Participated in NYC Midnight Micro-Fiction Contest.
Round 1: had 24 hours to write a 250-word story with categories given to me.
Categories:
Genre: Ghost Story
Action: Mixing a drink
Word: Install
11/21/2020
The Ghost Installer
The neighbors say
this house is haunted. That was why the family hired me. They expected the
ghost of their recently departed great-grandfather to inhabit it. They had no
indication he was still around: no flickering lights, no sudden cold spots.
Nothing.
I pulled out three flasks and a snifter. The family watched curiously.
“It’s a family recipe,” I said. A family recipe of double distilled mash liquors. When mixed correctly, it lets me be a passageway for souls to enter or exit realms.
I placed the picture of the deceased on the table. I poured liquid from each flask into the snifter and swirled it. Inhaling the potent scents whirling in the glass, I took a sip, and let his name fill my mind.
He appeared. I held out my glass. He pulled out his own flask and poured a small amount into the eddying liquid. I took another sip.
His family had slowly stopped visiting. They didn’t have time to visit with a lonely old man who only talked in recollections of his dead wife. The large house filled with laughter and family had gradually become filled with just memories. A woman appeared next to him. He had found his love. They had journeys to make.
I raised my glass to them. “To finding your love across time and space,” I murmured and drank the last of the spirits.
I carefully placed things back in my satchel and said, “I’m sorry. There will be no ghost installation today.”
I pulled out three flasks and a snifter. The family watched curiously.
“It’s a family recipe,” I said. A family recipe of double distilled mash liquors. When mixed correctly, it lets me be a passageway for souls to enter or exit realms.
I placed the picture of the deceased on the table. I poured liquid from each flask into the snifter and swirled it. Inhaling the potent scents whirling in the glass, I took a sip, and let his name fill my mind.
He appeared. I held out my glass. He pulled out his own flask and poured a small amount into the eddying liquid. I took another sip.
His family had slowly stopped visiting. They didn’t have time to visit with a lonely old man who only talked in recollections of his dead wife. The large house filled with laughter and family had gradually become filled with just memories. A woman appeared next to him. He had found his love. They had journeys to make.
I raised my glass to them. “To finding your love across time and space,” I murmured and drank the last of the spirits.
I carefully placed things back in my satchel and said, “I’m sorry. There will be no ghost installation today.”
