everything - 100 words

I'm baaaaa-aaaack! My dad and I returned to our beloved Illinois this past Tuesday, after completing a 2,800 mile, 12 day, 9 state camping/hiking/sightseeing trip to the Northeast. We hit four National Parks and saw countless wonders. Of course, my experiences are percolating right now - I expect them to come out sometime in a story or two (or ten). But for the next four weeks, I'll be posting the first 100 words of each of the four short stories that will make up my new collection, entitled everything anything something nothing. Some of the stories are scary, all of them are weird (what else do you expect?!?) Fingers crossed, it'll be out by the first Friday in July. But for now, the first centuplicate (thank you, www.thesaurus.com!) of "Everything is Ghosts," the first work in the collection...

Just last Wednesday, Luke surprised me by calling and saying that Gee-pa had died in the nursing home by himself. It made me feel lonesome, but not for Gee-pa. He hadn’t known where he was for years, if he ever did. Unreal as he was though, he lived and breathed long after Mother and Dad were both dead, longer still since Gee-ma disappeared.

“Hadn’t he died already?” I said, confused. My childhood has faded badly. I live far away, in a place of red dust and waterless shallows, a nothing-full place with no one to remind me of it.

Lots of ghosts here - all benevolent!