Flashback to Ghost Road

First Published July 21, 2008  Reprinted For Fandango’s Flashback Friday

I worked in a Funeral Home and at that home, in one of the storage areas we used to store the toys that people left at the graveside for their children. Each of the elements I describe here are some of the toys I remember seeing on one of the shelves together and I remember thinking it looked like a road. So I wrote about it.

“Ghost Road “

A baby wrapped in blanket with a box for a crib

a basket of kittens who stopped crying when they heard the wind

a dog with no collar, but he once had been called Finn.

all of them waiting to feel warm again.

 

Each of them placed with love and care

on this unmarked road under the stairs

then reluctantly left

where the ghosts of could have been

live.

Neighbors

Inspired By The RDP Prompt: LADDER

Photographer: Dorothea Lange

There is not a stick of furniture

in the Witch’s House

which stands alone in a field, down the hill from where I live.

 

One of the walls is missing and so are the window panes, the chimney is

still there and a moss covered ladder is leaning against the fireplace

But there isn’t a stick of furniture in the Witch’s house and I’m not sure there ever was.

 

When I’m feeling down, or reckless and I want to blow off a little steam

I walk down to the Witch’s house and from the front yard I will scream

” Is anybody home? I’d knock but your door is gone. Is it okay if I come in? ”

 

And as bold as brass I will stand in the doorway

and call for her again and just before I walk away

I always hear her say,

 

” Go away you bloodsucking fiend, and crawl back into

your coffin, that soured the Earth

up the Hill from where I live.

100 Days of Halloween Fun 2023

If you are looking for a little fun and inspiration to take you through those

Magical 100 Days of  Halloween, here you go.

halloweenhappy is on Instagram and she has a fun page that celebrates all things fun

that make Halloween Happy!

You can use these daily prompts any way you like- I focused on writing last year but I

think  I might branch out a bit this year.

There will be a total of four of these prompt pages and I’ll be posting them here- take a

look and follow along if the Spirit moves you ( boo ).

amm

Tasty

There are a lot of stories out there- more common place now because of the internet

about people in Siberia who found  Wolly Mammoths that had been in the

ground for 35,000 years,  butchered them,

  cooked them up and declared it was mmm, mmmm good.

Some of those stories turned out to be bogus, but I’ll bet not all of them were.

The reason I won’t write off all of those stories because people here in modern days

USA eat roadkill so I’m not going to write off those accounts.

However, one thing does intrigue me and that is the foodstuffs

that were found in the ruins of Pompeii.

Photographer Unknown: Fresco from Pompeii with scene in a baker’s shop, National Archaeological Park, Naples.

They’ve found bread, oils and grains and unlike the food in tombs

( which I wouldn’t touch on principal )

I am curious about what it would taste like.

With the grains and oils you don’t have to worry about Corpse Wax

or some prehistoric strain of bacteria coming back to life

when it is introduced to warm salty water ( like what is inside of your mouth ). It’s just grain.

It probably tastes like dirt

and the minute it hit your tongue your gag reflex would save you and you’d spit it out.

A carbonized loaf of bread with the stamp ‘Property of Celer, Slave of Q. Granius Verus’, Herculaneum (near Pompeii), 79 AD

At least that’s what I think food stuffs from Pompeii would taste like

and what I think might happen if you ate foodstuffs from Pompeii

but I’m only guessing because there is only one way to find out, isn’t there?

2,000-year-old fast food stand in the Pompeii archeological park, near Naples, Italy. Image credit: Parco Archeologico di Pompei.