Scary Ghost Stories and Tales of the Glories

campfire-tales

“An English tradition for hundreds of years was telling stories in front of the winter fire. They did this especially around the Winter Solstice which falls a few days before Christmas. I’ve said for years the winter solstice is my least favorite day of the year. It has the shortest amount of daylight and the longest night.

Imagine what it was like for someone 500 years ago, wondering if this was the year the night finally won over the day and the days kept getting shorter and shorter until it was night 24 hours a day. No wonder they huddled around the fire for warmth and no wonder the only stories they could think to tell had ghosts in them.”

via Season brings out the ghost stories! – Books by Eric Douglas.

Loren Eaton’s annual 100 Word Storytelling is just around the corner . . .

“The Last” — Advent Ghosts 2014

Photo by P. Koskela, Finland

Photo by P. Koskela, Finland

Earth was silent, dark, dense beneath the enormous frame.

Heartbeats grew further apart, the slight tremor of ice shards like glass in long lashes and shaggy coat. A dozen bitter winters, this the first when it is too much to stand.

Thump.

An eyelid raises, cracking its frozen seam to see a bright line in greenish-yellow against the sky’s ink.

No sound or scent of footed life, only the patient gathering scrapes of talon and wing.

The eye is open, the chest is now silent. He draws a breath.

The circle tightens. The sky’s line glows.

One soul rises, absolved.

###


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. See other entries there.