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“The Apparition by Stewart Stafford The Indian burial ground, Lay beyond the tree steeples, Wind murmured in the branches, Of lost lands and wounded ancestors. A new tenant's first night at home, A Wendigo came in a pandemic fugue, The head, neck and shoulders visible, Jittery, contorted shapes on blinds. Wild dawn packing, screeching tyres, Home sweet home, still beyond reach, Out of the driveway at top speed then, Flight from an entity that won't leave you. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”

Quote by Stewart Stafford

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Stewart Stafford

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“As we wind through the graves, I’m reminded of growing up down the road from the town dump to the north and the cemetery to the south, my own house haunting the center, equal radius to either destination: dumping ground or burial. Mama’s ghost skirted the edges; I could feel her presence, but not nearly enough. Girlhood nights I used to sleepwalk, and Alba would find me, wriggling through the slats in the fence, kneeling at the makeshift altar I’d made of debris, all that wreckage, a shrine for the mama I never knew, and my staunch and sturdy saint of a sister would walk me home where I’d claim no memory in the morning. Dreamworld would merge with waking, and I felt it—embryonic, swelling, lucent, what would sprout inside me as I grew older, rasher—the city of the Dead. Where I accidentally sent Karma a few short years later. Where—I can’t shake the clawing feeling now—I’ve sent Cecilia as well, with my vitriol, with my jealousy.”

GuiltHauntingGraveyardsHaunted DaughterMother Altar
Book:River Woman, River Demon
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“The Castle Of Fear by Stewart Stafford The ghost sweated out from battlements, Appeared bleeding into full-bodied shape, The riddle of this phantom's raison d'être, Opaque as the spectre walked transparently. The armour that clad the body blinded eyes, The bagpipes it carried underarm deafened, The steely gaze froze the viewer on the spot, The sour odour it emitted made all nauseous. The wraith's left foot piteously dragged behind, Shuffling moans of pain, trailing the footsteps, Banshee shrieks, harrowing to all that heard, Dawn drained the strength, and it took flight. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”

SpiritGhostScotlandGhostsHauntingScottishCastleHauntBagpipesPiper
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“Making a poltergeist can be a simple recipe: allow a girl to have her first menstrual period, tell her she is a naughty girl for thinking dirty thoughts, punish her, bore her, disenfranchise her from her life, and wait. It is not a universal outcome. More than likely, you will summon nothing more than a moody teenager who slams her bedroom door and wishes aloud she had never been born. In exceptional cases, the dishes will fly off the shelves.”

GirlGhostTeenagerHauntingHauntedMenstruationPunishPoltergeist
Book:The Curious Case of the Talking Mongoose
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“Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn't disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into the each moment. We don't value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life's bounty is in its flow, later is too late. Where is the song when it's been sung? The dance when it's been danced? It's only we humans who want to own the future, too. We persuade ourselves that the universe is modestly employed in unfolding our destination. We note the haphazard chaos of history by the day, by the hour, but there is something wrong with the picture. Where is the unity, the meaning, of nature's highest creation? Surely those millions of little streams of accident and wilfulness have their correction in the vast underground river which, without a doubt, is carrying us to the place where we're expected! But there is no such place, that's why it's called utopia. The death of a child has no more meaning than the death of armies, of nations. Was the child happy while he lived? That is a proper question, the only question. If we can't arrange our own happiness, it's a conceit beyond vulgarity to arrange the happiness of those who come after us.”

HappinessDeathChildhoodMeaning Of LifeMoment Of BeingUtopiasTom Stoppard
Book:The Coast of Utopia
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