their related bumpers in the night? Oh hell yes. That's how people's heads work.

Ghosts like this live in our ID, where we whine rather than ask, scream instead of explain. They're what's left of a person when you strip away reason, and then strip away every flavor of love. Imagine a spoiled child that no one can control, and that no one can stop. Ever sat in a restaurant, a bus, or on a plane with an infant that did nothing but howl? Perfect. That infant is now somewhere in your house, waiting for you to relax. Pleasant dreams.

As you can see, my thoughts tend to ramble a bit when I explore a concept. Maybe I'll do it again.

Still writing.

Ghost stories in front of the Christmas tree

A few days ago I finished reading 'The Woman In Black.' As I've probably said before, one of the regrets of my miss-spent youth is that I never dove into a lot of the classics that make up the foundation of my preferred genre. Rest assured, I'm slowly chipping away at that deficiency.

I saw the recent movie first, and I deliberately avoided reading anything about it or the book, to avoid comparing the two until I had finished both. I'm not going to get into spoilers. Go read the one and see the other, in that order.

What got me thinking, and now writing, is a minor bit at the beginning, a tiny little piece of the setting. The image of a large, proper Victorian family sitting in what we would call the living room, staying warm by the fire while winter gusts and blows outside, telling ghost stories.

This is going to be another stroll down the trail of 'maybe,' like I strolled not to long ago when I pondered what might have sparked the first belief in vampires. We're going to meander along this twisted path where ever we may, not minding the destination as much as enjoying the journey. It's not going to be the last word, the first word, or even necessarily a coherent word. This is my word, one of many.

I really wonder what the average person's views on family was, back then. I like having my own house, and I like choosing who comes and goes. Some days it's nice to just sit in the middle of the house and listen to silence.

Things were different, way back when. You might have three generations living under one roof, and everyone sharing bedrooms. Add to that cozy scenario folks coming in from across town or a different town, and you're going to have company no matter where you are in the house. It's a happy time, and even if it doesn't really feel like a happy time, you've got little choice but to act happy. There's whatever version of a feast your life can afford, and probably a bit of wine or gin. You get the renewed love of seeing your whole family together again, and all the petty old quarrels that are part of the same package. Since we're talking about Victorian England here, there's the added stress of it being colder than a witch's pointy hat. Everyone wants that perfect spot by the fire.

At the end of the day, people are going to be tired, maybe a bit grouchy, and groping through the house by lamp or candle-light. Christmas Eve is the traditional time for the stories, though I doubt they were all kept until then. So when the big night comes not only have we had a few day's buildup, but there's the anticipation of wondering just what's in that sock you nailed up by the chimney. The perfect setting to provide a bit of escape.

Why ghost stories? Again, it's dark, which is always scary, and it's cold. The caveman part of our head tells us there won't be as much food running around for us to hunt, and that the days themselves will be shorter. Because of the time period, our family unit has probably seen one or two of its previous members pass on during this season of coughs and chills. If they haven't, they've seen or heard stories of the 'unfortunates' who die from cold and starvation this time of year. Merry Christmas.

The connection is subtle to us, but in those days the relevant themes were more prevalent. The story from the handy family Bible is about death, resurrection, and hope. Father Christmas wasn't so fat and cuddly back then, so in each person's head, he would have that nebulous quality that people associate with a universal father figure: loving, but stern. If that grouchy old man in the big house came back as a ghost when he died, then that means that death isn't the end, no matter how much we fear that it is. It also means we better bite our tongue when Aunt Bertha steals the last bit of pudding, no matter how much we want to call her out on it. We don't want to end up a ghost and miss out on Heaven.

I'll close with that, but I think we can talk about ghosts again, and discuss their emotional well-being or lack thereof.

Still writing.