Not all of this poem resonates with me; it is personal. And yet this last bit feels like something most of us know. Happy Fathers Day to all who celebrate, and to all who pause and remember.
We played catch in the yard some evenings after work. Worried I’d fuck it up, I tore a piece of myself off each time & threw it back as hard as I could. I know now you were doing it too: pulling off pieces of you & tossing them to me, yelling when I missed & a chunk of yourself went skidding into the bushes. One time a ball split at the seam midair & landed splayed open, its insides wound tight & messy so that, when I pulled the string, I couldn’t find a beginning or an end.
that building a story against terror is the last almost impossible thing you can try;
that God Themself is a Holy Ghost.
Do you believe?
And I say,
I believe God is a Ghost.
I believe that Ghost is also
Earth’s memory of love and life,
Earth’s reckoning with loss,
Earth’s pain over wrongdoing and betrayal.
That this Ghost walks in our presence,
Sits by our side, rests Their arm over us in fitful dreams.
At Advent.
And always.
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This is an exactly 100-word flash fiction piece for a tradition of writing ghost stories on Christmas Eve. We acknowledge a sinful and hopeless world, and welcome the dawn in full awareness that Christmas day brings us light.
Advent Ghosts 100 Word Storytelling is put on by Loren Eaton at I Saw Lightning Fall.Read the 2023 stories now, with some new stories appearing through December 22. There is still time to submit your story. Unintentionally, I wrote this story as part 3 of a trilogy: Presence; Midnight, Christian; and They Are a Ghost.
Search tag “Advent Ghosts” to read all of my 100-word stories for this project over the years on Esse Diem. Then join us!
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