1 Oct 2022 // a new ghost
The air across these mountains bites shrewdly, of a sudden.
Mere minutes ago, it seems, the horizon was only broad expanses of green and brown. Now, patches of color explode in the time it takes to blink. Soon, those leaves will fall and the mountains will hunker for the winter -- but not yet. Not yet.
The man stands by a roadside, wearing a crown of dust. It's been a dry summer and even a burst of August storms hasn't tamped it all down. You can taste it on your tongue, if you turn into the wind.
He carries a case, with a pack across his shoulder. As he understands it, this is the place to be and yet he worries, as he often does, that he misunderstood -- that the directions were wrong -- that some detail went unnoticed -- that he will be late or somehow miss his opportunity.
When he closes his eyes, he hears the whistle. Distant, but these mountains can deceive. He begins to run, down the lane, arm tiring from the case and the bag across his back flapping against him.
He's out of breath when he reaches the flag stop, where the conductor waits beside a step for the train only just now pulling to a halt. It has been a busy year, suddenly busy, unbelievably busy, even if it is nowhere near as busy as years ago had been. Strange, the way your brain plays those tricks on you -- aging, yes, but adapting too.
He says as much, with a little chuckle, to the conductor. The conductor smiles, agrees, although the conductor experiences time differently than the man. The conductor is here, always, and by extension nowhere ever. Not a ghost so much as an idea, a marker of a moment created to serve a purpose.
But we all know ghosts are real, for at least certain values of real. And this one, now, extends a hand for the man's ticket and helps him aboard. "Welcome back," he says and the man shrugs off his pack and his jacket with relief as the train pulls away. He opens his case and looks down at the selection of books carefully packed within...
The 2022 October Country Reading List
- The Croning by Laird Barron (Night Shade Books)
- Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (Simon and Schuster, re-read)
- Grievers by adrienne maree brown (AK Press)
- Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns (Dorothy Project)
- Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis (Vintage, re-read)
- Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell (Hogarth, ARC)
- The Open Curtain by Brian Evenson (Coffee House Press)
- Saturnalia by Stephanie Feldman (Unnamed Press)
- Experimental Film by Gemma Files (Open Road Media)
- Little Sister Death by William Gay (Faber & Faber)
- How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix (Penguin, ARC)
- Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt (HMH, re-read)
- Weird Horror Issue 5, edited by Michael Kelly (Undertow Publications)
- Sefira and Other Betrayals by John Langan (Hippocampus Press)
- The Hundred Year House by Rebecca Makkai (Penguin)
- It Rides a Pale Horse by Andy Marino (Redhook, ARC)
- The Elementals by Michael McDowell (Valancourt Books)
- Juniper and Thorn by Ava Reid (Harper Voyager)
- Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum (Undertow Publications)
- The Wild Hunt by Emma Seckel (Tin House)
- Lute by Jennifer Thorne (Tor Nightfire)
- Little Eve by Catriona Ward (Tor Nightfire)
- White Horse by Erika T. Wurth (Flatiron Books)
- The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham (Modern Library)
(Hi, by the way. It's been a minute.
Might be another minute before you hear from me in this form again, although who knows? I have some ideas for a revitalized Slow Post in 2023 -- a limited run or a semi-regular dispatch or something else altogether -- but we'll see how things shape up. Life's long, and busy as ever.
Hope you're keeping safe and hale. May your spooky season be, well, spooky. I'll see you soon.)
xo Drew