So I was given a prompt a few days ago…and I should probably prove that sending me prompts doesn’t actually go to waste.
@okwithwords You have moved into an old apartment building as your first place away from home. It may or may not be haunted. #writingprompt
— david golbitz (@davidgolbitz) November 5, 2015
The Moderately Haunted Apartment
FYI this is loosely based on the prompt, realized only after it was written.
Apartment listing states:
2 bedrooms
1 and a half bath
living room with potential for wall library
1 ghost
full kitchen with island
fully furnished, dust webs, residual energy
Let me explain:
Most apartments come with a ghost:
ghosts of love,
of lost relationships;
ghosts of families come and gone,
weeping children, dropped coffee and light curses;
ghosts of sleepless nights;
ghosts both fearful and feared,
the ghosts of nightmares and brighter things.
I am the brighter thing, a dust mote that appears
by window-light.
The apartment is quite lived in—
but not haunted,
never haunted;
more spiritual,
living in paranormally correct terms:
all white noise and shimmer,
the respectfully respected dead.
But are you willing
to live with ghosts?
I’ve found that those who cannot live with phantoms,
cannot live—
escaping to other apartments,
escaping ghosts they’ve left behind.
A life so empty of shadows,
that they must live in dark.
Are you willing
to live with ghosts?
Are you willing
to live with me?